This piece of heart pine is part of a more-than-200-year-old timber from an old house in Virginia that I'm using for a larger sculpture. My dad had gotten the timbers to use in renovating and repairing his own house in Drewryville. Notice the roman numerals on the side, used by the carpenters to identify the timber for placement in the original house.
A while back Catherine and I helped our friend, Mike, publish a story he had created for his children about a squirrel named Charlie and his friends. We enlisted the help of another friend, the amazingly talented Walt Taylor, to illustrate it. For Christmas, I carved Charlie from a piece of cypress wood Mike had. It now stands in his family's garden next to a grand gazebo.
