If you’ve been keeping up with us, we had a couple of cedar trees removed two weeks ago. One was in the way of peaking the garage roof (I still haven’t gotten over this: who puts a flat roof on a garage in Washington? LOL), while the other was in the way of the addition we’re going to build for my office. The second tree was actually four trees growing so close together that their trunks grew together, and they were smack dab in the middle of the backyard, where they could be seen from any window at the back of the house. Because of their placement at the base of the hill, the guys who cut them down couldn’t get the stump grinder in there, so we were left with this: an ugly stump with four tops on it.
I’ve been groaning about the loss of the cedar trees, and Dave’s been quite unhappy with the thought of having to live with that big old stump for the rest of his days. That’s when his gears started turning. You see, there’s this guy who carves things with chainsaws over in Rainier, Oregon. We drive by his place every couple of weeks or so. His name is Robert, and he has a website called Knot Just a Bear. We were out running errands on Wednesday, and were going to be going by his shop anyway, so we stopped and talked to him about our stump. We didn’t commit to anything at the moment, but we were even more interested when we left than when we got there. I called him on Friday, and we ended up all at our house together Saturday afternoon.
Robert roughed out the bears, then he gave them a bit more detail, and then some more, and a little more, then they got black noses and paws, and they got little beady glass eyes, and they’re absolutely fabulous. Here’s a bit of the progression.
Dave’s put together a movie from all the video we took.
Bears begin to emerge from the stump.
Robert is hard at work.
And we continue…
A little fine touch-up with the smallest chainsaw. Now they get fur. Look how he’s laughing! I think it sort of tickles.
Now to darken up some bits. Robert said that the wood was better to carve fresh, but since it’s fresh burning didn’t work to darken the bits. He had to resort to black stain.
Now the eyes go in. Ouch! Oh! Oh, wait. I can see now. Sweet!
And here’s the finished bear family. As usual, there’s one bear looking off in a totally different direction. We have been directed to coat them with spar varnish to protect them. We’ll do that soon, and report back.
If you want to see all 76 photos we took on carving day, please feel free to view them in the bear gallery.