The Carving Spectacle?

I've said this before and I'll probably say it again at some point in my life, but I'm not sure right now why I still call this blog 'The Writing Spectacle'.  Lord knows I haven't been writing or even editing much lately.  I'm not saying I will never write again, but it's not looking good right now.  

Right now?  Well, I'm getting all jazzed about wood carving.  As I might've mentioned a couple hundred times, I live in the woods.  We have about two and a half acres of mixed growth woods - hard and soft woods, deciduous and evergeen.  All that wood is begging me to do something with it.  

Sure, lots of it is for burning.  But it doesn't all have to be burned.  This is especially true of the special woods.  I'm talking dogwood and redbud and persimmon, and one case, lilac.  Why burn it when I can make it into something pretty?

Of course, I have no clue about carving anything right now.  To that end, I bought a book on whittling (the easiest of the wood carving methods).  I received that yesterday and it's pretty short.  I read it and learned a little bit, but it's not quite what I'm aiming for.  To that end, I ordered a better book on wood carving and... :drumroll:... a set of wood carving tools.  They'll be here Monday.  

Now, because I'm kinda weird, I've already been collecting interesting wood.  I have several pieces of beaver-chewed wood, and some wood that I thought would make excellent staves.  I also have a couple of root balls - cedar and dogwood - that looked like they might be interesting to carve something.  Now that I'm actually going to do the carving stuff, I added some dogwood that the fallen sycamore killed.  I can't wait to dig into that stuff.

Being a total novice, though, I'm going to start by carving cedar.  We have TONS of cedar.  It's not really great for burning in a woodstove, so it's in various piles around the property.  I can use that to practice on.  (I think.  I'm still learning which woods carve best.  If nothing else, it'll be a learning experience.)

The main thing right now, I guess, is teaching myself to carve without losing a finger or winding up with stitches and a bunch of really interesting scars.  Fingers crossed while I still have them.  ;o)

The writing?  It's still there.  I'm still working on editing Duke Noble #3, here and there when the mood strikes me.  The problem is that the mood is striking me less and less.  Maybe it'll get better this summer.  One can hope, right?