The Bowman Bench

We had much fun building and finishing this beautiful solid walnut bench this week.  It will probably be the last finished piece of furniture for the year.  Monday we'll package it up and ship it to it's new home in one of the most beautiful area's of the country, Santa Cruz California. 

This little bench has received several compliments from friends dropping by.  I'm pretty sure we'll be building more of these "Bowman Benches" in the near future.

Matties shadow

Mattie can't go on our daily walks without a frisbee in her mouth.  And, whenever she gets a chance she'll carry two (or more) at a time.

dimensional leg joint

I've been using these (what I call) dimensional leg joints for the last two or three years.  It's an evolution of George Nakashima's butterfly joint (or key).  Actually it took several iterations to get to this point. 

A couple of months ago I needed to add some stability to two legs of a console table, and I think it worked out quite nicely. 

john lennon's lost last interview

What a treat on last night's Nightline to see for the first time what seems to be John Lennon's last interview.  Not sure why it just surfaced, but wonderful none the less.  You can stream it from ABC's website.

Southern music issue of Oxford American

Can't wait to get my hands on the annual Southern Music issue of the Oxford American.  We have SOOO much music talent here in the Shoals (Alabama), it's fun to see what neighbors are featured each year.

The Oxford American is such a prestigeous journal.  I can still remember my Dad's face when he brought into the house the issue that he was published, sharing it with my Mom, the English Professor.  He got his money's worth ouf of that one.

Welcome back to Alabama - Operation Migration

It's really exciting each year to see the baby whooping cranes being lead and taught their migration path to Florida in this out of the box way.  Just took a look at the Operation Migration website and their live chat seems to be saying that this Ultra light led "scout troop" just crossed the state line on their way to their annual respit in Russellville.  I'd love to see a landing, but am pretty sure those baby whoopers will beat me there. 

Oh, it looks like the guy in the ultra light is texting updates!  Yikes!

Their mission:  "To promote the conservation of migratory species through innovative research, education and partnership."  Cheers to Operation Migration.  I hope you enjoy your Alabama visit, and please do come back to see us!

Today's Google Doodle

Google Doodle's continue to impress.  This one celebrating Rosa Parks and her 1955 Montgomery Alabama bus boycott.

We love Baker Furniture

We've enjoyed this piece of Baker Furniture for over a couple of decades.  But it was just over the past year of so that Linda started letting the pups up, knowing that a recover was due. 

This weekend's Netflix: The Making of Steinway L1037

Linda and I thoroughly enjoyed Saturday night's netflix; a documentary showcasing a rare behind the scenes look in the Steinway plant in NY.  Great to see these works of art manufactured much the same way they were a hundred years ago.  Bravo.

can logs be holey? I think we can help.

I've got so many logs around here that are, well, perfect for something - but certainly not traditional tables.  Although I still don't know exactly what I'll do with them, we've been having fun hollowing them out for the last week or so.  Some have metal, some are rotten, some start out quite holey to begin with.  Well, they've been sitting around for too long, and we now have the first stage of a plan for them - helping them to become holey.

walnut post and (shelves) project

Here's a first pic of a new project in the works.  It will be a massive, oversized shelves for a private residence in Tennessee.  In addition to the two massive square posts, it will have two 12' shelves along with two more smaller ones.  A flat screen tv will be mounted in the middle.  One more thing.  The magnificent solid walnut "have a seat" console will become a an entertainment center console in the project.

chainsaw cutting the inside of this tree

I don't get to back in the studio nearly as much as I'd like.  But I just had to jump inside this tree to test a new chainsaw toy.  Actually, it's a little chainsaw attachment for my Makita skillsaw.  Although it did a nice job with a controlled chainsaw cut here, it clogged up every few minutes with long sawdust shavings.

Oh, just in case you were wondering why the hollow log.  Too often when we receive urban trees, they have metal inside that our sawmill and other tools don't really seem to appreciate.  This seems to be a decent solution for a log that might have been hard to work otherwise.

Southern Delicacies - boiled peanuts

Many of us who grew up in the South, just assume that the world enjoys these same delicacies that we always have.  But, when we venture out, we quickly realize that many of our favorite southern delicacies haven't made it past the mason dixon line, more or less the county line.  There are so many southern delicacies, that we take for granted.  And I think it's time to open some doors and share some of our best.  So, monthly or so, I will try to post about what we are presently enjoying, what's in season, or an exceptional southern meal we shared the previous weekend.

Each Fall you can't drive southern county roads without smelling fresh green peanuts boiling over a fire.  I've know for a long time that this one is hard to stomach for many who weren't raised around here.  And always assumed it was southern - primarily because visitors who arrived in the Fall rarely tried a second boiled peanut, and many times spit out what they could of the first one. 

But, Linda and I were quite surprised a couple of decades ago, when walking the back streets of Honolulu's Chinatown, to smell the wonderful aroma of green peanuts boiling.  It didn't take long to find the hot kettles full of peanuts with vendors offering a small bag for sale for a dollar or so.  - My first question was how did this little southern delicacy make it's way across the pacific to chinatown?!!

Most of these vendors spoke very little English, and certainly hadn't been to the South.  This started my confusion.  Then, after tasting them I was even more confused.  They were salted very much like Southern boiled peanuts.  They were cooked just a bit less - cooked thru - but what I'd call a bit more al dente.  And they had an addition of a spice that I don't think I had ever tasted.  And, this is hard to admit, they were even better than one of my favorite southern snacks of all time.

Well, through the years, whenever it was Linda's time to choose our vacation spot, she usually chose Honolulu or one of the other beautiful Hawaiian Islands.  And once arriving, we usually headed straight to Chinatown to one of our favorite restaurants in the world - Tochau Vietnamese Restaurant (This one deserves it's own blog post), and immediately finding a vendor with these boiled delicacies to take back to the room (and beach) for a wonderful snack throughout the week.

It was fairly easy to figure out that farmers left china to work on sugar plantations in the beginning of the 20th century.  From here, I'm guessing that boiled peanuts might also be a Chinese delicacy as well, but I don't know.

But, the inspiration for this blog post, was that yesterday, as Linda repeats annually during the fall, she placed green peanuts, water and salt into a crock pot for a days worth of cooking and soaking.  But to my wonderful surprise last night, they smelled and tasted just line our Chinatown version of the delicacy.  She had read somewhere that "Chinese boiled peanuts" contain a couple of star anise.  Wonderful.  It's quite amazing, possibly a first, to see someone one up us on one of our tried and true, passed down through the generations delicacies - but it happened.  I hope I don't get run out for saying this, but Chinese boiled peanuts are even better than ours.  Obviously, this isn't the only time the've whooped up on us.  But, I really don't see it happening often.  -  What could they possibly do to improve on:  crawfish heads, grouper cheeks, greens, cornbread, Tennessee hot fried chicken, Alabama white sauce, mississippi hot tamales . . . .

museum of contemporary art

The current exhibition here at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago was more than a little dreary for me.  It was really the only "down" event of the weekend.

mies van der rohe way - chicago

Nestled right between the Contemporary Museum of Art and the Ritz Carlton appropriately lies Mies Van der Rohe Way.

Scuptural Objects & Functional Art Show

This was our first opportunity to attend the renowned SOFA show in Chicago (along with a couple of other cities I believe).  What an amazing mix of beautiful forms.  I'm already planning excuses to attend future showings. 

Shiloh

Just stopped for a sec to get a picture of this little fence at the entrance to the Park the other day.

Natchez Trace Parkway

Somehow, seems like I find excuses to drive the parkway during the Fall each year that I'm in the neighborhood.  The colors aren't quite as brilliant this year, but it's a wonderful, meditative time.

Is there anything better than a vietnamese sandwich?

We couldn't believe our eyes when we ran across this little Vietnamese sandwich shop in Greensboro, NC a couple of weeks ago.  We had heard about another restaurant we had heard about when we saw this little dive in a small dumpy shopping center on the way.  All I can say is that it was a little bit of heaven.  If you haven't tried a Vietnamese Sandwich, you are in for a treat.  I continue to be amazed by High Point and Greensboro.  Seems like little jewels every where we look.

and the winner is:

The winner of our $4000 (retail) solid walnut bench is:

Tish Fuller, owner of Pentimento, Inc, Retail Store and Design Studio.  Congratulations Tish!  You are a very lucky gal.  Tish, if we don't hear from you in the next few days, we'll round you up and plan delivery.