Tuesday, January 26, 2010

The end of January approaches . . .

And I have done approximately zero (wait, let me check - no, in fact, EXACTLY zero!) on the bookcase. However, I did get 8 days of skiing and 4 days of slabbing done in the month so it has been a very satisfying month.

Skiing highlight was 3 days cat skiing at Valhalla Powdercats near Nelson BC. Wow, unbelievable powder. Equally unbelievable was that my camera died so I am totally reliant on my buddy to send me pictures.

Slabbing highlight was when three students from IP school came into town and we slabbed up 6 logs in a single day! OK some of them were pretty small, but still it was a lot of wood and a lot of work. Monterey Cypress, two PO cedar, spalted maple, red oak crotch, birch. I got to use the big bar (60") on the oak. Bad news is that we broke a chain and seem to have pinched one of the 36" bars somehow.

Monterey Cypress seems to be coming out of the woodwork this year. Also quite a bit of birch. Last year I was choking on elm, but have not seen even one this year. Also got some spruce that was 30" wide earlier in the month. It was an old boom log, stunk to high heaven and was hard as nails to mill.

I promise to make some headway on the bookcase soon. Well soon-ish anyways.