It's In The Way That You Use It

In honor of today being Eric Clapton's birthday I must, of course, use one of his songs for the post title. One of my more favorite of his songs actually but not one of his more commercially popular. And I have even heard him sing it in person, many years ago.
So, yesterday I got all the forms wrecked off the concrete and cleaned up the area. That's the only crappy thing about concrete; you have to tear down all that wood you just put together! But the slab and footing came out well with very little honeycomb to be seen. After getting things cleaned up I went around and gathered up all the 6" block I had scavenged over the last little while and carried it to the area. I laid out the walls and openings to figure out just how many blocks I am going to need to buy. Looks like I'll need to purchase about 10 to finish. Not too bad.
Now, I know a lot of you are wondering why I'm going ot lay block when I have this concrete slab now to build on. Well, I'll tell you. On the right side, near the garden, the concrete is about at grade, meaning the wood framing would be close to touching dirt on that side if I just framed right on top of the slab. You need to have your framing and siding about 8 inches above grade here because of the termite scourge. Those buggers will eat everything. I don't want dirt washing up on my siding and sheathing to give those guys a starting point. Plus, I want to be able to hose the chicken coop out at times and if my framing were done on the slab I would be soaking it every time I washed. So, I elevate the framing on this block and it solves all that. I can wash up on the concrete block to my heart's content. Now, the block will be mortared and pinned to the slab with rebar and then filled to allow me a solid surface to anchor my framing to. Considering that most of the block and rebar are free, this is not an expensive detail.

It rained all last night and drizzled most of today so I didn't work on the coop any. Instead, I did what I've been needing to do for a while and that was throw some more pottery! I got a good bit made and will be firing shortly, I hope. I've got to start making a bit more of an effort to market my work if I'm going to make a living at this stuff. Since I got no comments on the new pottery page I will assume either, 1. no one looked at it 2. anybody that did look at it thought it was okay Or, 3. everybody that looked at it thought it sucked horribly but is afraid to say anything to me. LOL!! Mainly, I was wondering if the black background in the photos looks too severe or does it highlight the work nicely?

Chigger has declared herself the Official Stick Wrangler and dutifully makes it a point to gather and harass all sticks, no matter their size, when we go walkabout. She's pretty good about carrying them all the way up to the house but I need to teach her to deposit them in the burn pile or the kindling box.