The fire needs constant feeding with old cherry wood 24 hours a day for 3- 4 days. Note how green the old tall cherry orchards are around the Anagama kiln. This is our first firing of this Anagama, and it feels like it. Friends show up as scheduled to help feed each other and the fire. We all take shifts to chuck logs in the fire box. You need to have a love of fire wood because we are always dealing with it. Cutting, splitting, stacking, hauling, stacking again and chucking. It’s the minerals in the ash that settle on the clay, and everything else, that melts and turns into a glazing.  All that love for wood and trees ends up on the finished artwork at the end.