This is how my booth looked this year.  Although I was alone at the booth, a potter friend showed up and offered to watch it, so I walked around and saw how art fair displays have evolved.  People with small stuff like jewelry mostly just have a display blocking the whole front, like a jewelry counter.  Most other serious displays have sidewalls like the one on the right, and create a whole environment inside (which could be pretty hot on a hot day, which these days weren't...).  The sidewalls become vertical display spaces, broken up with small shelves at different levels.
    On the other hand, I have these pine board shelves, and the overflow underneath.  A last minute inspiration was taking some of the old paneling I keep talking about so they'd sit flat.  This year I went and bought a "10 X 10" foot canopy, which turned out to be 10 by 10 at the base, and only 8 X 8 at the top, so my display stuck out a bit.  At night we'd wrap a few old tarps around it, but it didn't even give an illusion of security.  The only casualty was knocking off a mug when taking the tarps off.  In the old days I'd just walk off and leave the pots, no canopy, no tarps.  That worked too...
    When I got home this evening, while eating supper I got a call from a customer at our Spirit Lake studio who'd left their checkbook on the counter outside.  I went out and saw a purple wallet thing and started describing it to the person on the phone.  Turns out another person left that, with driver's license and credit cards inside.  So I went out to look again for the checkbook, and found a note from someone saying they'd found the checkbook and would call the owner.  They didn't leave a name, so I'm hoping the twain shall meet...

  August 4 I did get a call about the purse late this afternoon, so all's well that ends well.
    We had fresh green beans and the first carrots of the season for supper tonight, along with locally made potato-sausage.  The weather was on the verge of hot, expected to get too hot in a few days.  I got a swim in, and only unloaded a couple glaze kilns today in the pottery.
    I'm thinking the clay I switched to, Sea-mix, doesn't like hot dry weather, since I've been getting a lot of pots developing cracks when drying.  I've also gotten some bloating, which resembles small pox in pottery, bumps all over the clay.  Bloating is usually caused by gases given off at the top temperature of the kiln.  Sometimes the gases can be burned off with a hotter bisque firing.  It can also result from overfiring.  I've stepped down a half a cone to see if that will help.  It's interesting that it seems to happen more on the inside of pots than the outside.  No clay or process is a panacea...

August 5
    The clay problems of yesterday may have been solved with a bit of sleuthing.  First I noticed the kiln yesterday took too long to bisque.  I've been so busy I hadn't been paying attention.  Both bottom elements weren't working.  This kiln was due for new elements, so I decided to do the whole overhaul.  The problem lay in the plugins between the rings that make up the kiln.  The kilns are designed in rings so you can transport them in pieces, and to hook up the electrical components each one has a plug and receptacle to join them together.  These invariably fail with age--this is the last one I've had to replace with conventional plastic twist connectors.  (These aren't an ideal solution--I noticed the plastic had melted off some of the old ones when I was overhauling the kiln).
    The kiln failure could mean that the bottom of the kiln wasn't getting fired hot enough in the bisque, leading to having gases that would cause the bloating at glaze temperature.  I know the pots I took out from the bottom section were underfired for the bisque, as each of them broke in the glazing process...  So in a week or two I'll know if this is what was causing the phantom bloating.
    I was under pressure reassembling the kiln before I had to go work at the library, but I hooked it up and pushed the button and sparks flew inside it, so I've still got to find a short tomorrow...

August 6
    It looks like we're getting a Danish high school exchange student for this Fall.  He plays classical piano.  Good thing we have two pianos--although one of them needs tuning...
    By taking apart the kiln slightly, peering around briefly, and reassembling it, the short I mentioned yesterday disappeared.  I used the same method at the library for fixing a computer that had gotten disconnected from the internet.  I think it's also called dumb luck.  Frequently luck runs the other way, smarter but more insidious.

August 7
    This was the next to last summer reading program day, and it actually consisted of all the items I selected back in May.  With the assistance of my coworker, we put on a puppet play of Anansi the Spider and the Mossy Rock, which was well received.  I read a similar folktale from Cuba of Martina the Beautiful Cockroach.  The children then made some insect crafts such as caterpillars out of beads and pipe cleaners, and grasshoppers from plastic spoons covered with green felt.  Then I spent the rest of the day researching ideas for the fall program.
    Partially due to the kiln problem, I've made few pots so far this week--two teapots, to be precise.  Tomorrow I hope to get producing again, because the sales continue to be as hot as the weather...

August 8
    I made casseroles, garlic pots, plates, and cereal bowls today.  It was hot and dry enough that I spent several hours this evening trimming them.  A mostly dry electrical storm is passing through--with ominous amounts of lightning...  Fire season...

August 9
    No new local fires today, and the rain chance appears to be disappearing.  I made condiment servers, minipots, and canisters today, and sold as many pots as a good art fair day.  Most customers were buying $60 or more.  I also prepared 10 pints of green beans for freezing.

August 10
    Took the day off and went to Bluewaters Bluegrass festival, took photos, posted them here..

August 11,
    I squeezed in an hour of throwing, some large bowls.  At this point in the summer,  the stuff I'm not out of is interesting.  When I started, over 30 years ago, candleholders and pitchers sold rapidly.  Lately neither has sold much at all.   Because I thought I'd sell a lot of berry bowls at Art on the Green, I made a lot of them, but I didn't sell many there, probably partially because of marketing--not having a big photo showing how cool they are full of berries...  Usually by this time in the summer I'm out of them, and they're still popular here, so that's a good thing.
    In this odd, undulating summer, it was cool enough this morning to want a small fire in the stove, but by the weekend they're predicting nearly 100 (38C) again.  The sweet corn is only tasseling currently, which means it may be the end of August before we have any to eat...  But the first tomatoes are ripe, and the early carrots are good...

August 12-3
    My son and daughter in law are visiting, so we are doing stuff like playing Scrabble, which we used to do online in Facebook until the copyright infringement issues caught up with it.  Tomorrow is the picnic concluding the summer reading program--a small attempt at a carnival.   Raspberries are finishing in the garden.

August 14
    A neighbor brought in a small snake his wife had found in their young children's bed this morning...  He knew of my interest in nature and hoped I could identify it...  It was a rubber boa, like the one pictured above, not much larger than a night crawler worm.  I assured him they were harmless and a native species (the only boa in N. America, I think).  They live off insects and baby mice.  He was happy for us to return it from nature farther away from his home...  He thought some nearby road work may have led it to wander in the house.
    My Australian webfriend  Linda often has much more exciting stories of the local venomous snakes she encounters there.  I'm happy to say I've never heard of a rattlesnake in our area, so that just leaves black widows, hobo spiders, and brown recluses to fret about, usually when I'm doing something in a crawlspace.
    The final picnic went off alright today.  The temperature was high 80's, which may have kept some away, but about 50 people attended.  We had face painting and tatoos, stories, brief music,  a couple games, and hot dogs, chips, juice and cookies.   Bugs  (--the summer theme--) can now rejoin other invertebrates in the juvenile nonfiction section, and it's time to regear for fall...

August 15
    I spent over an hour packing 3 boxes of pots to ship this morning.  I charge a modest fee for packing, which doesn't really cover my time.  Currently, when I can't keep up with sales, every minute is valuable.  On the other hand, even though I can throw about 60 mugs per hour, I can never sell that many per hour, so the real time investment is in selling the pots.  This is why it sometimes seems reasonable to give a shop half of your asking price for selling your pots, even though doing that a lot is clearly going to make you have to work twice as hard for your money.   I don't enjoy packing pots to ship, but it's part of the job...

August 16
    The really hot weather is here for at least the weekend--95 (35C) here today.  So we headed with the canoe for Lake Pend Oreille, an annual pilgrimage to Idaho's largest natural lake (8 miles away from us).  It always has a timeless quality, as the landscape is nearly identical from year to year.  We always hope to see the resident mountain goats or other interesting wildlife, but that happens rarely (not today).  The most interesting bird was a gallinule, a white beaked coot-like bird with widened pads on its feet instead of webbed feet, which allowed us to approach closely without spooking.  I first identified them in Europe last fall--hadn't seen them locally before.

August 17
We'd heard there were moose hanging out at the west end of Spirit Lake, so we canoed there this evening and I got this picture.  It was getting too dark for good photos--I'm hoping to lead a morning moose photo expedition on Tuesday morning, when they'll be better lit, instead of backlit.  The reddish color in the water is partly sunset color, and partly chromatic aberration, which happens at certain angles of lighting.  There were 3 moose over a several block area--this cow, a young calf, and a bull just getting his antlers.  There were quite a few power boats in the area--they were mostly oblivious.  We got out and swam a bit (though the water's full of water weeds, which is what the moose were mostly eating), and got a bit nervous when  the moose headed our way...

August 18
    I replaced the photo from yesterday with one from today's expedition, made today instead of as planned on Tuesday since Weather is coming in (wind, storms tonight, and cold within two days).  Although the lighting was good, it was hard to get a great photo of an animal that only sticks its head above water to breathe and chew...   It would look more moosey with its ears up, but it seldom did that--mostly draining them... The one now pictured had little bumps for antlers--perhaps it's a yearling.   Of course to get the classic photo, it would have to be a bull with big antlers, best if bashing in another bull...
    The glaze kiln I unloaded this morning looked slightly overfired, and indeed one shelf had those nasty bloating bumps.  It could be the new clay I'm using is more sensitive to slight overfiring...   You'd think after 35 years I'd have it all under control, but there are a lot of variables, as clay varies from batch to batch, and even the firings, mostly automated, vary a bit for unknown reasons.   I'm stepping the kilns back a half a cone, but that affects the blue crystalline glaze adversely.  Life is compromise...

August 19
    After I finished blogging last night the storm hit--lots of wind, a little rain, a little lightning.  A hundred miles to the west  thousands of acres caught fire in the windstorm.  We had a very large cottonwood blow over, just missing part of our pottery display (and our best car).  It was rotten inside--we heard a loud snap during one of the wind gusts, and there it was.  Years ago we encouraged an understory of maple trees against the day this might happen...  Anyway we spent half of the morning cutting and hauling, and there's still a large section leaning down to the front fence.  
    We've heard from exchange student Emil's family in Denmark--he should be arriving Labor Day Weekend.