here's an interlude about how i get ahold of material to work with.

i live most of the way up the west coast of north america, in the salish sea. the tide is part of my life. i'm not very nautical in a high-seas sense but i can pilot a boat around between the little islands around here. and sometimes, with the help of a friend or two, i'll go beach combing for interesting pieces of wood to haul back to shore, load into my truck and bring back to the shop.

since i don't really buy wood, salvage is almost all i've got for sourcing material. i recorded some of the last run, and the odd logs i brought back.

this time we went out in a little inflatable and hit a couple beaches where it's legal to pick from. different beaches, different owners, different policies. it helps to have a local guide who knows who's cool and who's litigious/a tightass. we only picked from sympathetic peoples' beaches this trip. but that's not all we did.

all logs that are floating and aren't dogged/tied up are fair game no matter who owns the shoreline. so another purpose of an outing like this is to spot big logs that might start floating on the next big tide and plan their eventual capture.

this is a way to get big pieces that are (for now) high up on some of these beaches. all about timing. it's sort of like casing someplace in advance of a heist. the big tides are near the solstices, so having a big shopping list/map of cool pieces for when summer rolls around can pay out big.

this time i just grabbed a couple small crooked pieces for smaller-scale turnings and spoons.

more on those pieces later.