The Native Iowan

My how time flies… One down, eleven to go… I’m not in a hurry, no rush here on my side of the fence… Time can take it’s time, as far as I’m concerned…

Sunday morn, the day is heating up quickly. Targeting 90f/32c today. The sun is bright and radiant. Ive closed the house up, lowered the shades, and have the aircons cranking. A full day of bloodsports coming on. Some good fights going to happen. I shall sit and ruminate and write as I watch…

Lady Godzilla, all 4kgs/10lbs of her is snuggled into the chair with me. I do believe she thinks my back-side to be too large. She is constantly squirming for more room.

I’ll talk about wood and whittling and turning timber into saw dust… One of my favourite things to do is “work wood”…

Ive discussed before how I scavenge old timber from around my farm. I have a few piles of old split-rail fencing that dates back 100 years or more. I know the oral tradition of this land going back almost 100 years. I’ve met old folks that lived here, grew up here. One neighbour has been living here all his 80years. His father once owned the land I am on. Through him I met a gentleman that was born on this land in the 1930s.

The original “settlers” that came here used the trees growing on the land to erect their first fence lines. This region, the Stanley River catchment, was originally settled by two brothers, the Archers, in 1840. The remnants of those early hands working the land are still well evident.

The old fence posts are valuable wood… Mostly all some kind of “Gum”, these posts and rails have been sitting in the weather, drying out, hardening, aging for a long, long, long time… It is brutally hard to cut. I wear out blades and bits quickly.

This shows how dense the old wood is…

This past week I put a couple sticks on the table…one is for my bird-watching buddy in the USofA. Named Kingfisher, its is a change from what I have done in the past. It is of a “crook handle” style. I really like it a lot…

Another stick is for a friend I sent a stick to a while ago. The first stick, Fearsome, was designed as a traditional walking stick. My friend said that a longer stick for hiking would be useful so I made “Standup 44″…

Branding a stick is my favorite part of the job…

Whittled by Mike…

And remember…

Wood, Not War…

more later