There is no happiness without action
“Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.”
–Benjamin Disraeli
So we’re nearly a full day into the new year and already I’ve been fairly productive. I spent a fair amount of time in the new shop since creating new things in the new year seemed like a fitting use of time. I’ve recently been on a kick to actually start using some of the green wood I’ve been picking up. I’ve noticed that I wasn’t fast enough with some of it and it’s already ruined, so that just means I need to be even faster with the rest of what I’ve got. Most of them are being turned into bowls since they’re relatively easy and are pretty fun. Since the wood is new you have to rough turn it first and then let it dry. So as it is, I’ve got about 8 bowls roughed out and sitting on a shelf in the basement. They’ll spend about 6-8 months like that, so I guess I know what my summer is going to look like now.
Speaking of letting things sit in the basement for a while, I’ve also got some interesting news regarding wood slabs. A few months ago the town of Middleton cut down a bunch of trees (mostly due to disease and/or rot) and I got permission from them to go harvest what I wanted. Since we actually had some decent weather recently, I headed out with some buddies and we slabbed up two ginormous logs. They were each about 38″ wide at the base and tapered to around 24-28″. They’re going to need about 2 years to dry out properly, which means I’ve just got a full-blown wood drying party in my basement. There’s a lot of waiting going on, but I’m excited to see what all of this comes out as in the end.
And since we’re talking about drying wood in the basement, I’m reminded that I should check in on the walnut that went down there early last year. It’s gotta be coming up on its anniversary of slumber in a few months. (I just checked, it was April that it went down so it’s been less time than I though, it seems.) But some of that walnut was not slabbed and might be good candidates for bowls, so that’s still worth checking in on.