Kitten Season has arrived

It has been a little over three weeks since I began raising the first of my 2009 litter of bottle babies and am happy to write that my little charges are doing very well. I received a litter of four and all four are thriving - one girl and three boys! Boneata, Scooter, Frodo and Bilbo have unknown beginnings other than being found in a box with eyes still closed and one with the umbilical chord still attached (5-7 days old) at the office of BFI in Baltimore. One of our Cats R Us members got a call about them, and I picked them up later that day. Thankfully, they were in excellent condition, other than a bit wet and hungry. By the time they nestled down that night they were wrapped in flannel and fleece in a warm bathroom. It did not take long for them to understand I was now mommy. Things didn't go as smoothly as they did in these photos every day, but it was fun trying to get them all nourished at one time. They have been incredibly easy to take care of and are going to be outstanding cats. Here are a few more pictures of those days a few weeks ago.

Scooter, the smallest kitten was the first to open his eyes.

Boneata says NO NOT THE HAIRDRYER! However once dry, goes to sleep under her fleece.

While everyone has a full tummy and ready to sleep again, Scooter wants some more cuddles.

Bilbo savors mealtime and does not waste a drop.

One man's scrap .....

After a month hiatus we're back. Vencka is working with four bottle baby kittens and says she will be posting soon with her bottle baby dialogues (so everyone please give her a little nudge :-) ). We (mostly Vencka) have been out in our backyard woods collecting, chainsawing, and stacking downed trees and branches for firewood. Ever on the the lookout for turning wood I have started playing around with green and dry small diameter branches after have seen some pieces recently in Baltimore. I am attempting to turn natural edge, thin deep-V and martini glass shaped pieces out of the green wood unfortunately most have ended up back in the firewood pile. Below is one of my initial (and semi-success) trials, it is about two inches in diameter and 1.5 inches tall.

I am having more luck with with dry branches. I came across an unusual colored pinkish branch about two weeks ago that I could not resist trying to turn. The color reminded me of southwest/Mexican style clay pottery. With the that image in my mind I turned away, ever so careful of a crack (caused from the drying/rotting) lest it blow up on me! I was really happy with the result and added to two burned rings for style points.

My third scrap project came by way of my dad, a highly talented wood craftsman and carpenter. He had a old walnut table from my great-grandparents that was beyond repair, so he disassembled, cut up the top and legs and then laminated them back together in various sized and shaped blocks. He shipped out them all out a few weeks ago. Below is the first piece turned from a 5 inch block (photographed on one of the larger blocks). The "new" family cup is heading back west to my dad for his birthday next week.

It's our anniversy baby...

Seven years today..oy vey .... my how the time flies when you are having fun. What a wonderful time it has been with the ever lovely Kitty Whisper. We enjoyed a lovely dinner on Main Street in Annapolis yesterday, how fortunate we are to have such culinary treasures in our local area. Tonight, I heard Vencka is serving up Champagne for us.. yaaa hooo.. while enjoy the company and love our menagerie of furry friends. Our two youngest Theodore (aka Theodorable) and Ole are just a trip. Always rough housing and trying to ambush eachother. Really pretty amazing since Ole cannot see a thing, and can be quite funny when he does his flying attack on where he thinks Theodore is crouching in waiting, only to find nothing but air and a hard floor!



We send our best to all the lovebirds out there, may your life and love be as special as ours!



L & V

Best Buds

The mechanics of pen making

When I first started turning two years ago, I had no real interest in pen turning, and maybe even looked down at it as not "real" artistic turning. Fast forward to January, I was demonstarting for my local wood turner association, Chesapeake Woodturners, at the Timonium Wood Show. After my shift on the lathe, I went over to one of the local woodcraft supply store's booth where they provided opportunities for people to turn a pen free. So, I gave it try, and now I am hooked! The wood types, forms, and styles are endless.

One of local turners, Mike Merak, who turns pens professionally (see his site, The Wooden Quill) gave me some good advice as well a few pen kits for styles he no longer uses. Last weekend, I acquired the necessary specialized equipment for pen making and I was off and turning!

Below are the basic raw materials. The hard part of pen making is the preparation and assembly of the wooden blanks. Drilling the tube holes was most frustrating as I have a make shift drill press, which proved inadequate for the precision need for drilling pen blanks. Once again, our neighbor Tom Define and his full wood shop saved the day.

Blank being turned on the lathe.

And the final product!!

The Berry Series

We are still here! Vencka is working on some kitty fur material. She had busy week with adoptions, spay/neutering etc. Beautiful Lena got a home on Friday, though we had to pry my mother's hands away from her. More on all this from my lovely kitten whisper soon.



In December I turned one of two large Hackberry logs that were harvested last January. This was my first time working Hackberry, the bowl came out nicely but I was not overly impressed with color and grain patterns of the Hackberry. It is buttery yellow/white in color which is very nice, but rather bland in my opinion. One of early instructors and local artist Joe Dickey is known for his beautifully dyed pieces and I always have wanted to try my hand at dying a large piece. The Hackberry looked like a great candidate to experiment on trying my dying skills.



In practicing on some small scape pieces I noted some bleed over so I decided to pyrography (woodburn) the rim to "hide" any potential bleed over and after consulting some of my fellow turners I applied a coat of sanding sealer on the rim as well. The sealer worked well resulting in no bleed over, and the pyrography really added another dimension to the piece. After dying I applied several coats of lacquer and buffed the inside with carnauba wax.


My "Blueberry" bowl came out great! As you can see the dye really enhanced the grain patterns, and the contrast with buttery inside is quite nice.

Blueberry Delight - Approx 10" dia, 4" tall

I roughed out the my second Hackberry log a few weeks ago, and now waiting for the drying process to complete. I plan on dying it red to create my "Strawberry" bowl for part two of the Berry series.

Roughberry

Wing and a prayer

Our neighbor and good friend Tom Define dropped off some extra firewood a while back, and much to my delight much if it is Maple (appears to be of the red variety). I have turned some natural edge pieces with it and one lidded box.

One of Vencka’s favorite styles of turning I do is the winged-bowl. Typically, I have used the crotch section of a tree, which produces some interesting grain patterns and a Y-shaped piece. These have been “natural” edged, letting the wood shape speak for itself. However, some of my “firewood” maple logs came pre-cut in blocks that are relatively square, so I decided to try turning a piece where I controlled the shape of the wings.



After truing up the block on a band saw, I let the chips fly. From a purely technical perspective, turning a wing bowl is not too difficult. The challenge is overcoming a certain amount of fear and nervousness. Unlike turning a normal bowl, where your tool (gouge) is in constant contact with the wood, when cutting a winged bowl the gouge is passing through air which has a potential of catching a wing if you don’t have good control. The result is possibly (most likely) reducing the bowl to firewood and/or personnel injury ( I typically turn at about 2000 rpm, so you imagine the interaction if you catch the wood wrong).

Fortunately, both the bowl and I are in one piece. I am quite happy with piece, nice grain patterns which are enhanced by the overall shape of piece. Also, I am finding this particular batch of maple is producing some interesting 3-D effects. The finished natural edge piece below exhibits this unusual 3-D effect, almost like you are looking at it through a polarized lens as the piece is rotated..... I am hoping will come out in the winged piece.

I am still working on the final finish; I decided to use multiple coats of hand-rubbed polyurethane to see if I can really bring out the 3-D effect. Unfortunately, the cold weather is not conducive for this process. I work out of my non-climate controlled garage so I am lucky to get one coat on a day. So lets hope for some one warmer weather soon!!!!

Down hard....

We appologize for letting the chips and fur fall off. I came down with a bug as well as starting my new job this week, then of course I had to pass on the misery of my nasty bug to my lovely spouse. She has been trying to sleep it off the past two days. Sorry Vencka, dear!!

I have couple of new projects in the works and hope to share with you this weekend.

Ciao for now.. Louis