Oh, my aching back!

Tonight I sit with a heating pad on my back. My shop is cluttered with freshly cut turning blanks stacked helter-skelter on top of each other, with latex paint protecting the end grain of each one. Twelve and fourteen-inch blocks sit in the wheel barrow, on the bench, atop an extra chair, and sawdust from the band saw litters the floor as if the place was a circus tent.

Here is where it began: a yard tree we are sorely going to miss.  Catalpa, in winter, with no hint of its elephant-ear leaves, pyramidal white flowerette blossoms and 12-in. long bean pods. It gave us plenty of shade, lots of birds' nests, several wood peckers, and even a big horned owl one year. Yes, we'll  miss this tree. It was old. It was rotting from the inside. And it had to come down.

The tree service ground up the small stuff, and piled huge hunks of the trunk and main branches on our side lawn.  I am the proud owner of a new Peavy Hook.  It's a monster tool, and just what I needed to move these chunks around so I can get to them with my small electric chain saw.  I begin by lopping off outer parts of the edges, then cut from two sides toward center. It's a lot of labor, but it feels tremendously good to get some results before all this wood cracks beyond redemption.

Tomorrow is another day.  I need to rearrange, to make room for storage. And I'm planning on cutting some more big pieces with the chain saw.  And learning to use my Peavy Hook. And, the forecast is for a sunny, beautiful day.  Life is good.