Wood gloat

[Ken Hill]

Ya'll didnt see this coming did ya haha!

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[Jack Mincey]

Ken, if the last picture is all Cherry burl you have one extremely nice large one in the bunch. It should prove to make some out standing bowls.
Jack

[charlie knighton]

it looks like cherry burl, way to start the year out

[Roger Chandler]

Did you have to fight the bears to get it?

[Ken Hill]

Its all Cherry. I have 3 of them that size and a bunch smaller that should be good for the HF crowd.

I will be back there in a few weeks for another truck load, the weather turned really nasty and forced us off the mountain. The big burl was pushed aside in a cherry that the loggers had knocked over 3 feet off a skid road.

[John Keeton]

Ken, those burls are awesome!!! Nice shot of the bear "on the way down."

[Faust M. Ruggiero]

Ken,
I must be dumb. Explain the bear picture. What was he falling from? By the way, the cherry is to die for.
faust

[charlie knighton]

nice cherry, espically burl, bear rug is good, bear claws big medicine

[David E Keller]

Nice looking truckload of cherry burl, Ken! I can't believe you let a little weather force you away from the rest of those burls!

[Ken Hill]

David, it went from sprinkling to a downpour pushed by 50+ mph winds. With all the logging, there are widowmakers everywhere so we opted to use common sense haha

[Faust M. Ruggiero]

Thanks for the explanation, Ken. Not being a hunter I assumed the bear was not practicing his swan dives but the fact that you were there and ready with your camera made me to feel you were in a situation where you could predict he was about to fly. You must have the most amazing collection of photographs, especially of wildlife. It's a treat to see your work. Sometimes I get the feeling the camera is implanted behind your eye and all you have to do is blink and another moment is recorded. By the way, remembering the picture of the rattler, a camera would have to be mounted to the back of my head to catch that one since I would be moving the other way...quickly.
faust

[Ken Hill]

Faust, I try and capture life, whether I may agree, enjoy or dislike it, I capture it. I have every picture from the time the bear was tree'd, the shot, and the fall. As a hunter I have conflicting emotions at times when I see such beauty destroyed, but my salvation is that a family is fed. I will not hunt with sport hunters. I will not particpate in needless killing. If we kill it, we eat it and so do those that surround me. My family spends less then $100 per year on store bought meat if that says anything. As far as the snakes, I am very very afraid of them....irrational fear maybe, but I just dont like them. It took all, and I mean ALL I had to get close enough to do what I needed to do for the images. Just think, last night I was in a very ritzy hotel shooting a wedding, when the New Year rang in I was along side a river shooting the bride and groom. 7 am this morning I was high in the mountains enjoying Gods splendor. I live life, waste none of it and if I can show people what goes on beyond their small daily exisitance then I am satisifed. It is not my choice to judge how others view what I document, that is for them alone to decide. If my work draws emotion then thats fine, again, they need to deal with those feelings and issues and if moved, take action.

[Michael Menzli]

Cool wood shots....How were you able to harvest the lumber off this land? Ill def. have to post some of my recent adventures ... I think Ive fell 25 or so trees over the past few days. Many are simply over running the farm.

That bear shot is fascinating but sad as well. Cool you will make good use of it. Not a big fan of "dog" hunting. Guys around my parts use them to run deer to death while they sit around and drink beer and line up to shoot at em as the run but..its like fishing in a barrel. Also the amount of unfed dogs that make their way to my house every year that we feed...just sad stuff.

Anyways looking forward to the turnings. Just curious how do you decide how to cut the burl and various "rounds" out of this lumber.Mainly your crotches. How do you cut and mount to get the most figure etc.?I realize that is part of the fun and mystery but would love to have better success when processing some of this wood I cut. Right now I typically rip the wood down the pith with my band saw or chainsaw depending on size. From there I mainly turn crossgrain(I think its called)..bark side toward the headstock.

[Ken Hill]

Michael, these burls came from an area thats being timbered, around 7000 acres I believe. I think i can fill a few trucks up with just burls we find on the ground, but we have permission to cut all we can find as the timber company will do nothing but bulldoze them over.

I love beagles for rabbits, labs for waterfowl/upland game etc, but am not a real fan of hunting bear or deer with dogs. With that said, it would be almost impossible to harvest the number of bears the state wants taken without them. I would assume deer in some areas are the same way (swamps etc). Sadly, you can and will find teh bad in anything. The group I hunt with treat their dogs as family, very well cared for.

Burls are fairly new to me so I may not be of great help, espeically with the smaller ones but I can see where they would make easy Hollowforms or vases etc. The larger ones I will process into bowl blanks and I am sure a few cut off's will find their way into other smaller turning projects. As far as teh crotches, I try and keep the piths clear and will decide on how I cut the blank down after I see the inside. This cherry has some intense black, seriously looks like someone painted it. I cant wait to turn some bowls from it!

[Hayes Rutherford]

Nice wood haul and as an amateur bread and pie maker all I could think of when I saw your bear was pie crust! Bear lard has to be the best thing for making pie crust.