Something unexpected

Here is the pit after I fired it the first time. The ash has now been rained on and compacted, but this is what it looked like that first morning. 

Here is a closeup of the wall of the pit. 

The something interesting that I wish to share with you is this. The earth around my house is almost all clay. We noticed this as we were digging; it has tremendous water-holding capacity, which goes along with small particle size. Plus the dirt was almost plastic to the touch.

The point is, the pit actually fired not only my pieces, but also itself. Its walls, after the first real firing which burned very hot for more than an hour, are now impermeable and impervious both. It's a clay body in and of itself. This is very good because it means all the rain we've been having will neither soak in and make the pit mushy nor cause the walls to collapse. Not terribly important but I thought it was interesting.