I have a catalpa tree in my backyard. Every year sphinx moth caterpillars hatch from eggs laid on the underside of the leaves and consume every leaf they can get to. Every year I spray malathion on the underside of the leaves my sprayer can reach, thereby saving the lower leaves on the tree. Every year the Springidae eat all the upper leaves down to the nub. Then, with luck, if the tree survives, it regrows its leaves and the stinkin' caterpillars do not return.
You can see that the leaves closest to the ground are larger than the new ones sprouting from the upper limbs. The thing is, every year I fight to keep that tree alive because I like it and because I am at war with those caterpillars. But since I really like working catalpa wood so much perhaps I should just let nature run its course and end up with a ton of nice, aromatic wood to work with.
That is a bowl I turned last week using some catalpa wood I got a couple of years ago - it really is nice to work with, even if the aroma is a bit, shall we say, distinct. Not in a bad way, just that you know when you have been working with it.
We have been getting some weather - shocking, right?
That's our sunset on the 25th.
A storm blew in the other evening and looked like this:
And like this:
Pretty dramatic stuff, with lightning, thunder, flash floods, the works.
As for being productive, last week my productivity was thwarted:
I used black locust wood for that piece - a wood favored by boat builders far and wide.
Click to embiggen any or all of the photos.
I must say I listened to a lot of bad versions of that dance before remembering that Lenny was the man. It requires a quick tempo and emphatic brass - ferners don't get it.
34 comments:
Falling Into Catalpa
It wouldn't do justice to say that bowl is brown
For a color so soft smooth and creamy,
As the graining the graining goes languidly round
That disk yellow and mellow and dreamy.
Lovely proportions. To my untrained eye that wood is reminiscent of olive wood. What the devil are those curved pieces of wood for?
deb, something for a boat, I guess.
I am with you, AllenS - I had never heard of such a thing, but the upper piece is called a thwart and was in a canoe that was left outside for too long and rotted. So I made a replacement, the lower one in the picture, and my customer likes it. Think of them as yokes for humans when they portage their canoe and you'll get an understanding of why they are shaped as they are. It has 4 coats of oil-based spar varnish and should outlast me.
Okay, that's not much of a guarantee, right?
Way to go, Allen. What is the length, Sixty?
The thwart is 32" long. I was able to make it out of a board 6" wide and 3/4" thick. Now why I had a black locust 1x6 lying around my place I have no idea, but I am glad I did.
Cool, for some reason I thought they were shorter, but after you said, I noticed compared to the tailgate they would be longer.
A friend builds canoes. He's an artist at it. Beautiful stuff. He would appreciate your handiwork.
https://www.facebook.com/Green-Leaf-Canoe-Company-177816363074/
I can't find a video of the live performance, but this audio is Bela Fleck et al. doing "Hoedown." The visual is stunning (I've got the DVD), but unfortunately Bela appears to have successfully removed its presence from the innerwebs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tobxjvwouAU
That canoe is too pretty to put in the water! What a fine piece of woodworking.
I saw Bela Fleck play locally back when he was in a band that included Cosmic Man or Me Drummer Dude or Universal Ego or whatever his name was - in any case that show permanently put me off Bela and his Flecking around. But that's just me - when I pays muh monies I wants me a good show. He let down his end of the bargain.
Okay, that cut with the bassoon solo is not too bad. The bassoon redeems it.
I've seen him twice. Once with the Flecktones and last year with just his wife. I enjoyed both shows. Funny how one performance can turn you off for good. A friend introduced me to Widespread Panic, and he and I attended a concert in Greenville, SC. They were ridiculously entertaining. A few years later we saw them in Knoxville and they positively sucked. He won't even listen to their music anymore. My bro-in-law introduced me to Bela. He was a friend of a friend and he's seen him multiple times. Bela's stuff isn't for everyone. I've got a CD of his that I've never been able to force myself to listen to all the way through. Other stuff I love.
He has been playing here continuously since I followed your link - Live at the Quick. Nice stuff - steel drum, great bass playing, soprano sax, and of course banjo. He is rocking it on that album. That's what I was used to and what I was expecting. Thanks for reminding me just how good he can be.
The yoke is quite interesting. I didn't find anything about yokes but I learned that the north woods Indians in the old days would strap a couple oars across the seats and one man could carry a lighter canoe if he put some hay between the oars and his shoulders. The larger canoes required a group effort.
I'm amazed at what the pioneers and Indians were capable of doing in those long ago days. Here's a story and some old photos of canoe builders in what I guess is not that far from AllenS country. Hope I'm not in trouble for touting the boat building skills of the Ojibwa and Chippewa, Allen.
That is one huge freakin' canoe, Dad B. Thanks for the link to the pictures and stories - great stuff.
The toy birch bark canoes on that page took me back to my youth - I got one like that once up in Maine, also a big birch canoe area, and had it for years. What a great toy it was, too. Man, I had forgotten about that one.
So, Sixty reads Althouse but deb does not.
We had a birch tree when I was little growing up. I so loved the description of the birch bark canoe in Stuart Little, that I tried to make my own. Yes, I peeled a sheet of bark off that poor tree. The tree bore that scar forever as my mom used to remind me.
I never read Stuart Little, but loved Charlotte's Web. Never read Paddle-to-the-Sea, but might take a look at it.
You keep out-doing yourself. with those bowls.
@Deborah: Stuart Little is kind of a "boys book." I loved Charlotte's Web as well. Never read Paddle-to-the-sea. Also, Strunk & White, much later on (college).
I don't read Althouse, but now I am almost curious enough to go read that site to find out why Чикелит thinks I do. But it is far less painful for me to simply ask - why do you say that, Чикелит?
I disliked Charlotte's Web almost as much as I detested anything by Rhymin' Simon, er, Dr. Seuss. That stuff makes my skin crawl to this day. I know it's hard to believe, but I actually get exercised over his work. Last week a guy was quoting some Seuss and it was one I had never even heard of - so I looked it up (I googled and googled and bing went my bing, next thing you know I had found the right thing - gag) and it turns out that Seuss had ripped off Voltaire's Candide. Steal from the best, I suppose.
And thanks, DB@H - I appreciate that. There is much more to the story of how I obtained that particular log of catalpa, but I'll save that story for another day. And away went that story, to a land full of hay, to be dusted off on a bright sunshiny day. Arg!
You keep out-doing yourself. with those bowls
That he does!! In addition to garnering a large number of comments and extra info with this post.
I read four of Holling C Holling's books to the SonsM as part of our homeschool curriculum and just recently sent all but Paddle to the Sea on their own voyage to find new homes in someone else's reading basket.
Holling's drawings of the shapes of Great Lakes stand out as unique and memorable in Paddle, as does his illustration of the way the Lakes empty into each other like "bowls on a hillside". Pictures here: http://byzantiumshores.blogspot.com/2015/07/five-lakes-and-one-book.html
I also read a section of Charlotte's Web at my mom's funeral. She'd read that book to hundreds of third graders and it remained her favorite. It touched the hearts of those gathered that day too.
I'm also a sucker for writing like this from the DB's link The animals are given to you to eat, yes, but don't waste them because the animals have a spirit. Yes, we have animals that have a spirit, the same as you. And the animals are watched by the Great Spirit, who takes care of everything! Wherever they travel, the Spirit watches them. Their spirit is all around them -- all around them -- and you can feel their spirits if you believe in the Great and pay attention to nature. You're a person and your spirit is right here with you. That spirit of yours brightens up when you look around and pay attention to the natural world. As you and your spirit work with other living things and their spirits in this world you can feel the rest of the spirits as they charge up your energy and spiritual power. I can still feel that charge of power now, just as I began to feel it when I tagged along with my mother in the woods and along the rivers and lakes -- as I was learning by her actions and words how the Indian respects and uses this great earth we live on. I still feel that power now whenever I look around, and my spirit brightens up when I think about manoomin.
My spirit brightens when I encounter the handiwork of others, in poems, bowls, books ad canoes. And no, my Russian chikll, I don't think it's possible to surmise who reads Althouse or doesn't by their familiarity or lack of familiarity with the rockin' canoe
I Was writing my comment when yours posted, Sixty. Althouse has a recent post (July 27) about how to have sex in a canoe by removing the center thwart.
Eww, just eww! Some rando woman shows up and has me make a new thwart to replace her rotten one (now I don't even want to think about how that happened) and all of a sudden I am reading TOP? No way, Hozay! Had I any idea I would have omitted that piece from my post - I was just filling space. Too many bowls, sez I, throw in something different. It'll be fun, sez I. Eww... I shouldn't think of such things before breakfast, just sayin'...
I used to wear Canoe cologne during my bird dogging days in the 60/70's.
"I disliked Charlotte's Web almost as much as I detested anything by Rhymin' Simon, er, Dr. Seuss."
What did you like?
I was thinking about the books I liked to read as a youth. There was one about a boy and his dog - I am still living that one. One book was "A Book About A Thousand Things" by George Stimpson. Bought it in 1959, still have it.
I read the dictionary and the encyclopedia. American Heritage magazines. Popular Science, Popular Mechanics. I made stuff and read about making stuff. Some things never change. Children's books were for children, in my way of thinking, and I wanted to be a mover and shaker.
Now, due to creeping old age I now avoid doing much moving and perhaps I have become more of a Shaker.
Before this post scrolls off into the ether, thank you, MamaM for the kind words - it means a lot to me when my work is appreciated by other.
And thanks to our Poet Laureate ricpic for kicking off this thread with a wonderful poem. I can see shapes in chunks of trees but you see poetry in a pile of words. Thanks for forming them up so nicely.
^others
Which book about boy and his dog? I read the standard kids' fare; Little House Series, Henry Huggins Series, Nancy Drew, Louisa May Alcott books, Jane Eyre, Gothic romances, Sue Barton (nurse), Arthur Clarke, Asimov, Heinlein, and on and on.
I liked the Zim Golden Books. Still have my Birds, Trees, Insect Pests (my mom chose that one Christmas). My sis and I would identify leaves and hunt for fossils.
Ribsy - aw, that's the one.
No! Awww. Now that's funny. I thought maybe Sounder or Old Yeller.
The Shakers were fascinating people and superb craftsmen. We toured an old settlement in Kentucky. Seemed like holy ground we were treading on. I'd say your skills would fit in, Sixty.
Thanks, windbag, their work ethic and their design aesthetics have both played a big part in my development as a woodworker, not that I can even get close to achieving what they accomplished, design-wise. I strive for simplicity and a good line, some days I get lucky and get close to something that has a nice look to it.
The other big influence for me is George Nakashima. Perhaps I should do a post on his work - I have read a lot about him and his philosophy about preserving the gifts that trees give us is something else I keep in mind as I work. I'll get to that in my spare time...
There was a series of biographies at my grade school library which dealt with famous Americans: Inventors, politicians, explorers, etc. Mostly about white men, but I think there may have been some diversity in there: Booker T. Washington. I read them all. Biography remains my favorite type of book.
I have read a lot of biographies, but I didn't start that until I was all growed up. So far I have not written one.
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