Kilpelän Luomutila ja Sen Ympäristö: May 2019

Draining the Swamp

We had a wet spring and our drainage ditches have gradually been filling up with decayed vegetation over the past decades, so I thought it would be a good idea to try to run a plow down the middle of one and cut a furrow. I figured I could always use the hydraulics of the bucket to push myself out if the tractor bogged down. So much for theory. Here my front wheels are under water, I have already removed the plow from the three point attachment arms, and have churned the muck into a soft slurry with the bucket so that it offers no resistance to push against. In other words I am hopelessly stuck. This should not have happened and I am embarrassed that it did. But what can you say? That's the way it goes sometimes. My father used to get his tractor stuck on a regular basis, so I have it in my genes.

Fortunately my father's old Ford tractor is still operational. Sam drove it down and brought a few long chains.

Which we hooked onto my trailer hitch and voila! Out she comes!

Sam's tires spun a bit, but fortunately he didn't bog down.

Time to hose off the tractor.

The next day I attacked the ditch from the side, using the tractor bucket to fold back layers of sod.

At the scene of the crime I resorted to using a shovel rather than risk getting the tractor stuck again. My audience would not have forgiven me if I got stuck in the same place the following day.

The tall reed canary grass that grows here in the summer has a dense network of roots that are hard to cut through with a shovel, or for that matter, with a loader bucket.

But the ditch is flowing better. This will be an ongoing project this summer I am sure.

Rocking Chair #26

I have been building rocking chairs off and on for thirty years. This one started out as a yellow birch log in my firewood pile. Years ago I sawed several logs into lumber using an Alaskan chainsaw mill and air dried the lumber in our basement.

This chair contains a blend of influences from two renowned woodworkers whose work I admire, George Nakashima and Sam Maloof. You can google them if you are curious.

I have found that using wood with natural imperfections often adds to the beauty. God is in the business of creating beauty out of damaged hearts and lives, and true beauty is a manifestation of love. Similarly work that is done in love tends toward beauty. I doubt that we can create anything beautiful unless some degree of love for our work is present.

According to a Russian proverb, perfect is the enemy of good. The hole is slightly larger than the tenon, leaving a small gap that is filled with glue. The tenon itself still bears the remnants of a small hole that I drilled to center it on my lathe. These are flaws that an experienced woodworker would see, as well as many others. I no longer strive for a mirror-like finish. 120 grit on an random orbit sander is smooth enough for me these days. Chairs are meant to be used. - and if they are they will acquire nicks and dents. The spalting in the wood is actually incipient rot.

The seat itself has no straight lines. Several of these curves are actually the same as the rockers. I like to think that designing furniture is like composing a symphony - you repeat several basic themes with variations. Your tools are straight lines and curves - convex and concave. Convex curves create a sense of ease, concave ones a bit of tension. Some edges are hard, some are rounded and soft. It all plays together. I've been playing with these things for years and I am still learning. Some things feel right, others don't.

When all is said and done, there is usually more said than done, but the proof of good design is how it feels when you sit in it. This chair has an amazingly soft and smooth rock. It provides good lumbar support and has wonderful balance. It isn't perfect, but it is a beautiful chair.

Neighbors Stop by for a Visit

This guy dropped by on Mother's Day, but we didn't invite him in. He seemed a bit touchy....

...and not very sociable.

The Baltimore Oriole hung around for day and enjoyed the orange slices we put out.

This Sharpshin hawk had his own agenda.

He appeared early one morning just outside our kitchen window while I was drinking coffee. I was fortunate to have my camera within reach to take these pictues of him. He landed in the pine just a above our bird feeder and waited, but since all the small birds had gone into hiding and did not reappear, he moved off after a minute or two.

Mother's Day Weekend

The Marquette grandchildren came to town and were ready for some adventures.

Time to switch bow paddlers.

First secure the life jacket so that it is snug.

Off we go.

Next, big sister's turn.

This fellow has rock lifting in his genes. My great-grandfather in Finland, Juho Wiitala, once lifted a huge boulder that no one else was able to move and carefully placed it on a wagon. The boulder became a test of strength for the young men of the village but none were able to lift it. When my grandfather, also named Juho Wiitala, returned to Finland for a visit after a stint of working in the copper mines, he also tried. He was a powerful man in his prime, and when he exerted himself witnesses claimed that a bit a daylight appeared between the rock and the ground, but the boulder rose no further.

Later we took a hike.

The girls are sitting on an enormous boulder left by the glacier. Since it could not be moved, the farmer who cultivated this old forty piled up field rock all around it. The old Finnish settlers spent their lives moving rock - in both the copper mines and in their fields. They were tough men.

Today the old field has reverted to forest and all that remains of the old settlers' efforts are rock piles.

Where their descendants play. Sometime in the future these children may pause to consider - and respect - just how much hard physical work went into creating these piles.