More Christmas Stuff

   I don't know how I can have so much free time and still move so slow.    I wake up in the morning and wonder what will I work on today and when I go to bed at night I wonder why I did not finish what I had started on for the day.
    So it goes with the list of items that I want to complete in the shop before Christmas.    The second item that I am working on should be simple for a normal wood working person to do, but for me it is just another challenge.  
   Of course there is a story to tell with this task and I am sure that the whole world is looking forward to hearing it.  (Most of my days are spent telling stories and should be spent sanding boards...)
    It started out that in 1972 I planted an evergreen tree by the house on the farm where my parents lived.    It was a mother's day present for mom.  If I remember it was about 18 inches tall.
   Currently my brother lives on the home place and in 2012 he and his wife decided to remodel the house.  The tree that I planted was in the way and needed to be dropped so down it came.   I was thinking that I should try to salvage some lumber from that 40 year old blue spruce so I stole a five foot section of the trunk.   I stored it along side of our house.  (Pam was so proud of having this chunk of wood as part of our landscaping.)  Thinking that after another 3 years had passed this evergreen log should be somewhat dry.   I took it to the "Big City Saw Mill" and had it cut into boards.   I was wrong about it being dry.  I carelessly stored the boards away in my storage shed and when I dug them out this November several were a little warped or twisted.    So by the time I trimmed off the bark and planed off the rough spots the final product took on the appearance of a chunk of firewood.   I ended up with only a little lumber and I was secretly thinking that I should have went to the lumber yard and sourced some pine wood for a few bucks.  And most likely those boards would of had a lot less knots.   (I mean who would have known the difference???)

    There is a reason that a blue spruce tree is utilized as a tree to decorate for Christmas and not as a tree to be sawed into lumber.  For me,  I wanted to gift out some projects that I could say were built from a tree that I myself had planted.    So as the saying could go, these are pieces of wood that only I could love.

   I did a project like this last Spring so it won't be anything new to blog about.   I should have this completed by next week and will have a few pictures to show at that time.  (Plus more stories to tell...)   In the mean time where did I lay my palm sander?  21 days till Christmas.   Move Derald -- Move!