The far from fast firing

We lit up our kiln "Hot Lily' last weekend after several days of intermittent rain. The weather was perfectly cool and besides the annoying mosquitos that took to feasting on us during the load, we were happy to be firing the ol' familiar once again after a couple years hiatus. What we thought would be a piece of cake firing turned into a long and drawn out one.

After stalling out at about 1600F around midnight the first night, we weren't able to gain much temperature at all until well past dawn. At least we had lots of helpers. 85 yr old Grandpa Wes (who hasn't missed a firing of 'Lily" yet) stayed up all night with Robin. And then Roscoe and I took the early morning shift.

I seem to recall another firing that took it's sweet time in this kiln (also with fairly wet wood) that ended up producing some pretty sweet pots, so fingers crossed that we'll see the fruits of our labour when we open up the kiln later today.