Diversions

Spring is coming!!! it just isn't quite here yet... so what to do, what to do, to keep entertained untill it's warm enough for us fair-weather gardeners to head outside. My activity of choice has been to make small pieces of wood out of large pieces of wood - otherwise know as whittling, or carving. When I was in college I carved quite a few signs and sold them for for spending money, so I started one for practice, then took a class at a local woodcraft shop. It's been fun, and I've learned a lot I can put to use whilst sitting around the campfire. Here are a couple of samples of my projects so far.

The sign is a shortened version of the ones I made in college.... it was a small piece of wood so I had to shorten the full statement:
NO TRESPASSING
VIOLATORS WILL BE EATEN

The first carving class I attended had several small practice projects. Not too exciting, but they were good practice for technique.

The next class had a rabbit as the project - in honor of Easter. I chose to customize mine with a bit of western flavor. Meet Texas Ranger Jack A. Lope. You can't quite see it from this angle, but he has a ranger badge on the left side of his little vest.

I'm not sure what I'll do with him, but he was fun to carve, and paint. My next project will be some kid of forest spirit - we'll see how that comes out!

In the meantime, Steve's catching up on things that fell apart or were neglected while he was basking in the Texas sun. And then, camping season is coming up, so he's got the rig to get ready. We're traveling to Nehalem Bay in a little over a week, so maybe we'll have some pics to share from the trip!