Great Value in Hobbies

        As I did my last post on birch bowls, I began to think about the great value of a good hobby. I consider my blog to be a hobby and many of the activies I participate in are hobbies.

       However, if I use the birch bowl topic I can demonstrate some of the values of a good hobby. David, the lather, who produced the bowls, obviously spends a great deal of time working on his hobby. So it is an excellent way to spend leisure time in a stimulating way.

     First, David does not buy any wood to pursue his craft. So he spends time and watches so that he can obtain a variety of wood that would otherwise be wasted. David has friends who know he wants wood and alert him when they see trees being taken down. As a result he gets a variety of wood so can work with color and grain variations. Most people are quite happy to let him have part of their tree and in my case he took the whole tree as he also burns wood to heat his house. So to begin with there is a strong social aspect. He also belongs to a guild where lathers get together and share ideas.

     Second, something is being created and produced. When you watch David begin, he looks at the wood as if to say, what kind of bowl is in this wood. At the end of lots of hard work there is a product with beauty. We need to produce something at the end of an activity so that we can look at it with pride. In my blog I produce material that I can look at. I look back at old posts and quite often get new ideas or further ideas and expand on a topic. Lately I have been going back and revising old posts. It's rather humbling and surprising at how many errors I made.

    Something like wood turning gives a person something stimulating to do with their time. I imagine something new is learned with each bowl produced. I learn with each blog post. I started at zero with my blog so I have had to learn many things. Each new thing I learn is satisfying.

    David has accumulated a large number of tools for his craft. I think he had three different lathes in the shop. Obtaining the right tools and learning how to make them work for you is a worthwhile goal in itself.

    Since David heats his house with wood he can use the waste product for heat. He also gives some shavings away to gardeners like me. David packages the shavings in paper bags and uses them to start his fires. Since there's much of the tree which is too small to make bowls out of he can burn the part not used to lathe.

      Now I've just dealt with two hobbies. There is an endless number of activities one could be involved in. It doesn't matter what age you are , you can still benefit from a good hobby. So if you don't have anything to do find a good hobby and you will find all kinds of benefits from it.

     So a good hobby brings personal satisfaction. We spend enjoyable time, learn things and receive pleasure from what we do.

     So let me know what your hobby is and what you get out of it.

   

Beautiful Birch Bowls

        I have recently become the owner of a set of beautiful birch bowls which were produced from my own birch trees.

        Two years ago two of my four birches decided to depart from this life. Since I had a chain saw and had felled hundreds of trees I decided to take the trees down myself. Birch trees aren't that tall and I could safely drop them inside my yard.

      I was busy taking off branches and loading them when a person I knew slightly stopped and told me his story. I knew that David was dedicated to using wood for heat and super insulating his house so that less energy would be consumed. What David wanted was part of my trees as he wanted to make bowls. David's hobby is making things on his lathe and one of the things he specialized in was bowls. So sure I told him to take what he wanted. Before he left my wife had come on the scene and  said that she would like a sample of what he would make.
 

     David explained the long process of making a bowl. First, he cuts the log to the diameter if the bowl. Then he cuts the log lengthwise. Now the wood is coated with wax and left to dry for about a year. This process prevents the would from splitting. When the wood is thoroughly dried he saws it  into a rough bowl shape. This piece is put on the lathe and the bowl is carved out using the lathe. Now it's waxed and left to dry again. The final process is the to finish the wood by sanding with ever finer sandpaper. And voila you have a bowl. Yes the wood is oiled to keep it from cracking and splitting. So two years later you have a birch bowl with the rich wood color and grain patterns.

    This relationship went further as David had loads of shavings which he didn't want to dispose of at the waste site. So I get shavings every year to dig into my garden. The Medicine River Wildlife Rehabilitation center takes lots of shavings for the bedding for their animals.

    I have been fortunate to visit David's shop and see the many special tools he uses and see him start on a piece of wood and shape it into a bowl. It's interesting to watch him before he starts as he looks at the wood and decides what he will produce. The skilled hands and machinery seem to magically bring a bowl out of the wood as if the bowl had always been  in the wood.

    So from the death of my trees I discovered a whole new process of making bowls. I also renewed my acquaintance with David.