There are 28 Journal Items in 6 pages and your are on page number 5
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| Tornado Alley, Indeed |
We did manage to dodge this bullet again. A little damage but nothing too terrible. What WAS terrible was the fact that this tornado managed to follow the same path as the last major tornado 3 years ago. Many of the same houses, barns and patches of trees were destroyed again. These people rebuilt 3 years ago just get the same thing happen to them again. It's a shame. But, on the other hand, this IS tornado alley. Those are the chances you take. Just the same as building houses on low ground next to the oceans ... or on unstable mountainsides in California ... or in over-crowded urban neighborhoods. We all take chances. We just have to decide if it's worth those chances.
There are places where it's hard to tell if the damage was because of this recent tornado or of the previous ones. It's a scarred landscape. Like a huge landing strip many miles long in places. Unfortunately, the vast majority of these trees are useless other than for firewood. We can't (and shouldn't) use this wood for our woodworking and woodturning (bodging) uses. This wood will warp, crack, move and just end up being too much trouble in the end to use it. Unfortunately, all too often, damaged wood is dumped onto the national building materials market. And we wonder why a batch causes so many problems. Well, there it is. Here's a case where it pays off, in the end, to harvest your own wood ... you know where it's been and what it's been through.
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| Posted by Andrew Hilton on Tuesday, November 07, 2006 at 18:35
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| Rain, Hail, Tornado's |
Well, here it comes. This winter has been a weird one here in the Ozark Mountains. I don't think you could hardly call it a "winter" though. Not much cool weather and little snow. Today was a scorcher (relatively speaking of course). It was 80+ degrees and pretty humid. That's somewhat normal for late April to late May but not for the middle of MARCH ! Tomorrow is suppose to be in the middle to lower 50's though. Hey, this isn't Hawaii, after-all.
So, back to the point ... here comes the thunderstorms and related tornado's. This one is expected to pass through here in about 5 more minutes. So I better type quickly, eh? It's following a track very VERY similar to a storm we had a couple of years ago. It even brought out President Bush to tour the devastated town of Pierce City just a little bit west of here. It didn't hit Aurora but just went about a mile north of here. We spent a few hard weeks cleaning up after that one! Thousands upon thousands of trees snapped off; ripped apart; uprooted (the Osage Orange trees were all that way) or just yanked from the ground and thrown up into the air. Hail is coming down now and the wind is picking up pretty strong ... and running wildly from different directions. It must be close.
I can see the storm out to the north from the deck ... can't tell if there was a tornado although the sirens have been going off for about 20 minutes now. Doesn't look like it's going to hit us directly. Maybe lightning ... and tornado's ... actually DO hit the same spots twice. Looks like it followed exactly where it did in the last big one. We'll find out more in the morning when it's light out enough to see ....
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| Posted by Andrew Hilton on Tuesday, November 07, 2006 at 18:35
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| RAIN ! |
| Finally, it's raining. We're very very dry right now. Terrible. As I'm typing, we're getting a good, solid rain coming down. Of course, one rain doesn't end a drought. No more than one great looking bowl makes an artist. But it's a start .... and starts are where dreams take hold. And maybe some GRASS now!
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| Posted by Andrew Hilton on Tuesday, November 07, 2006 at 18:34
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| Great Expectations |
Wood is unpredictable. I say it all of the time but I'll say it here again .. You just never know what you're going to get until you get there. I had high hopes for a box elder (Manitoba Maple for you Yankees up north there) tree that I was taking down today. Looking for that beautiful and rare red streak ("flame") that sometimes shows up in this particular tree. The top limbs had a little color in there so I was really expecting to get more of it as I we went down the tree into the trunk. The trunk was about 43" across at chest-height. Not bad for a boxelder.
Well, the red continued on down but didn't really get much better. Got into some of the lower limbs that shoot right from the main trunk and the color got a bit more vibrant but still stayed right there in a ring around the heartwood. Oh, sometimes it would get a little bigger ... tempting us and bringing our hopes up like so many mushy-hearted ebony burls (!) only to be dashed when nothing much materialized. Our last hope was cutting into the trunk. Nope. Same amount of red. Disappointing but not unexpected really. After all, if it were that easy to find a great Flame Box Elder tree, it wouldn't be so special!
We set to work of carving up the larger limbs to manageable sizes and filling some of our turning stock inventory needs. Box Elder is a good wood to work with. Not as hard or shiny as Hard Maple but not as soft or tough to finish as Soft Maple. It's a nice, white wood so we'll use it. I was the one that got to work on the lower 4' of the trunk. Slicing it up to make bowl, platter and hollowform blanks as best as I could with what I had to work with. Low and behold did some figure start showing up! And a lot of it too. The more I got in there, the better it became. I was really getting excited now. Good wave and circular figure happening. Still, not a lot of red color but the figure on these blocks were really great!
I guess it just goes to show ... you may start out with one set of great expectations and get disappointed. But if you dig a bit deeper; go a little further into it; explore more .... you may just get rewarded with something else that's just as exciting and valuable.
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| Posted by Andrew Hilton on Tuesday, November 07, 2006 at 18:33
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| Red Oak |
Those of you that know me or have talked with me for any length of time (which is probably about the same thing), know that I have no favorite wood. I get asked this question all of the time. At demonstrations, shows, club meetings, symposiums and the grocery store. By other professional turners, customers, wood dealers, retailers and my own wife. The question invariably comes up ... "So, what's your favorite wood to work with?". My response is always ... "Well, I don't have a favorite. I work with so many different woods ... local, domestic, exotic and manufactured ... and in so many different ways .... production items, one-of-a-kind art pieces, crafts, and, limited-sets, that I couldn't possibly pick one wood that I like best. I do have some favorites for different types of things I regularly make ... like Hard Maple, Beech, or Sycamore for kitchenware." To be friendly, I'll turn the question around and ask them if they have a favorite (they usually do). After all, most questions are not really meant to get your opinion but, rather, to have that same question asked of them. (Yes, I was listening in Psych 213 !) And, really, I do want to know if they have a favorite wood. It's the curiosity in me, mostly, but also a marketing tactic, you see! I plan to rule the world by knowing exactly what turner out there prefers and then delivering it to them on an hourly schedule (between my naps, of course). It's a fool-proof plan. Really!
That usually takes care of the curiosity of most people. But every once-in-awhile a person will ask if I have a least favorite. Oh, Boy! Big mistake on their part. I don't have too much to say on any favorites of mine but I have PLENTY to say on my least favorite. And that is? Our friend (not really) the Red Oak tree. Hate it. Despise it. Can't stand it. It could be wiped from the face of this Earth and I wouldn't care (yes I would). Why, you ask? (and you're pressing the matter now?) Not because I'm allergic to it. Not because it makes me cough, break out in hives, eyes water or once fell on my pet lizard, Ozzie. NO! (mainly because it doesn't and hasn't done any of those things). I absolutely do not like Red Oak because I work with it all of the time. SOOOOooooo much of what a Bodger (at least a midwestern USA Bodger) does is work with Red Oak. I'm constantly using it. I've just become sick of it. Sure, it looks nice when quartersawn. I like the look of those rays and flecks. But those have become just ... Bleah to me too. I can taste Red Oak. I can hear Red Oak being cut. From the earliest days of my life, it has been in and around Red Oak. Hey, I used to play Peter Pan (Me, of course) and Captain Hook (my friend Dana ... poor girl) on the laying logs of Red Oak. for years. Me and Red Oak are like this (Picture two red-oak-splintered fingers tight together here). But I hate it too.
Yeah, I'll continue to use it. I'll work with it. I'll turn dozens of handles out of it at a time because some company is wanting their product that way. Yeah, I'll still cut it down; wedge out some chair or table legs from the logs and work them on the shaving horse and pole lathe. Yep, I'll continue doing it. But I won't like it .... or even come close to appreciating this wood that will have been so entangled in my personal and professional life until I'm no longer physically able to, many years down the road. I'll speak badly of this wood until I can't speak any more from old age. I'll not see it's simple beauty of red and golden hues until I can only remember sight in my dreams of old age. I'll miss what's good of this wood until I can no longer remember what it was that made me hate it so.
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| Posted by Andrew Hilton on Tuesday, November 07, 2006 at 18:33
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