Welcome to the Vegan Theory Club Weekly Megathread!
Question of the week:
"Tell me about a discussion you've had with the intent of guiding someone towards veganism? How did it go? What could you have done differently?
Feel free to talk about anything, whether it’s vegan-related or not. This is a chill space for connecting, sharing ideas, and supporting each other.
Looking forward to hearing what everyone’s up to!
Q response:
Tbh I have given up on my loved ones. I was part of convincing my little sis and her partner, they were already sympathetic and I think the combo of seeing both myself and sister the eldest be vegan through very different paths + just being relentless at every family gathering about bringing up the horror on their plates pushed them over the edge. Other than that though, my parents flat out reject it, the most success I've had with a friend is them doing it for a couple of months before deciding it was "too hard".
Currently I just refuse to hang out if anyone is eating non vegan food.
The closest to a recent convo would be, I was hanging out with my folks and catching up with an uncle I haven't seen in a few years. I was having a laugh at the sheer horror of how solar thermal plants have this problem of turning insects and also birds into fireballs (I am of the opinion you can either laugh or cry at most of life and I choose laugh, I'm not a sadist just tired of crying) and how stuff like this comes up every time we try and fix anything. My mum got quiet and was like "oh that's so horrible" and I was like "But... you eat birds enthusiastically and think it's fine" and she told me to lay off.
So... yeah...
Anyway, I've been about as sick as I've ever been. Licorice tea and opiate antitussives are the only think keeping me alive. Almost through to the other side. Yesterday I felt well enough to get out of bed and made an atrocious pot with wild clay purified from the diggings I did. I'm blaming the quality of the clay rather than my own complete lack of skill (first try at any pottery)! Hopefully it'll fire to earthenware but it's not bonded very well so I expect it to fall apart. The clay has low plasticity, gonna try removing courser particles when I'm well enough and then try again.
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I'm so sorry to hear that you are unwell!
The clay pot is amazing! Did you learn about purifying the clay online? I recently started taking a wheel pottery class and the instructor mentioned that clay came from my home town. That and how heavily clay my soil is at home got me thinking about if I could do something similar.
Do you have access to a kiln, or will you try and construct your own? I've been thinking of getting a burn permit next year to make some biochar with all the woody waste I collect that doesn't break down very quickly in the compost. I wonder if once I master that I could build a little kiln...
LMAO it is most certainly not, but learning anything is about doing garbage at it until one day you don't.
Yeah, I watched a youtube video by a guy making pots from clay on his potatoes a few years ago. It's basically just pouring off the light/water soluble stuff and settling it out.
Oh cool! I've been looking for a class near me as making ceramics seems fun and practical. Wheels def seem more practical than coil building haha but harder to start than "huh I have a lot of dirt left over". Andy ward has some videos on wet processing (n.b. he does 'ancient' style and uses animal products like bone and leather as tools, his wet process videos are innocuous though). You'd need to add a ferment step to remove organics if there are any present.
I don't know if you'd need to do more purification to get stuff that fires to stoneware. Commercial clay is usually very homogeneous and often has additives for ease of working. Hone processed will have less uniform particle size/composition etc.
There's a local pottery club, but this might melt in a proper kiln. I was going to fire it in a charcoal fire to dull red. It won't be water tight but I'm just having a play really and I have lots of charcoal from blacksmithing. If you just want earthenware building a hot fire will do it, you can actually make some very beautiful stuff with techniques like smudging (incorporating carbon from the fire in the finish).
Thank you so much for taking the time to reply - so much good info here <3