Well, Xmas is over, we survived the shopping madness by staying home and escaped the last minute rush to purchase more food than anyone could possibly consume. Janine and I stayed well out of it. We watered the garden and picked fresh vegetables made salads and tofu stir-frys. A very nice quiet time in all. I had no intension of going into town to check out the Boxing Day sales. I fact, instead, we had a lovely, small, family meal with our son and daughter-in-law, and took it very quietly. We shared a very nice bottle of wine with lunch. I cooked a somewhat rich potato dauphinois incorporating our potato and fennel, plus a tub of sour cream and garden herbs, which turned out very well.

I simmered the herbs in a little bit of milk to draw out the flavours, then layered the finely sliced fennel and potatoes with sour cream and poured the strained milk over and through it all. I finished the dish with a camembert cheese placed on top to melt through the dish. As if the tub of sour cream wasn’t quite enough, and topped it off the some grated 36 month aged cheddar.  I was happy with it and no one complained.

On the subject of potatoes, we have had a visit from a new and unusual bug into the veggie garden. Some sort of elongated, grey, shield bug. They group in pairs around the tender top shoots and suck the living daylights out of the growing tips of the potato plants. I haven’t seen these little critters before, so I had to look them up. They turn out to be a South East Asian ‘sweet-potato’ bug. Also known to be found in the North of South America and the Southern parts of North America. How they got here I have no idea. I can only surmise that with global heating, they are able to colonise newly warming fresh territories? So hello and hopefully good bye!

I’m sure that the garden shop will have any number of toxic sprays for them. However, they are quite susceptible to being squashed by hand! No poisons required, it’s highly selective, and no toxic residue is left behind. This organic ‘natural’ treatment seems to be working. I have noticed quite a few lady bugs on the potato leaves at this time also. Possibly they ere eating the minuscule shied beetle eggs? That would be nice if there was a local predator that could breed up to counter the new pest? Could life be so simple?

Someone once said that every complex problem has at least a dozen simple solutions – and they are all wrong! There is nothing quite so effective, accurate and environmentally friendly as well trained fingers. Time consuming, but 100% effective.

We have ended the year by making clay to prepare ourselves for the coming year.  I even sat down and threw a pot straight away to test out the plasticity of this new mix. It was beautiful! It will be even better after a couple of months in the cool, dark, clay store to age a little.

As we are hosting a 4 day summer school in the coming week, I cleaned out the pottery and transformed it back from a sales room for the Xmas sale and back into a throwing room. I took the opportunity to really clean down the benches and wheel tops, then gave them a coat of tung oil to protect the wood for another year. All this wood was milled on-site here from trees that we grew ourselves. I want to honour this timber and look after it. It’s just one small, but integral part of our 50 year history/legacy of living and thriving here.

All the timber now looks rich and glorious! While I was in wood working mode, I made a pile of paddles and wooden ‘anvils’. To be used in the coming workshop for forming and securing the joints of large pots. I made everything from off-cuts and prunings of trees in the garden and orchards, including apple, pear, cedar, juniper, pine and banksia.

Making beautiful pottery tools from timber that you have grown yourself is a very rewarding activity. I suspect that this is a special privilege available only to older potters, as you need to plan for it at least 40 years in advance! The old saying comes to mind – When is the best time to plant a tree? Answer, 20 years ago! We have earned these beautiful tools in more ways than one.

Every morning I wake up, I am gifted another 24 hours to enjoy the sunshine, fresh air, the people round me, the garden and the chance to be engaged in creative activity I really value this opportunity, and strive to make the most of it. In contrast, every morning I don’t wake to find that I am gifted $$$. A lot of people who chase money all their life, find that they have no time. In some ways, I am fantastically wealthy. I have never chased money, instead I have time. Time to be engaged in my creative life. I really value this meaningful and fully engaged life.

We recently hosted a tool making weekend, and taught other potters this evocative and rewarding skill. Beautifully hand crafted tools that you have made yourself embody extra meaning into the work that you make, if for no other reason than just from the emotional energy that you generate from the enjoyment of the activity of the handling and making. However, there could be more to it. 

In the pacific islands, there is a potent energy that they call ‘mana’. Not the christian goodies (manna) that drop from heaven, but a highly potent spiritual energy that is embodied in special objects at the time of their making, by unique and powerful individuals, or bestowed into objects by force of will by that unique, potent and powerful individual. It may be an object like a club, or spear, but also in jewellery and other personal objects. Such objects are highly prized and valued. The ‘mana’ is embodied in the object, and once they are passed on, that special energy is perceived and valued by the subsequent owners. I can understand this numinous like feeling embodied in beautifully crafted objects. Perhaps they can pass on something of the spirit of the maker? I like to think so.

Have a safe, creative, fertile, prosperous and rewarding New Year!

Nothing is ever finished, nothing is ever perfect and nothing lasts.