Michael was a master potter in a prior life. We are trying to rekindle his ceramic soul. It is a slow process, given our other obligations. But this is about progress, and so here is where we are to date:

Michael had been looking for a 55 gallon metal drum for a while. I finally found one and gave it to him for his birthday two years ago. We hauled it from Maine to Wisconsin, where we found that our neighbor could cut off the top and bottom for us. The next challenge was to find 5 gallon metal buckets with lids. They magically appeared around the mastic we bought to coat the outside of our basement last summer. But they still had mastic stuck in them. The answer? Fire!

The barrel makes a nice chimney once perched on bricks.

We built a fire out of small branches conveniently dried in a brush pile. The rabbits didn't mind our commandeering part of their warren...much.

The buckets went into the fire once we had a nice bed of coals.

Viola!  Clean buckets. — Viola! Clean buckets.

We bought 50# of clay. Now all we have to do is build some clay thingies! Just happy to have (finally) the equipment to make (primitive) fire happen.