The Native Iowan

Going to be a blistering hot day. I think Summer is finally here. At least for the next few days.

Ive bragged about the climate here. Bragged about the benign temps. As I complained about the floods and storms and winds.

Had a tree go down the other day…

A nice Acacia. Gong to be a bunch of good sticks in there. I’ll cut it all up and put it in storage for a few years. Dry it up then turn it into something cool, and useful.

Put a couple of neat, dense, iron hard old lumps of timber on my table yesterday… Ive got 2x sticks to make for my old friend, colleague and drinking buddy, The Hanging Judge of Gizo. I asked him if I make a standard “t” handle stick like a gentleman would use, or a shillelagh style stick like a thug would use. His answer was “yes please”. So he gets two.

These are hard, ancient, and shall be reasonably difficult to work. And the end result will be stunning.

What we see here is the remnant of an ancient tree. The floods eroded it out of its tomb. Now I get to whittle and wok and sand and shape.

These old, excavated hunks of hard wood are cool because they have been reduced to their bare core. All sap wood and soft wood that would rot and deteriorate is long gone. All that remains is hard, dense, condensed timber.

I see a couple amazing sticks here-in.

If you look closely you’ll see how the softer heart of the tree is long gone. This means I will need to cut thinner strips of wood and laminate them back into the shape I want. First though I will clean things up, start turning the whole thing into a composite by pouring a bunch of epoxy into and on the piece. I’ll zip tie all the loose bits tight, wrap and tape, mix and pour. Fill the voids with epoxy. Then cut it up and glue it all back together. Laminated sticks are insanely strong. The Judge is going to love both his sticks.

I have been saying lately “wood not war”.

I ordered a brand, the kind you heat and burn into. For my future sticks. It’ll state “whittled by mike”. Suggested recently by DB. Shoulda done this ages ago. I apologise to the folks Ive previously made unsigned sticks for.

Mendoza has a new friend… meet Seker.

All boys need a dog of their own. All dogs need a boy that is their own.

Life is good

more later