The finished carvings

Here are a couple of pics of the finished projects that I started at the carving show. We are back at the park that I am working at. The weather has been real windy and rained a bunch last night. Again we were in the right place to avoid the worst of it. Most of the bad storms went south of us. I hope our luck holds out. Louise is still working on the quilt. I am going to get new tires and the front end aligned tomorrowfor the jeep. We got our income tax return back so I can afford the tires...lol If this wind ever quits blowing we plan on doing some fishing. After getting caught there in all the waves the last time I am a little more cautious about going out there.

Till next time

Duane and Louise

Walking Stick Class

Hoyt the Instructor
Top of walking stick

The leaves still have to be colored
The hand hold

The walking stick class I took was very interesting. We spent the first day working on the top of the stick and the handhold. I chose to do a mountian man head. The hat has a turquoise inlay in it. The second day was spent doing all the leaves and background. I have to tint the leaves and then seal the stick. When I get it finished I will post more pics of it. I will be painting the little girl and posting her also. I feel that my week here has been very helpful. I hope with what I have learned this week my carvings will get better and better. Tomorrow we will head back to the park at Lake Lewisville and back to work on Tuesday.

We seem to be living right when it comes to all the storms that this area has had lately. The bad part of the storm last night hit about 30 miles to the north of where we are. They had baseball size hail up there. It broke a lot of car windows and dented the heck out of the cars.

Till next time

Duane and Louise

Carving class

This is the first carving I made at the carving classes. Tomorrow I start the walking stick class. It has been very interesting so far. The little girl is the first caricature carving I have ever made. It took me 2 days, all day...lol The teacher does one in about 4 hours....lol...I guess when you design it and do about 100 of them you get faster...Louise has been working quilt while I carve.

Till next time
Duane and Louise

Glen Rose, TX

We are currently in Glen Rose, TX. The campground we are at host a carving rally once a year. It is 2 weeks long with all kinds of classes about wood carving. I will have my frist class tomorrow and will have a class a day till Friday. Tomorrow and Tuesday I will be carving people, Wednesday and Thursday I will be carving a walking stick with a mountian man face on it. Ought to a lot of fun and a good learning experience for me. I hope I can leave here with a better understanding of the art of carving. I had worked enough extra hours at the park to make up for my taking off. We will return to Hidden Cove park on Friday unless I decide to stay here for another class. I hope to have some good pics to post by the weekend.

Today was Louise's birthday, she tuned 57. We went out eat tonight to celebrate. She plans on sewing on the quilt she is making while I take the carving classes.

Till next time
Duane and Louise

Walking sticks

Here are 2 walking sticks I just finished. They are made from cedar shafts I got from a guy here in the park. I have another just about done that I will post when it's finished. It will be entirely different than the wood spirit faces I have been doing. Looking foward to going to carving classes next week.

Went out on the lake yesterday with a guy from the park that said he knew the lake well. NOT!!! The bad thing about the trip out was the wind...... When it gets windy on this lake, it gets ROUGH !!!!!!!! We headed across the lake to an area that my pardner said was good. It was pretty rough to make that long of run, but like a dummy, I did it anyway. We fished a cove and started to go to the next one. When we got out on the main lake the waves were at least 3 feet high. The wind had gotten worse. I said we had better head back to the dock. About that time a wave hit the front of boat and came right on in. We had about 6 inches of water in the bottom, guess what, the bilge pump would not work!!! Back in the cove we went. We bailed some of the water out with plastic pop bottles. After setting there wondering what to do next, I decided to try it again. This time I trimmed the motor so the bow of the boat was high. We were able to get the boat up on top of the water for the run back. When we got to dock we were both soaking wet from all the spray coming into the boat. WHAT AT TRIP!!! Today I spent all morning putting in a new bilge pump.

There is a vacant house here at the park that I got permission to use so Louise could lay out the quilt she is working on. We had to sweep and mop the floor so it would clean enough to lay it out. After the floor dried, we layed out the quilt and Louise got it all pinned and ready to sew together. It turned out to be a really great place for her to lay things out. I hope no ones moves into the house so Louise can use it again later...lol

Till next time

Duane and Louise

Not much happening here

Not a lot going here right now. I have been working a few extra days so I will have my days covered when I go to the the carving classes a week from Sunday . Louise has been working on a quilt. She has it ready to put together as soon as she finds some place big enough to lay it out. That is one drawback to the motorhome, not room to lay it out flat. I have been carving on walking sticks. Will have a few pics to post soon. We went looking for walking stick material at Jeremy's and found a couple of interesting flowers in the woods. Not sure what either one is,but thought they were pretty enough to post. We found 7 really cool vine twisted trees to cut to carve. When I was stripping the bark on them here at the park, a guy said " I have 11 cedar walking stick I would like to get rid of ". He had stripped the bark so they were ready to carve. I bought them for a good price so I have sometnig to carve while I wait for the twisted ones to dry.
The weather was great today so I spent it on the lake fishing. The fish are just starting to bite pretty good. I am going out tomorow with a guy that says he knows the lake real well. Says he grew up fishing this lake, we'll see how that goes. I hooked a BIG one today, he got away, isn't that the way it goes....lol.... Really, I did hook a big one. I hope the guy I'm going with tomorrow can show me some things about this lake that will help. This is a pretty big lake.

Till next time
Duane and Louise