“That’s not a knife, this is a knife!” The famous line from ‘Crocodile Dundee’ still makes me laugh. In my mind a knife is the number one tool you’ll need to start woodcarving. They can be used in many different situations and can make a surprising number of cuts (which we’ll cover in a future […]

Posted on February 22nd, 2008 by John
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Top bar hives (TBH) are of a totally different design than traditional Langstroth beehives. They have been traditionally used where resources are limited but have become increasingly popular with hobby beekeepers. I believe they offer many advantages to beginners.
Simple Design
The hive design is very simple. Many people have used drawers, crates, and even old cylindrical […]

Posted on February 20th, 2008 by John
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Carving fish is not like carving turkey though it sounds like it would be. It’s actually much more complicated.
The carving pictured is a grayling that I did in a class with Ed Walicki. Ed is one of the premier fish carvers in the world and I was blessed to be able to spend a week […]

Posted on February 19th, 2008 by John
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If you don’t know who Lynn Doughty is you are missing out. He is an incredible carver. He focuses most of his talent carving caricatures of western scenes. He has been showing the progress of many of his carvings. Here you can see a new carving of his, Joshua Deets, that is mostly finished but […]

Posted on February 18th, 2008 by John
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Here’s a picture of a woodspirit I carved out of cottonwood bark. I feel like this one came out pretty well. The composition is good, the finish came out well, and the contrast between the inner bark and outer bark is very pleasing.

Posted on February 16th, 2008 by John
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Welcome back to Novice Nibblings the column that is guaranteed to help you lose weight, grow hair, look good and smell better. Maybe not but I hope it will help you keep taking steps towards improving as a woodcarver. Today, we’ll talk about our friend, wood.
“The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seeds according to their […]

Posted on February 16th, 2008 by John
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In this journey of finding the right beekeeping equipment I had finally decided on 8-frame medium supers. Everything looked very logical but price was an issue. Hives alone would be $250.00 with bees and other items running up to a total of $500.00.

Posted on February 15th, 2008 by John
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For our first installment I’m going to talk about some basic things you’ll want to have handy to get started woodcarving. Some of these are things you already know and some of them you may not have thought of but I have found them all to be very handy.
Wood
I bet you already had this one […]

Posted on February 14th, 2008 by John
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Here’s photo one of the chicken tractor. As you can see the ladies make themselves comfy. The tractor is 3′ x 8′. It’s not the most attractive thing you’ll ever see but it is sturdy and functional. The 1/2″ hardware cloth is there because I learned the hard way that 2″ x 3″ holes are […]

Posted on February 4th, 2008 by John
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In our journey toward having a hobby farm we decided that plants would be easier than animals. Besides laying hens (which we don’t consider hard animals to raise) and the blueberries we already mentioned we also planted some strawberries.

We eat strawberries almost every morning. We make a very nice breakfast smoothie out of frozen strawberries, […]

Posted on February 2nd, 2008 by John
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