crainn lasrach

two days in a row. better be careful i don't burn out or something... went back to crev mo on the ssstump today. did the same loop as yesterday. short, but hits all the fun log crossings. it was cloudy all morning, so i was in my cage carving when all of a sudden the sun just burst through the clouds and filled my room with light to the point that it nearly hurt my eyes. so i finished up the piece i was working on and got on the bike.



oh, i had also found a relevant user manual for my now several week old reba team, which doesn't come with one, on the interwebs. read through it and found i was adjusting the floodgate improperly. apparently you need to adjust with the compression on full lock. it was much better today while climbing locked out, but still has a tendency to dive over log crossings whether it's locked out or not.

i don't think it rained last night, but the roots were noticeably more slippery. legs felt great, as they should on such a short ride. i don't think this loop, including riding to and from the trailhead, breaks 12 miles. i had to retry the one multiple log crossing 3 times before cleaning it all the way through. it's the first one that throws me off. it's 2/3rds of the way through a turn and about 26" high. factors which i don't seem to remember causing me any grief back in nj. maybe my skills are dumbing down from lack of use? i'll have to go out and play more.

eanadan

i promised details on the 'cage' i'll be spending a large chunk of my winter in, and i will now deliver, though it's nowhere near as interesting as i make it sound.

the dilemma:

all summer, i've been carving outside, on the patio, directly outside my bedroom. it's a great place to carve with perfect southern exposure. the house i rent a room in has no heated 'workshop' where i could commandeer some space for carving. there's a workshop in the two car garage, but A: there are two cars parked in there all winter; B: all three of the adults in the house are outdoors gear junkies and the garage is pretty well full with our crap; and C: the garage has a heater, but generally isn't heated unless someone's going to be out there working on a car or something for any given amount of time. the house is heated all winter long, no matter what. and it can get pretty damned cold up here in the winter, as you might imagine.

the only obvious, realistic options were, A: stop carving for the winter and concentrate on some other art; B: rent a heat-able small space somewhere in the valley to carve; or C: carve in the house.

carve in the house it is! but carving makes quite a mess, and i'm sure my lessors(i originally put 'rentees' there, but it's apparently not a recognized word, and when it is used, is used to mean someone in my position, ie: a tenant... so 'lessors' it is) wouldn't appreciate wood shavings embedded in my carpet and tracked all through the house. the solution, my 'cage':



ignore the mess on the bed reflected in the mirror. all of that stuff had been neatly arranged where the 'cage' is now. it's a comfortable, roomy 5' x 3', constructed of nylon mesh and 1/4 round trim with a heavy cotton canvas 'floor'. the mesh catches all errant chips and shavings, and there are a lot of them, especially when working on cottonwood bark. the cotton canvas floor is much, much easier to sweep off of than the carpet and still comfortable to walk on.



so there you have it. the bulk of my day today was spent constructing and erecting that, and carving/painting carvings.