Mountain Whimsy

The last project, the Shaker dresser, was a fun build.  But I always start to feel a bit itchy when I’m just making square cuts.  Mind you, square cuts and the resulting joints always seem harder for me than working with the curves and ever-changing angles that you find on a boat or surfboard. With curves, I always seem to […]

OK, a very bad pun, but that’s what I’ve got.  Here’s the latest from the shop.  A Shaker dresser for my wife.  The wood is mainly alder.  The drawer boxes are soft maple, with birch plywood bottoms.  The stain is Cabot Gunstock.  If you’ve not used Cabot stains before, they are my favorite.  They go on nice and thick, and […]

Living so close work, 2 blocks, I don’t often get to see the fabulous sunrises and sunsets in the valley.  Yesterday was an anomaly for me.  I was up at 5:30 AM, early for me, in order to do a quick 6:40 live interview on the local tv channel.  Nothing exciting.  Just a quick information session about our local triathlon club and […]

We are constantly amazed at our backyard.  That is a figurative backyard.  It extends from our property line in every direction for approximately 1.5 hours of travel time.  This takes us from mountain to river, sage scrub to alpine crag, skate ski track to riding lifts, and trail walk at sunset to backcountry powder turns.  We are infinitely blessed and […]

You may hate gravity, but gravity doesn’t care. -Clayton Christensen There are no quick fixes or instant gratification in backcountry skiing.  A day usually includes a long, slow climb from the trailhead, up the slopes that you will eventually be coming down.  Attached to the bottoms of your skis are what amount to strips of carpeting with an adhesive backing, […]