This is dusty, he's a very very patient boy, part maine coon we think

I find it fascinating, but also a little unsettling, that I can moss leaves are one cell thick but I can still see them with the naked eye.

There's a whole world down there, that i never really thought about until a week ago.

And that, right there, is why I garden.

Anyone know how long this little Gaillardia pulchella, firewheel guy will take to go from where it's at, to fully bloomed?

This is rainy. As a kitten we jokingly named her soccer ball because of her markings, but as time goes on she's started to physically resemble one more and more

She's dumb as a box of rocks, but she's cute and she's happy, so that's all that matters

My big, big boy Dusty's fur looks like gills when I do this and I love it.

He's not quite as interested as I am, but that's okay

I've got my work cut out for me, there's a decent amount of flattening needed on a few strips, and the planer I have access to is abut rough around the edges, so not all the joints are perfect, but it's alright overall.

Once it's flattened and cleaned up, the remaining aesthetic flourishes are to use walnut/sapele to put an edge around it or just cap the ends, then ease the edges and router handles into the ends. I was looking at the boos block website, and they offer the option to put the finger grooves in the middle or in the bottom edge and I really like the functionality of having them on the bottom

First off, boy did I underestimate how much wood a butcher block cutting board this size (approx. 15×20×2) would end up using.

The joints also aren't perfect, but I don't have the time or energy for perfection at the moment, this one is kind of a functional proof of concept. I'm going to give it to a friend of mine, but I've been upfront that it will not be perfect.

The next one, that will be made from the same beam, but MUCH cleaner, straighter-grained wood, will be more precise, more consistent color, probably marginally stronger because of the grain, just better in every way

But this only took two days and like three hours of work to go from a massive, rough-cut hunk of maple to this, so I'm pleased with it

So I just picked up this 12"×6"×10' maple beam at an auction today and had to chop off two feet of it to fit it in my car. I'm thinking of making a couple end-grain carving boards for friends with what was cut off.

I'm tentatively thinking of just slicing it into 2" cookies and gluing them together, but I've never seen a cutting board like this that wasn't a collection of like 1" pieces glued together. Is there any reason not to use larger pieces when gluing up a cutting board? Thanks in advance

In a couple days, I'll be the proud new owner of a big-ass maple mantle and 22 square feet of olive, which I've never worked with before

I'm tossing around the idea of using the olive for a table top, but that's far from certain, as I haven't seen any of it in person yet.

What experience do y'all have with olive and what do you recommend?

This is my first piece of furniture with hand-cut mortise-and-tenon joinery. It's far from perfect, but I managed to hide most of the imperfections inside the frame.

I finished it with 50/50 beeswax and mineral oil.

I think the table top and long aprons are cherry, with two strips of what may be oak in the table top? It was in the miscellaneous pile at my community workshop, so your guys is as good as mine. The legs and short apron are sapele, which is probably my favorite wood when it's finished, it's unbelievably lustrous in person.

Happy to answer an questions, otherwise, I just wanted to share the first thing I've ever made that I didn't finish and immediately tear apart all the mistakes I made, I'm genuinely pleased with this one!

A little carpet adhesive, a few staples, a handful of small brackets, and it's almost complete! Overall, it's solid as a rock and has enough mass to keep it stable without anchoring it to any walls.

Only things left are a ramp from ground level to the second story across the front and potentially a hammock somewhere(I'm struggling to see where i could put one without compromising some other useful part of the tree).

Thoughts are welcome!