“Squirrel Bill” is complete! As most of you who’ve seen any of my stories over the past year know, my wife spent the pandemic becoming a Disney princess. It took a while but she eventually got the squirrels eating out of her hands. We’ve fed them an absolutely ridiculous amount of walnuts and pecans over the past 18 months, so we have quite the healthy population in our backyard now. Obviously it was time to make a wooden squirrel intarsia piece. Squirrel Bill (who she named after our Pittsburgh neighborhood of “Squirrel Hill”) is constructed of mostly wood I scavenged myself from Squirrel Hill. Some elm, crab apple, spalted holly, walnut, and a teensy bit of ebony and mahogany (neither from here of course).
A block from our house lives a couple with 2 daughters. We’ve never actually met them, though we’ve said “hi” or exchanged nods many times when we used to walk Bandit by their house (he loved their corner). Every year they plant a long beautiful row of sunflowers directly across from my bus stop, which makes my morning commute significantly brighter. The girls also regularly decorate the sidewalk with chalk drawings. More than once they’ve left a question or greeting on the sidewalk for passers by, and my wife has responded with her own drawings (we may have bought chalk solely for this purpose). Basically, they make our neighborhood a happier place. This was particularly helpful when walks around the neighborhood were all we had during covid and Bandit’s decline at the end.
So I decided to make a simple sunflower and leave it on their porch. I intended for it to be even simpler and quicker than this… but many of you know how that usually goes for me. I assume they’ll find me here and see this. So I’ll just say: Hi neighbors! We’re Daniel and Tamaryn. Thanks for brightening up the neighborhood!
I made this “intarsia” over 3 days from yellowheart (also called “pau amarello”; from Brazil) and black walnut from our neighborhood. No paint/stain. The simple center patterned was burned via pyrography. It’s finished with oil only. It will probably end up weathering outside, but that’s the nature of wood, and it could end up even prettier with age. Or it could fall apart. lol. It’s a mystery! Slap some more oil on it next year to revitalize it. Or let the girls paint it. Or just let nature slowly reclaim it.
I grew up with red foxes on our property in Arkansas and have loved them ever since, seeing many over the years in NC and now PA. A family of them, including two new kits, live up the road in a nearby cemetery; they served as the impetus to create this piece, which I’ve had bouncing around in my head ever since I picked up this amazing orange wood.
Super quick project begun and finished today! Since I built my Rebel Table, it’s gotten a LOT of use, including for hot meals in front of the TV in our Lair. I wanted a couple of handy trivets to avoid ruining the table finish with hot plates. So I grabbed the first two scraps that looked appropriately sized – two leftover cherry panels of vastly different coloring. I decided on the design on the fly, quickly scrolled out the shape, planed, sanded, and tossed on some @odiesoil, feet, and a hanger. They will now reside next to our futon for quick access.
