Wood! Love that smell!

Greetings! It's been about a year and a half. Lots has happened. We continue to split the year between Colombia and the USA. Gloria sold her house here and we bought an apartment together. Nice and peaceful area not far from where her house was. We have set it up to meet our needs very well. Gloria has claimed one bedroom for her sewing and jewelry making. I turned another into a workshop for woodworking and also took a corner of Gloria's room for a faceting machine I brought back last fall. We did some remodeling last fall changing a small bath and storage room off the kitchen into a master bath with Jacuzzi. Awesome!

In the workshop I have enjoyed getting to know the local wood species used down here. A great option is the guadua (looks like bamboo to me). Grows fast and is all over and very cheap. It is very strong and used for building materials all over here. The other wood I have started to use is coffee wood. These short and stout trees are cut down every two years to encourage good production. A hard and beautiful wood is fun to work with. Trunks are maybe 3" in diameter at the base and quickly taper down but have lots of branches giving it a lot of character. One more interesting specie is Saman, these must be huge trees as there are roadside shops that sell these and furniture they make from them. Rough sawn planks 10' x 4' at 4 inches thick or bigger are transformed into tables, chairs and beds. We recently found someone selling a table set on Facebook in a nearby town and bought it. It is a saman crosscut of the trunk roughly 5" thick and about 4' in diameter. Came with chairs made from guadua and also a buffet. Very rustic and beautiful.

Last summer kept me in practice helping Patricia with finishing her attic bedroom and Austin redoing the front porch.

This is the first winter I have stayed in Colombia over Christmas. So you can imagine I am looking forward to a fun summer with the kids. It is amazing though how fast the time goes. I am hearing that another April snow storm is brewing for Wisconsin, can't say I am missing that. It is nice to be able to be barefoot all year.

Looking forward to seeing many of you this summer. Stay warm.

A bird feeder made from guadua, makes for happy birds

Hanging out our window just below the hummingbird feeder

A photo frame made from coffee wood, no it does not smell like coffee

Wall hooks made from coffee wood for candle sconces, also makes a good hat rack

One of the drawers for Gloria's sewing cabinet

The game Cathedral. 

Lots of pieces. Made three games for Austin, Patricia and here

First version of the bird feeder

Mallet for the workshop made from Algorrobo

Tea candle holders from Algorrobo

The game Kubb. Awesome yard game. At about 30 pounds each this was a challenge to bring two of these back for the kids.

Also made two more for here in Colombia.

The Kubb pieces

The game Settlers of Cataan. Possibly one of the most time consuming projects but hey, that's what retirement is for.

Made two games, one for each of the kids. These are just the pieces for one game

Settlers of Cataan ready to go. Hex pieces all photo transferred onto the wood. asometimes Carly even lets somebody else win!

The box to keep all the game together. If you know the game it also includes one expansion set and purple game pieces just specially for Carly.

Napkin holder from guadua

Guadua lamp. Gloria sewed up the white fabric that is the shade.

One of my first projects here, a working wood whistle

Ring from coffee wood with faceted emerald

The photo frame. Has three strings that you clothespin the photos to. For Gloria's son and wife

The new (to us) table set. Insanely heavy.

Total set with buffet