ME AND MY SPOON

I guess at some point, every woodcarver has go and carve a wooden spoon. So I thought I would give it a shot!!! I figured start big and work my way down.

Actually this is my latest commission and it is almost done. I have somemore sanding to do and several more coats of paint and than I can send it off to my client.

It is being carved for a restaurant in Las Vega, Nevada. The name of the restaurant is the Wicket Spoon. This spoon measures just over 7 feet and will be part of the entrance way into the Wicket Spoon.

With the way the economy has been, it is nice to still be getting commissions. My next project is a small sculpture of cut out letters reading "NEW YORK". A couple more Tiki Plaques and I have to finish making some knives this coming week. So I will be working in the shop most of the week.

Terry R. Wolff

ELECTION DAY

On Election Day after voting Linda and I took our dog Lady for a walk at Ojo Calente. Here is a shot of the two of us.  It was suppose to be a picture of Linda and I but Lady wasn't up for taking the shot, she had other things on her mind.

It's too bad that I have to always keep her on a lead as she is a runner and always wants to play "catch me if you can" whenever she gets the chance. At 13 you would have thought that she would be past that stage. 

Terry R. Wolff

DOORS, NINE DOWN ONE TO GO!!!

Yes, I am getting really close now. This door is the most elaborate of the series. It is the door that separates the living room from the mechanical room, leaving only one more door left to carve. What does this mean? It means that now I will have to hang them. But more importantly, it means that the house is getting closer to completion and that I will be starting on a new main entrance door to replace the existing one.

The reason that this door is quite different from the rest, is because I chose to have it compliment the entertainment trastero (a common Spanish hutch found here in northern New Mexico) which is located near to this door. Well lets face it, at about 1,600 square feet, everything is close to everything. Anyway the Indian blanket has been replaced by this door and has become our cats new bed to fight over.

The first of the interior doors that I completed for the Solar Ranch was about two years ago and was made from Ponderous Pine whereas these eight doors that I am now working on are made of Sugar Pine and vary slightly from the original door.

The second interior door was originally an exterior door when the mechanical room and laundry room were one in the same. However about three years ago I decided to add solar water heating and need somewhere to put the 240 gallons of heated water. So in order to accomplish this I added a separate laundry room off the mechanical room which gave me another interior door. This door was never carved! So guess what I will be doing with this door sometime in the near future?

Terry R. Wolff

THE SPICE RACK DOOR

Back in October of 2000 I started building our house out in Carson on the west side of the Rio Grande. An area known as part of the West Rim. This was exactly one year after I started my woodcarving studio which I finished that June. We moved into the house in February of 2002 with the exterior completely done and mush of the interior completed as well.

I worked on the house around carving commissions, carvings I did for a few years for Taos Fall Arts and doing installs for Gary over at Taos Mountain Electronics. In 2003 to make my life just a wee bit more interesting or maybe complicated I added a solar business to the mix (thus the name of our property, Solar Ranch). What was I thinking. Perhaps that I could do it all!!! Well, here it is 2010 and I am finally realizing that I don't seem to have enough energy as I did when I was in my 20's or for that matter in my 50's.

This past month or so just trying to up grade the solar site and bookkeeping programs are tiring me out. But after working on the Turner carving project with Peter Templeton I had decided that this is also the year to finish my inside doors. I did do a door for the bathroom a few years back. And I do have almost all the cabinets and furniture made and carved. I just have these last eight doors to do.

The spice door is my fav. It combines the door to the pantry with a built in spice rack which can be accessed from either side. As with most of my projects, they always seem to involve carving. All eight of these doors are carved on at least one side with a theme I created for the house. You can see it here on this door. This theme is carried throughout the Solar Ranch, on all the doors, gates, and furniture.

Here are some additional photo details of this door.


Well that is all I have for now.

Terry R. Wolff

THE INTERNET HAS BEEN TAKING UP ALL MY TIME

FOR THE PAST MONTH I have been working on my Solar-Catalog.com website. But a few days ago I have decided to head into Taos and hang out at Caffee Tazza and catch up on my correspondences and one of these is to touch base with you the followers or readers of this blog.

On the site, I have given it a fresh new look. I changed the format of the page style, added several new products and lowered prices where I could.

Now for some Solar Trivia, at least as it has been handed down to me...

Remember Trace, they were those folks up there in Washington state that several years ago started buying up some of their competitors and expanding their inverter product line. Then about a year later along came Xantrex, a Canadian company who swept down and gobbled up Trace. This caused some of Traces engineering department to jump ship, thus forming a successful company just in Traces back yard. That company is OutBack. This lead to other off shoots such as MidNite Solar and Magnum. Well just a few years later and Xantrex as well as Square-D have been acquired by Schneider, a French company who has now thrown their hat into the growing solar industry. There you have it, today's solar trivia.

Here in Carson as in Taos we have been waiting with bated breath for the rains to come but unfortunately they have just been teasing us. Yes we woke up this morning with our soil being slightly damp but that is not enough to help our plants out. I know that my friends and family up in the northwest would love to ship some of their rain down our way but....

I can't remember if I mentioned that last week-end Lady and I caught a bull frog down at the Rio Grande which I introduced to one of our ponds. Which pond really doesn't seem to matter as they they hop back and forth between ponds during the evenings. Also caught a toad the other night. Took it inside so it could meet Linda and than returned to where I found it.

Lets see, what else is new and exciting? ......nothing I guess. Lets see, I am still working on my inside doors and completed the headboard for our bed and today I remudded the bedroom window sill where Pogo damaged it from pouncing out of the overhead storage area.

Lastly, this isn't exciting but fellow carver and sculptor

Well, I have got to leave now so I can address my woodcarving readers.

So until next time, may the Sun light you way, both day and night.

Terry R. Wolff

SNAKE AGAIN!!!

Well it has been a year now since that rattle snake showed up at the Solar Ranch. No he's not back but another one showed up, a younger one, not quite as long.

There I was painting the outline on some letters in the carving studio, minding my own business as it were when the phone rang so I headed to the office to answer it. As I did, this little rattle snake was making his way out of the office. My first thought is that this sneaking little guy was messing with my computer. He must have thought I was upset too, so he turned around and started to slither away. That is when I grab his tail and caught him.

Together the two of us went over to the paint department so I could finish cleaning my French Master paint brush. got to set your priorities. I think he was getting kind of bored and that was about the time when Linda came over to get me for breakfast. The little bugger snaked his way up and tried to bite me. Good thing I was paying attention. That is when Linda decided that I needed to get him to some new location out of the studio before she'd have to drive me to the hospital and explain that what a jerk I was for saving my paint brush over myself.

Anyway, the little rattler is somewhere in the area and every time I go in my office, I wonder what mat be waiting for me.

Terry R. Wolff

PS There are no image this time because Linda didn't feel like getting the camera and she wouldn't hold the snake so I could get it. I Just delivered the refurbished sign to the Pilar Yacht Club. Rico and I just got done hanging it and I will post an image of it on my woodcarving blog.

Brought Lady down here with me and stopped at the river before we got here so she could take a swim. While there, we came upon a bull frog in the rushes. Using my same lightning fast snake catching technique I scooped him up before he knew I was there. I will be introducing him to my other Rio Grande Bull Frogs in one of my ponds. This will be the first one to arrive as an adult frog, as all the others arrived a polliwogs.

JUST GOT A NEW CAMERA CASE

As you may remember, earlier this year I upgraded my digital point and shoot camera to a through the lens Nikon. After months of feeling insecure about traveling in my rag top Jeep Wrangler, I decided to tighten up on the security and make my camera feel safe.

My first thought was to bolt a steel box in the back of the Jeep. The first problem was that it would be in the way of the back seat if I should ever put that back in. The second problem was that it would in-tale a bit of physical labor and such.

With that to consider, I came up with what I think is a much more secure plan.

So, I came up with a better plan, I simply replaced the Jeep with a Toyota Rav4. And that seems to have solved the problem perfectly. In fact even my dog seems to like is new arrangement better as well. Now she has the entire back portion of the vehicle all to herself. She also likes some of the new benefits, such as it being a hell of a lot quieter and smoother ride, has a better sound system as well. Well, actually a sound system that works!

So my friends as you can see, for every problem there is a solution!!! Now that that problem has been solved, I now have to solve the problem of paying for it. So if you are in the need of any solar products or need a custom woodcarving, please give me a shout.


Terry R. Wolff

SPRING 2010 HAS ARRIVED AT THE SOLAR RANCH

A portion of a carving I did for the Vermijo Park Ranch project

April 17th was my birthday and along with it came this years first humming bird so I set up one of our feeders. And today, Sunday, the first frog of the season appeared at one of our two ponds. The plants are getting green and starting to bud and some are even flowering and it is warm enough to ware shorts and a tee shirt.

The birds are selecting which bird houses they want to raise their new families in. This year the bluebirds are in fierce competition with the sparrows who have decided that our bluebird houses are just what they need for themselves. So I suppose that sometime today I will need to start on some additional bluebird houses. Like 11 isn't quite going to be enough this year.

The renegade raven is back already this year! Last year he discovered that he could get lunch in the form of our goldfish from our ponds. I caught him circling the ponds already this morning and sent him on his way. I am sure that he will return on another day. The interesting thing is that on some days we are within a flight pattern which sees hundreds of ravens commuting back and forth from the evening nesting to the south to their day job to the north and back again at the end of the day, yet this one raven has not shared his find with any of his buddies. On two separate occasions which I observed last year, he fended off an osprey that seemed interested in the ponds as well. Yes, life here in the desert can be interesting.

I know that I have been pretty busy this winter with the solar business, skiing and carving so I failed to post the news about our new arrival. A couple of months back I took Lady Wolf, the dog that adopted our house, to the vet to get her required by law shots. While there this skinny, half shaved black cat comes over and sits on my lap just as if he knew me and that this was something he always did. So before I leave while paying the bill I asked what's the story with the cat. So I'm told that back in November one of their clients brings this almost dead road kill in and plops down a hundred bucks to have his face reconstructed. Ted, our vet than adds an additional thousand plus bucks of his time to reconstruct the critter's broken leg and hip and decided that he would make a good mascot, wrong. As we found out that Lucky (our name for him) was much too hyper for that job. Just not quite mellow enough. Anyway, the net day on my way back from skiing I picked him up and took him home. Now we have Dieblo (their name) living at the ranch with us. Now that he has been with us for awhile it is uncanny just how much he acts like Critter my New York black cat.

I just got back from feeding the pond goldfish and again chasing away Mr. Raven. Now there are two frogs in the front pond.

The Petaca a waterway that runs near our Solar Ranch has been flowing for the past few days. Normally the Pataca is a dry waterway, having water sometimes after a heavy rain storm. Now it is flowing like a small river. This only happens when there is a good winter runoff from the snows. Since living here, this is only the second time that it has run for more than a day. They tell me that on a good winter of snow, it runs from Wolf Creek Ski Resort all the way to the Rio Grande and can run for a week or so.

Well that is enough for now, it is about lunch time and then it is off to start some new birdhouses and this year I am going to finish all my inside doors. I worked out a deal with Peter Templeton and his skilled team is going to do the assembly of each of these nine doors which will free me up to do the carving on them. That will be nine steps closer to finishing the house. After that I will attack the stone work, leaving only a few minor items. I may even make a new main entrance door while I'm at it.

Spring sure is a time of renewal and like the plants, we humans are also renewed with new energy. So get out there and enjoy this beautiful season.

Terry R. Wolff

PS I am doing this Blog on my laptop and do not have any images of Lucky in it so I will post his mug on here in the future.

BIG PHOTOGRAPHY DECISION

Well, I did it!!! I decided to get back into photography. That does not mean I am giving up woodcarving or my solar business, it just means that I want to start taking more than point and shoot photos.

Yesterday I pulled out my old Nikon film cameras and sorted through all my lenses and stuff. I remembered how much I had enjoyed using them and decided that it would be fun to start shooting again. Besides it seemed like a waste to have so much good equipment and not use it. Well, I don't know if I will use any of those camera bodies but I will be using the lenses on my new Nikon D90.

Yes I bit the bullet and went for it. So sometime within the next few weeks I will be experimenting with my new digital single reflex camera. How fun. In the meantime, I am going to have to work my butt off to pay for it.

SO DOES ANYBODY NEED a custom woodcarving, carved sign or some solar equipment???

Terry R. Wolff

PS I would like to thank Ken Rockwell for use of the image. Ken has a lot of good information on his website about Canon and Nikon digital cameras, so if you are interested in digital cameras or product reviews there you have it.

THOUGHTS ON A GREAT AND PEACEFUL YEAR

Well I came home from skiing a bit ago and was looking over at the fireplace and saw this woodcarving "The Angel of Hearts" what I carved for my wife Linda back in 1998 and thought I would use it in this post since I was thinking that it is about time that as a race of people, that we should start looking at what is going on in this world and wonder if we are any more civilized than we were back in the time of the meandering Barbarians or the days of the Roman Empire. Oh in the terms of culture yes but what about when it comes to respect of human life on the world scale?

As Americans, we seem to have had the fortune of not having a war fought on our soil since the Civil War and of course that is a good thing. Well good if we as a nation were not involved in any wars since the Civil War. But as we all know, that is not true and perhaps since than there have been at least two times the our involvement actually did make a difference to world harmony and these wars were called World Wars. But what about all the others? As I write this, we are presently engaged in two wars in the mid-east thanks to our former commander in chief / Mr. Mission Accomplished. Yea right, so why are we still there?

For what purpose are we sacrificing our young men and women? If the news outlets were actually doing their job (now there's a concept) and reporting on just how crappy wars actually are. How mentally screwed up our solders are when they come back to the states. How about showing us what our VA hospitals are having to deal with. I think, that if the American people really saw what sort of damage war does not only to our troops but also the poor people that are forced to live in our war zones.

I know some people think that this is all part of Gods plan for whatever reason and therefore whatever we do to "OTHERS" is perfectly justifiable. You know, that Foxx mentality!

Lets go back in history and look at Viet Nam and those unfortunate people who lived in Laos and Cambodia. What I am getting at is that we, America can and should make a difference. How a country that claims to be great ever stop other atrocities which are also presently going on if we don't step up to the plate and start paving the way. Somebody has to do it and I sure as hell wish that it were us.

If you ask me, mankind is really making a mess of this planet and if you look at the writings of all those that all our modern day religions are based on, they all seem to have one lost message, LOVE. So with almost every human being on this planet professing to belong to one of these modern day religion, why are there so many wars in the name of some religion or other?

Well, with that said, I am done rambling!!!

I am going to continue thinking about a better world, and that is what I will be thinking every time I look up at this woodcarving. I hope feel the same. So have a good year.

Terry R. Wolff