Update

I have been so busy with things lately it has felt nice to have "free time"...anyway I digest.......I have started my final year in hell, I mean school, and Rachel has begun her first year at vet school. We have settled into our apartment and have even decorated the damn thing half respectably. We are in the home stretch before the wedding and counting down the hours. I have concluded my job with Story County Conservation and have begun my interm job working for the parking division at Iowa State. I am now that asshole you yell at for giving you a ticket for illegally parking on university property. Horridly satisfying to write tickets...Sorry Lisa. :) It will be another year of surviving and hoping a job awaits me in the real world.


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Coleman's Project: Cuttings

This last summer I had Mother teach me the ways of the cuttings master herself. I took some cuttings from multiple specimens including viburnum dentatum, viburnum trilobum, flowering dogwood, mountain maple, river birch, hazelnut, and hydrangea, and went through the work with Mother in the greenhouse. After almost two months of soaking in the greenhouse I determined it was time to line them out.

 I got some absolutely phenomenal root masses on a few of the cuttings. The dogwoods and the Viburnum trilobum specifically just exploded.

Dad mowed/bailed a patch for me up by the old garden and I began tilling.

Micheal Parker showed up to shoot his new muzzleloader, but I had some work for him to do first. We lined out two and a half trays of my cuttings whether they had developed roots or not.

 We finished up by taking the duff Dad left after mowing and mulched the areas.

I began this project in the hopes that I could take them to Coleman's and work on a browse source out there. It will most likely be a couple of years before I see real results, but I will be able to plant some of them next spring and fall. This has been a great learning experiences and now that I know how to do this I can continue to do it.

MOM! teach me how to root graft!

Once I have learned that, I will be invincible!


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Wood Work

It's has been awhile since I have been able to get on and post. One of my latest projects involved making my first table. My buddy, Ned Parker, helped me with some hauling last October and it was time to repay him for his help. I used 30 year old wild grapevine as the legs underneath the largest eastern red cedar slab I have obtained. It took me some deep thinking and some outside inputs from Poindexter, but I finally figured out a way to attach the legs to the slab.

 

I was able to get the table finished within the weekend and the next Tuesday give it to Ned. 

Nick found it necessary for me to show what my shop normally looks like:

I figured Uncle Dave would appreciate it. 

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New apartment meal

Rachel never ceases to amaze me. She concocted an absolutely amazing homemade spaghetti sauce made from the tomatoes we grew on our deck at the old apartment. Because of the sauce she of course had to make homemade noodles as well. There was a baguette on the side and Shiraz to complete the ensemble. Simple amazing.

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