Czech Yamadori

Winter?   There was no winter.  Just mild late autumn weather. Spring?   There is no spring.  Just more or less standard late winter  frosty nights ( up to -7°C,  22°F ) with reasonably spring temperatures during some other nights .  Up and down on the roller coaster. Confused.  Forecast?   Pretty much the same till the mid of April.  And then ?  Spring?  Who knows... The blackthorns and the myrobalan plums seemingly believe that everything is OK.   It is their showtime and nothing can divert them from what they are at their best.    Blossoming.

The blossoms have just opened.  Snow white colour at the beggining, but later on they will gradually get a tint of very light yellow.  Just a few hours before the quarantine, we have managed to visit  our favorite place_Czech Kars to see the beauty of blossoms of Cornus in their natural habitat. Remains of the human activity.  There used to be a limestone quarry... A black locust A lot of dead spruces there.   Unfortunately - this is a very common picture across Czech and many places in Europe.

The potted life of this tree has started at the time I have realised there is reasonable thick trunk/root? under the soil level.  An air layer has helped me to remove the long uninteresting part and here we go...

It might be a bit boring to share all the time the same tree...  If you think that it's a nuisance then skip the next post as there is another one just getting ready for the show...

I admire the stands made by Jerry Braswell and Al Kepler.  First it was just an incidental click on interesting web but gradually it has developed into focused search and follow up.  I consider wood as the best material to deal with so it was just a matter of time to get to the point when I have decided  to build few tables - just to see if I can do something to please my soul.   This is the very first one.  Not very complicated design but nice to test some new methods. Wood: Dark stained Beech. Very common timber but this one has very nice flames.  Top coat: Tung oil with some resin.  I was a bit nervous using a dye but it came out quite nice.   ( Thanks to Bob Flexner and his great book: Understanding ..... )                                Dimensions: 21  x  16 x 5 cm 8,3'' x 6,3" x 2"

   In the early December I have started to work on a reasonably sized burl - suvel.  Within a couple of hours I have managed to cut  three slices planned to be transformed for ji-itas.  Manually  with a foxtail saw.     There is an old saying that one gets nicely warm three times making a firewood.  First time during the harvest in the forest.  Second time cutting it into smaller pieces and finally at home in the stove.   I can confirm that the first two are correct.  As for the third - I was afraid that the slices may end up as a firewood but luckily that was not the case.  And apart from these three slices I have managed to transform the last part of the burl into something like a bowl.      After cutting I  have left the slices to dry out a little and then in mid of Jan they received the first soak of synthetic resin.   Today is the 30th Jan and I have decided to see how they look and to make some pictures.    Suvel types of burl are quite different from the so called burl caps

A wood burl is really something very special.   Maybe a bit strange or even ugly from the outside, but the inner wood tells a completely different story.   You need to see it.  Doesn't make any sense to try describing it in words. I will post something about this wood later on before I drop off  for some time.  Right now I will share a root stand I have made recently from a small burl. Dimension: 16,5 x 5,2 cm   /  6,3 x 2"