Raku Pottery

John and I took a beginning pottery class at our geezer park recently. We each appliqued a clay figure onto a clay plate, fired, then painted them.

We procrastinated too long to take a pottery wheel class, because the folks here are wrapping up their season to head back to homes in the north.

We did have the opportunity to take a Raku fired pottery class. We purchased pots, painted them with special glazes, they were fired in a propane kiln outside, then placed in specially prepared trash cans to cool. The trash cans have newspaper strips and wood shavings that catch fire when the hot pot is placed inside, which causes the glaze to change. The pots are then placed in water to crackle the glazed finish. The last step is to clean with Bartender's Friend if a change in color is desired.

Montezuma Castle

Temperatures are nearing 90 degrees in Mesa lately and our RV is very efficient at gathering and hoarding all that heat, so we took a drive north into the coolness of the mountains today. About 100 miles north and over 4000 feet in elevation, we encountered lots of snow slowly melting in the 55 degree warmth.

We also visited Montezuma Castle, an interesting cliff dwelling built by the Sinagua people around 1100AD. I've included pictures of the diagrams showing how they constructed the multi-story dwelling on the cliff face in front of a cave. They lived here for about 300 years, sustainably.