Last week we found a dead kangaroo skeleton in one of the dams. It was very dead and had been picked clean over the last few days, Just the bones were left. It must have been there for some time to be so totally gleaned of every skerrick of meaty substance.

This was a tragedy for the kangaroo, obviously, but I can’t change the past. I need to get it out of the dried-up dam bed ASAP, just in case it ever rains, which it hasn’t. But I had to deal with it just the same.

I decided to take it to the pottery and put it in the solar-powered electric kiln and calcine it to 800oC. I know from past experience that calcined animal bones are very useful as a glaze ingredient in stoneware glazes. Bones contain the minerals calcium and phosphorous, both of which are very appropriate additions to opalescent blue ‘Jun’ glazes. I have used my pet cow bones in the past to make a lovely opalescent blue glaze. That was part of a project to use only local ingredients in my glazes. Using my own home-grown kangaroo bone ash might make a good glaze additive. It couldn’t be more local, being found just 100 metres from the pottery.

However, I haven’t made the glazes yet.

Watch this space

The white, calcined bones fresh from the firing, and ready for milling down to a soft white powder capable of being added to the next batch of ‘Kangaroo Blue’ opal glaze.