Soda FIring

Woke up this morning with ten minutes to get to campus to fire a kiln. Arrived, fired all day. Stalled at cone 8. 3 hours passed without any temperature gain. Turned everything off and started over. Got part of the kiln up to cone 12 and part of it stayed at cone 8. I'm going to make t shirts that have cone packs where everything is down but 8. Cone 8 has been my nemesis for the last 12 hours. Overall, the firing was enjoyable. We sprayed soda ash into the kiln using a sandblaster. 11 pounds in all. It was dry and we witnessed some very juicy results rather quickly. We fired for a total of 15 hours using wood and bio-diesel as fuel. The kiln will cool slowly and we'll unload on Monday.

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After the firing, I got in the jeep and realized that I'd left the lights on for 15 hours. The battery was completely dead. I tried to roll start, but without any luck. My phone was dead and so I had to walk to a nearby business that was open where I asked if I could plug my phone in. I called roadside assistance, who were kind enough to keep me on hold for 24 minutes only to tell me finally that they couldn't find anybody to come help me. It was 11 pm by this time. I called Tiffani, woke her up and she thankfully got out of bed and came to give me a jump. The jeep wouldn't jump so I rolled it to the bottom of the hill and locked it up.

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Some ginger tea and a sandwich has me feeling much better. I'm off to bed. I'm so excited for Monday morning's kiln opening. Stay tuned for pictures, unless it's a terrible mess.