Been having a good time working on a rough table for outdoor, fireside use. This is a piece of firewood that caught my eye. Used a hatchet to trim off the bark and then a sloyd knife to clean it up. I think it’s black walnut? Creamy sapwood and chocolate brown heartwood.
Christopher Schwarz making his woodworking books freely downloadable really is an extraordinary thing.
Shard of the sun spalled into space, hidden in bodies in far-distant days. In jubilant work, we spend our new heat, continuing creation. The task is complete. The fire within cools to a cinder. Other warm bodies become the new tinder. The cycle renewed, the new morning dawns. Heat calls to heat: our body responds.
Last night one of Darcy’s friends told her our house has “chill vibes.” I take that as a great compliment and recognition of what we’re trying to do here. One of my weekly prayers to the house spirit is, “may all friends be welcomed and all enemies turned away.”
Electric vehicle demand is collapsing with the expiration of the tax credit.. While EVs were never going to be the silver bullet, it is remarkable how–its appears to me–that the mainstream conversation around climate change has evaporated. Or maybe I’m just missing it.
Going to be an usually wet and warm Christmas week. Should be pretty quiet here at work–a good time to catch up on some documentation and clarify plans for upcoming work.
We have a Christmas tradition of visiting the West Baden Springs Hotel and the French Lick Springs Hotel, both classic, beautiful spots. The first picture is of the West Baden hotel, which locals generally know as the Dome. Always beautifully decorated at Christmas. The second picture is by Darcy.
I decided over the weekend that I wanted more than a single Wendell Berry resources page on my personal blog. I’m working on a new site called BerryBlog. It’ll be very much a work in progress for a while. Also, micro.blog folks, I’m still trying to understand how this will work with the timeline.
Happy Yule!
Dear A—, You asked me why I love Wendell Berry’s fiction. There’s no accounting for taste, as you’ve heard, but here’s my attempt. First you should know what the man himself is about. Famously, he left behind a promising academic career to write and farm at his old home place. In the decades since he has become one of the leading lights of localism and agrarianism. His influence has been significant, touching everything from the literary world to family farms to the local food movement.