Box #2

This actually started out being my very first project, after taking those classes last year and driving out to Ashby to buy a shit ton of spalted maple last summer, but it's been sitting on the end of my bench for months, waiting for me to stop procrastinating. I was originally going to try to inlay something on top, but I don't think I'm ready for that yet. Spalted maple is soft and full of little holes, as well, which wouldn't be a good surface for nitpicky stuff like inlay, anyway.
No, I don't know how to speak French, at all. And I made it up, so yeah, it could be a completely incorrect and untranslatable mess- no worse than "Happy Festival", though. I'll never top that guy.
De dans la moelle is meant to translate to something like "from within the pith"- moelle means pith but also marrow, which are similar ideas- it can be taken to refer to either the pith of a tree, or bone marrow, or 'the heart of your heart', if you're into that sort of thing, or all of it at once.
This thing's headed to Savannah by next week.

This time of year always pulls me back a little closer to earth no matter what else is going on - I remembered this garter snake from a couple of years ago and dug up the picture.
There's enough unpaved, unlawned land around here to support a healthy snake population, and unfortunately a lot of them end up as roadkill, especially in the spring. One morning as I was riding away from the house I passed this guy sunning himself in the middle of the street, which is usually how they get run over, I assume. I couldn't help stopping to pick him up and take him into the back yard, which isn't more than 20 steps from the road but has much safer sunny spots. I put him down on the brick wall, and he just sat there.
I like snakes. They probably eat cockroaches and other things that creep you out even more.
Get over it.

dovetails, schmovetails

Stained, glued, hardwared, and smuggled through hostile territory to its home. This was taken just before I stuffed it into my bag with a screwgun and this star trek prop called a stud finder, which proved to be completely unnecessary.
The dovetails are a mess, but it's okay because you can't see them anyway.







My next attempt is looking much better so far.

My pea seeds are finally starting to sprout. I stuck a bunch of tree branches in the ground for them to climb on, and also for the morning glories- when friends come over for the long-postponed cookout, there will inevitably be stick-gardening jokes, because right now the branches look like they're the only things actually going on back there. I watched a bluejay and a mockingbird silently follow each other around the trees this morning. The mockingbird waits until dark, then sings every night for a full 15 minutes. Cardinals had taken over the neighborhood over the past few years, but he's making for some serious competition this spring. I can hear the cardinals about a block away right now. The crazy neighbors have a cherry tree that I somehow never noticed before that's in full bloom right now.
Stupid human tricks can be incredibly disheartening, but the return of life in the spring is always such a calming, grounding influence on me, how could I ever hate it for having a cruel side?