.. WRT alternate sources of browns - consider your local tree services. Careful that you don't end up with more than you need. WRT to paper as a sole source for browns - yeah it's fine. But I think you know that already. WRT toxic junk mail - yes domestic printing seems to have steered way from toxic inks but anything that might have been printed overseas is origin unknown to me and I won't trust it. If you want something to make you itch, think about office paper and all that plastic toner from laser printers and photocopiers. It's non-toxic but it is plastic. I will continue to compost office paper as long as I can get bags of shredded stuff free. Frankly I'm a little more worried about what I might step in in a parking lot. WRT recycling v composting - I'm on the fence on what is the better path. Recycling is often energy intensive. With a suitable time horizon I could see composting as a more attractive path forward. WRT why should composting be free? With the gargantuan waste stream this country produces, people pay a lot of money to get rid of that much waste. San Francisco has to pay, one way or another, to compost all that happy stuff let alone dispose of all the non-compostables. When I started out composting I was into making as much compost as fast as possible but now I'm more into digesting as much waste as I can as opposed to producing compost. There are some localities around here that will discount your trash pick up if you go through the pain and agony of going through the composting certification thing. I'm not eager to foist my waste onto someone else by flushing it down the toilet or leaving it by the curbside to be picked up and out of my sight. I still have to do that but little by little I do a little less. to sense ..

Thanks Mike, I try to cover every step, from life to death, which comes to soon most the time. J, Will see how 6798 turns out, may be right for the plant depending on the glaze I use. The white clay was some left over savanna sculpture. The black is black mountain, my favorite clay. Above pots were made using the sculpture and use the regular for the wheel. I used around 6-7lb, or a quarter of a 25lb block of death valley. I like thick walled pots, gives a look of strength. Horizontal lines were added to reduce optical height of the walls making it look shallower than it is.

Thanks again. I am feeling much better today. It helps when my sleep is not interrupted by coughing and nose stuffed up. I've been sleeping well with this flue. Maybe, it's because of the seasonal warmer weather. Houstonmom, this flue is not early in season. LOL... it's just "out of season"! Our normal flue season in Houston doesn't usually start until late October. I think, I got it because of the over 100F temperature we've been having for weeks along with the drought. Looking forward for a wet weekend predicted for this coming weekend. You know Schoolhouse, it's really not worth selling it. I've seen tea cozy sold on eBay by US sellers for $10-$20 each. I'm not fast with my sewing projects. I figured, if I sell it for that price, I'd only make a couple of dollars an hour. Another issue, everyone have a different size and different style coffee percolator pot. How am I going to accomodate all? I would need to custom made them and take pre-order. I wouldn't know where to begin with payment when that is involved. It's worth more making them as gifts for friends and family though :o) Ellie45, since the first time I made coffee in a percolator, I look forward to my mornings so much more! When made it correctly, the coffee is just smooth and wonderful! I've been collecting and purchasing percolators for friends and family ever since. Unlike Americans, we came from Asia and never knew of coffee percolators as we grew up. This is basically a new finding for us. It is much of the same concept for making loose leaves tea which is what we're familiar with. Making coffee in a percolator makes sense, using the auto electric dripper just doesn't.

My googly eyed Halloween clusters are super easy: Melt equal amounts of semisweet chocolate chips and butterscotch chips in the microwave or double boiler. Mix those together until smooth. Add an equal amount of dried chow mien noodles. For reference, I used 1.5 cups each of the chips and ~ 6 oz. of the chow mien noodles. Place clumps (clusters?) of these on waxed paper and smoosh a googly eye on top. Chill until firm. The hardest part of this recipe is finding the gummy eyeballs. I couldn't find them this year, except in a huge bag of "Minions" eyeballs, and I didn't really want to buy that much. So I used candy ones from Michaels, but the report was that those were almost inedible. Here's what they looked like using the candy eyeballs: