Burra Maluca

Well there's certainly been a lot of food for thought here - thanks guys!

The first thing I wanted to check was whether or not this cherry bark will have the same medicinal effect as the wild cherry referred to in most of the info I can find about cherry bark online, which seems to be black cherry, Prunus serotina whereas this one is sweet cherry, Prunus avium.

Fortunately our own wonderful Judson Carroll has a wonderful video about cherry bark which immediately put my mind to rest - all cherry barks have the same components, though some may not be as strong.



It's raining right now, but as soon as it stops I'm going out there to choose myself a nice little branch to practice my whittling skills (currently pretty much non-existent, though I do have a basic set of tools somewhere...) on and put it somewhere the rain can dry off it for a few hours, then I can begin my little cherry-wood adventure by removing the bark and drying it for future use in cough remedies.

M Ljin wrote:Cherry is also a good wood to make musical instruments out of, as it is hard and fine and has good qualities of resonance.

Well I've had a harp on my wish list since forever.

Maybe it's a tad too ambitious though. Is it?

M Ljin wrote:

John Gould wrote:You need to slow down the drying process to minimize cracking/splitting. Varnish the ends maybe with some polyurethane varnish...

Can I suggest beeswax instead? I think we can come up with a lot of natural varnishes or sealants. Rosin?

Well as it happens I have beeswax! And it does seem very appropriate to use my own beeswax on it. Would some olive oil on the cut end first help, then the wax on top?

I'm going to try to finish sorting out the rest of the wood tomorrow and bring all the big bits over. Then sort out some likely pieces to seal up and put to season somewhere, and then a few to try carving green. I think I'll start with a wand, because it sounds the simplest. Then spoons. Then when the wood is seasoned a bit I can do things with machines, like coasters and flat spatulas.

How long should I leave it to season? Does it depend on the diameter of the branch?

Our neighbours very recently gave their mature cherry tree a rather major prune. Well, more of a brutal decapitation, but maybe I'm just a bit overly emotional. Anyway, the upshot is that there is a big pile of branches, and trunk, which need to be removed. Usually they would gather them all up into a big pile and burn them before fire season sets in, but we've been telling them all about our rocket-mass heater and how it will happily keep our place heated using sticks. So they very kindly offered them all to us rather than waste them.



I've been busy lopping off the smaller bits and fetching the bigger bits over closer to the saw bench. So far I'm about half way through the job and this is the heap I've generated. Rock for scale, because that's his favourite job.



The biggest bits of trunk are still to be hauled over and are around 7" in diameter.

My issue is that whilst its a nice contribution to next winter's fuel supply, it seems too good to burn. So I'd like to experiment making things out of it. Wooden coasters seem the obvious first experiment. Then maybe flat spatulas. Maybe I could try a spoon, or even a small bowl!

What I need to know is how long should it be seasoned before trying to make things from it? Or is it best just to have a go with the wood fresh when it's softer and easier to work? If I need to season it, how long for? And should I coat the cut ends with anything so it doesn't dry out too quickly?

Anyone have any other ideas of things I could make with the wood? A wand seems tempting...

All suggestions gratefully received.

Do sea-dragons count?

I found this totally amazing stone table with carved 'legs' that sing to me and support my attempts to write things. Though one of them needs a bit of a repair...

I don't know what sort of stone it is but I'm sure it's dragon-scale. Don't you think?



And here's a close-up of one of the sea-dragons.



My plushy dragons immediately wrote a poem to it when it arrived, and gave names to each of the dragons. Including the broken one.

"I keep four mighty sea-dragons
to help me find my Tao -
Observação and Percepção,
and my Imaginação

They call to me from land and sea
and though I know not how
they'll help me to repair
my beloved Criação."

Seems to be working!

Edit to add, if you listen very carefully, you can hear the sea-dragons singing to you . It sounds a lot like this...

I was idly browsing for used kitchen cabinets a couple of years ago and these showed up...



There's a two door and a three door unit, complete with marble worktops and with four of the doors carved with seasonal dragons breathing life into sleeping twigs.

So naturally I decided that these were meant to be in my kitchen, even though we haven't built it yet.



Here's a close-up of one of the dragons...



They count as art in my books!

All ages here, from just germinated to totally defunct...

$200 would cover the remaining materials we need for building the bench for the rocket mass heater with enough left over to stock up on emergency food supplies in case tshtf. Split lentils, rice, beans, that sort of thing.

$1000 would give us enough to get a decent solar panel for battery charging and materials to render the walls downstairs, put the tile floor down, build a pantry with loads of shelves and extend the grey water pipe so it reaches the furthest fruit trees. We might need a few more barrels for the willow feeder too.

My son built one so he could get the tractor up to the next terrace to get building materials to the house.

I just used whatever soil and stone we dug up from behind the house.  started piling it in the corner of the cliff, then just kept putting the soil as high as I could.  if I couldn't get very high with the tractor, then it was too steep, so I put the soil lower down to let the tractor go higher.  also, took a pickaxe to the top corner of the cliff to taper it down slightly

He would load soil up into the link-box on the back of the tractor and reverse up the ramp as it was built to unload it and build the ramp higher.



Then when he finally tested it driving forwards he tied an old concrete sink to the front end to weight it down it a bit.



The finished ramp.

Austin's mum used to have a pair of castrated male goats that helped her around the farm - called Port and Starboard, naturally...



Here's a link to some more info about them , including stuff about harness, breeding and training.