New Mexico Bark Turtle

The rare New Mexico bark Turtle hope you like him, different for me.

Whimsical Home #1

This is a little fairy/gnome home I carved, my wife decided it was hers. I had it on FB and received a lot of positive feedback, even had one fiend wanting me to do carving classes.
Happy Ground Hog day everyone
Mel

Eggselent Christmas

Well I found a basswood egg I had drew on a few years ago and spent a lot of Sunday carving it. People are amazed how I can carve these in just a few hours. To me its almost a relief carving. I'll post  a pic of him when I paint him. I wished I had the painting skills my best friend Jillsy has then it would be really nice.

We have also put Christmas lights on our new home and put up a tree. For some reason I really have the Christmas Spirit this year, maybe it's because we are so close to family.  I feel truly blessed to have the family and friends I have.  I do miss my daughter and baby Sophie she's learning to use a walker and is starting to growl. I'm not saying who taught her how to growl probably some grumpy old guy.
 Take care, Merry Christmas, Peace on earth, good will to men and most of all
God bless everybody
Mel

Getting the itch

Well almost done packing and putting furniture together. We got some bar stools and the person giving us the chairs, shorted us two chairs.  My wife told him the box said one chair but being the Nobel prize winner he was he insisted there was a chair. Maybe he was just illiterate or something, seems like New Mexico is getting bad about truly educating kids now a day. Reading comprehension can go a long way in a persons life. That's enough bitching :)


Now to the serious business of carving my sisters friend loved the cross and now wants to meet me. I think the cross has a lot of meaning to her since her mother has cancer and is not doing well.

 Jillsy my best friend has really inspired me to carve a Santa, she did a fantastic job carving her Santa I think its her best Santa yet. I'll probably carve a miniature Santa, mainly because I don't have my shop set up. I have also been carving a lot of found wood and a friend has given me a really strange root that has a huge knot in the middle of it. I'm thinking woodspirit, have a great Thanksgiving

New Home continued

Well got into our new home and we love it. It was nice having some many friends and family helping us. We got done in about 6 hours, it looked like an ant colony with all the people doing different things. I'm still amazed.

On the carving side I'm doing a carving for my sister. It is a cross with the Lamb of God, its for a daughter of a friend who is terminally ill with cancer. It's almost done just have to do some finishing touches.

2 days

Wow 2 more days till we move in to our new home, haven't had much time to carve. My niece asked me the last night to carve a piece of maple for her in memory of her mother. I was really touched by her request I only hope I can do a carving that truly honors her mothers memory.  She died at young age of breast cancer and we all really miss her.

Hands

A friend on Facebook was wanting friends to write about our hands. At first there was nothing to write except that they hold and point at things. My hands have had a pretty rough life now that I think of it. When I was about 2 years old I lost the tip of my pinky on my left hand when the wind slammed the door on my pinky I imagine it was pretty painful but sure don't remember it happening, the finger still has a scar and is a little different from the rest of the hand, kind of describes me an people, we still function normally but do things and look different. The other time my hands were accomplice's was when we are on a farm with my dad, brother, and we were irrigating a pasture it was cloudy and calm. I was walking around holding a shovel on my shoulder air trying to look busy. I don't know if you can guess what happened but yup, I was struck by lightning, knocked me on my butt and there I was laying on the ground. My dad said it hit the power line and forked off the line (like fingers:)) Luckily I only had a small burn on my shoulder. Lesson learned here was not to hold shovels in the air during a lightning storm.  What's scary on that farm there have been several animals killed by lightning. There's a couple of more stories I could tell but nothing as eventful as the lightning one.

Now on to less traumatic my hands have been used for drawing when I was younger. Then when I was in the navy I used them to work on jet engines and related equipment on the A6 Intruder bomber/tanker. I was the guy on the aircraft carrier in the white shirt who was by these planes during launch giving a thumbs up (See I got paid extra to give the thumb's up) during launch the Flight deck trouble shooter. So being in the Navy for 4 years these hands have been all over the Atlantic they even crossed the Arctic Circle so I have what the navy calls  a Blue nose certificate. That was the most boring cruise ever no ice bergs or nothing, just crossed the circle. I also crossed the equator where you get a Shellback certificate. Currently my hands are used mainly to provide reliability for the electrical grid. I'm the guy who gets yelled at when people lose their power (Hello not my fault!) Not a hard job but can be challenging during bad weather.

 What my hands really enjoy doing is carving or whittling. There's always a stick that needs a face generally it ends up going to a little person. I like doing original carvings on found wood from the wood pile to cotton wood bark. Most of my stuff is giving to relatives because they say they like it, I have sold some carvings on the internet and have done commissions. I do it mainly because it gives me something to do and relaxes me.

But lately what my hands enjoy doing the most is holding my beautiful 4 month old granddaughter. My life has been truly blessed and I am thankful everyday for these gifts that have been given to me.