RickCorey said:I just learned: If I quote someone else who flagged my name as "@RickCorey", I get a system notice that "Rick Corey flagged your name in a post".
I think you won't get a notice for this one. You contaminated the flag with the quotation marks "@RickCorey". A space after/before the quote marks would have cleared it up for notification. Like a link to a webpage, it needs to be free standing for the flag to work.
Good comments about the clay. I have clay to work with - all kinds - smooth, gritty, mostly red but some gray and yellow - and I've used sand ranging from fine, smooth blow sand (the grains are rounded and tiny and won't lock) to fairly coarse sharp sand. The key is copious amounts of organic material in conjunction with using sand. It's the operative ingredient. As you say it doesn't last long, even with a high percentage of organic added. Clay, at least what I have, will consume considerable quantities of organic material. Gritty clay is a bit easier than the other types and I've always suspected it contains more organic material even though it's not visible. Clay is just hard to work with. Pick axe hard when dry and like stiff chewing gum when wet. I don't worry much about adding anything except organic material to change the texture.
