I don't much care for snow, or winter, for that matter. I have work to do and this kind of weather makes me want to stay inside. It will be precipitating for the next 24 hours - not good, I have somewhere to be on Sunday, and from what I have seen in previous winters, the snow plow is broken.
However, I did get a nice surprise this afternoon - two boxes showed up on my front porch - inside were two big blocks of koa wood from Kurtistown on the Big Island of Hawaii. Talk about a wonderful slice of the tropics right here in the snowy Southeast.
The wood is highly figured and the ends are treated to prevent cracks from forming, which is good as it might be a while until I can rough turn it. In the past I have used wood from local trees almost exclusively, including such local exotics as dogwood, crape myrtle, deodar cedar, golden rain tree, apple, Bradford pear, persimmon, southern sugar maple, Atlantic white cypress, plum, red mulberry and so on, but this will be the first koa I have ever worked with. So look for a koa bowl or two on this page sometime in the future - they will be stunning.
This evening's musical selection seemed appropriate both for the season and the weather: for all you snowflakes out there...
