This evening, I headed back to the shed my brother and I patched up, so clean up the maple I had cut away to make it safer for him to get to the ladder.

Normally, I would have just dragged the whole thing over to the still growing pile of wood we plan to have chipped.

I do, however, now have carving tools, and I’ve been reading some articles about the difference in carving with green wood.

Now, when I looked at that tree coming down, I saw it in a completely different light!

I saw cups and small bowls, and spoons, and other such useful things.

So I went back to salvage as much as I could.

It also gave me the opportunity to finally test out my new long handled, ratchet pruners.

Oh, those things were a dream to work with! I easily cut through thicknesses I’d had to use a saw for, previously.

After trimming away and cleaning up, I brought the pieces I wanted to keep to the house.

I had one large piece, and a couple of smaller ones.

With the wood so fresh, I wanted to debark the pieces right away. I wanted to get that done right away, as I figured even waiting until tomorrow, they would be harder to debark At this point, the bark came off so easily, I used mostly just my fingers, with a knife to get the odd bits started.

When I got to the big piece, my daughters came out to give me a hand. 🙂

That wood is just so beautiful!! It’s incredibly smooth, and such a lovely colour. I look forward to figuring out what to do with them.

The pieces will sit outside overnight, and then will be moved to the basement. On days when I can’t work outside, I’ll see what I can come up with!

I have an old friend that has been carving for 30 years. He carves things like faces onto walking sticks, and the most wonderful, life-like birds, he later paints. After he found out I got a carving kit, we talked shop for a while, and one of the things he recommended was to start with basswood.

That would be the smart thing to do.

Starting with a hard wood like maple is certainly not recommended!

Aside from the spoon blank that came with my kit, though, I have no basswood, and my reason for wanting to take up carving is to use the wood we have.

Right now, that’s maple!

My brother visited our mom on his way home, and filled her in on what we did here at the farm. She was quite excited about it and phoned me later on. As we were talking, I mentioned having to cut away part of a tree that’s growing out from under the shed, telling her that I hoped to use it for carving, rather than letting the wood go to waste. She asked what I planned to carve, and I told her maybe some small bowls or cups, etc.

She requested a mushroom! 😀

So when I next have a chance to practice carving, I will try and carve a morel mushroom for my mother. 🙂

It should be fun!

The Re-Farmer