Bad storms, mother in law table, and experimental work

Hi Everyone,
I apologize for not getting back to you last week. I've been working on a computer table and accessories for my mother in law who needed a larger table to do her computer stuff on. I'll post photos of that tomorrow when I have more photos to show you.

We have had a number of very strong storms pass through our area the past several weeks and last night's storm was a real doozy. We had heavy rain coupled with strong winds and that caused a number of trees in our area  to fall down. My area in particular had a lot of trees down this morning and a neighbor of mine wound up with her front yard tree falling down across her driveway. Here are some photos:

 Here is the top of the tree...

Here is the bottom of the tree and it's roots. You can see how this was torn right out of the lawn.

Since the trunk was quite large, I decided to walk over and ask if I could take some of the trunk home for turning and my neighbor graciously agreed. Here is a section of the tree which is white ash. The fibers in the wood should be good and straight so when I do turn this into bowls, the turning should go well (ha! famous last words):

As this is freshly sawn wood, it is full of moisture and about a half an hour after I took this photo, there was a small puddle underneath this log.  I'm going to be renting a chain saw in a couple of weeks and when I do I'll be cutting this down to size for turning. More about that in a future posting.

I also bought a large amount of lumber last week from the cabinet guys Forest Wood Products in Oakdale. These folks sell really first rate lumber and I've used them a lot as a supplier. I bought some prime hickory, red birch, white oak, and Brazilian cherry from them and I'm looking forward to making a number of platters and cutting boards from this latest pile of wood. In fact, I bought a large block of basswood from them and I'm going to be experimenting with a portion of it:

I've been wanting to explore and work on some adornment on the surface of the bowls (if you're a SWW regular you'll remember my "blue period" from several months ago). I think this basswood piece will make an ideal canvas for some painting or burning or possibly both. Stay tuned for this.

I'm also gearing up to close for the month of July. I need to do some repair work on my garage floor. Those of you who live in snowy climates are probably familiar with the concrete damage that occurs from road salting. My garage floor looks like the surface of the moon and it really needs work so that's what I'm doing for that part of my summer. But before I do that I will be turning down some of the bowls that I have been working on and making one additional bowl out of cherry and I'll keep you posted on all of that.

We are supposed to get more rain and storms over the next several days so if you live in Minnesota batten down the hatches and stay alert.

More later,
VW