Bow making

Shortly before our trip to California, we had the opportunity to make our own bows. We started out with a hickory board pre-cut by our instructor into a general bow shape. Our task was to then remove wood using files and sandpaper until we were satisfied with the result. Rounding the corners, smoothing the faces and making notches for the string were straightforward tasks, but when we finished those we were left with the difficult part of bow making: tillering. Tillering is the process of making the top and bottom limb of the bow even in strength. If one limb is stronger than the other it can have a detrimental affect on how the bow shoots. You can see that my bow is not evenly balanced - the limb at the bottom of the picture (which is actually the top of the bow) curves more gently than the limb at the top of the picture. The way to balance that out would be to weaken the stronger limb by shaving wood from its belly (the inner surface). I chose not to do that for two reasons. One is that the instructor said that some people prefer to have the top limb a bit weaker because the balance point of the bow is actually closer to the top than the bottom so the bottom limb has farther to travel so could stand to be stronger (at least that's what I understood from what was said). The second reason was that initially the limbs were uneven in the opposite direction and I took a lot of wood off (testing periodically) until suddenly the limbs were reversed in strength. I took a little bit of wood off the now stronger limb, but it didn't appear to have much of an affect and I was afraid the same thing would happen and I would end up with a bow much weaker than I wanted.

Most of the class was able to finish their bows with a bit of time left over to shoot them. We watched a video on instinctive shooting and went to it. I was able to shoot relatively accurately from around 5 to 10 paces (the distance recommended to us for starting out at).

It was a long couple of days with a lot of work and some large batches of frustration, but it was a really good feeling to come out of it with a working bow made by my own hands.

Aplodontia Hike

I got back from a school trip to California a couple of days ago. I have a cool story or two to tell from that trip, but I want to get caught up first. Hopefully that will mean I will post relatively frequently over the next couple of weeks.

Back in January I went on a hike to Cherry Falls (near Duvall) with a couple of friends. The trip to the falls was fairly uneventful, but after we left the falls we decided to be adventurous and turn right instead of going back the way we came. We thought the logging road might connect with some that we were familiar with or we could just bushwack through the brush and woods to get back to where we wanted to be.

Early along the way we came upon a dead Aplodontia. Before I came out for school I had never heard of an aplodontia, but they are pretty common around here (they are also known as mountian beaver though they aren't really a type of beaver). They live in burrows and tend to be active at night so they aren't commonly seen (this was the first time I had seen one alive or dead.)

We tried to figure out what killed it, but remain stumped. There didn't seem to be any obvious wounds from predators or vehicles, so we thought maybe disease. I've also seen a lot of shrews dead in the middle of trails with no apparent wounds... A definite mystery.

It was cool to see the different parts up close. You can see here the big digger claws of the front foot and the weird bumps on the hind which would probably show up in good tracks.

After a good long look at the aplodontia we moved on. We were headed generally north (with several switchbacks) and wanted to head mostly west and a little north. There was an occasional trail or road headed west that we explored, but none of them panned out. Eventually we came to a gate by a clearcut. Nearby the gate was a sign warning that it was a test zone for fertilizing with treated sewer sludge. I guess maybe it's good that they're using waste in a productive manner, but it certainly didn't make me eager to explore around off of the road in that area.

Time was progressing and I was getting a little tired. We passed a few westerly roads that looked unpromising - there were several small timber sale locations in the area that roads would go to and stop - and were getting a little worried about getting out before dark. At probably close to 3 (this being when/where it gets dark around 5) Matt suggested that if within 15 minutes we didn't join up with a road we recognized that we should head back the way we came. Though I knew it was the safer option, I was dreading that possibility because we had hiked an extra few miles already, I was getting tired, and even if we did head back that way it would probably be dark before we got back. Fortunately about 10 minutes later we joined into a road that Matt and I had been on back on the day we trailed the cougar tracks. From there we had an uneventful, though still fairly long (probably an additional 2 miles) walk back.

A day of wandering

One of the first days of the term we broke up into our new clans and went on wanders. Trestle swamp, pictured here, ended up being our destination in the sense that we ate lunch there and more or less started heading back (by a different route) when we left it. It was my first time there and we saw what we think was an otter. We then built a fire, which was quite a challenge since we were in the middle of a long streak of consecutive rainy days in the area, but we finally managed with the proper application of pitch.

We found this amazing skeleton earlier in our wander. We were surprised by how little it had been disturbed. The best explanation we could think of was that it died of some disease which made it unappealing to other animals. Though we had some identification guesses, none of them seemed to fit the skeleton. It wasn't until we got back to look at some field guides that we decided it was a possum.

Rain

Just down the road from my house is an overlook of the Snoqualmie valley. This left picture was taken shortly after I moved there in September.

It's been raining quite a bit in the Seattle area lately and now near Duvall many fields are now large puddles. Cherry Valley which borders Snoqualmie Valley near here is affectionately known as Cherry Lake at times like this. One of the fields that borders the highway that runs through Duvall has had several swans swimming over it the past few times I've driven by. The right picture was taken this morning.

Winter Break

I've been away from school for a few weeks, but we'll be starting up again in a couple of days now.

Near the beginning of break I had an enjoyable trip to some hotsprings near North Bend (Washington). I don't remember the name of them, but they were nice, out of the way, run by a non-profit group. There was a long stretch of gravel road - about 16 miles of it - leading up to the trail. We would have had a lot longer to walk if we hadn't had a 4wd truck. There was a log to be driven over, several fairly sizable pot holes, and snow to slog through. Once we got to the parking area there was a short walk to the campground - short if you are willing to wade through a knee deep icy cold river anyway, otherwise you can take the 3 mile walk around.
The campground and hotsprings were in a lovely forest with a creek running down one side. Along with several large trees there is a huge doug-fir on the trail up to the springs. The main pool is set back in a cave that goes back probably around twenty feet. It is difficult to take the heat in that pool for long periods of time, but the middle pool, while much smaller is a very nice temperature, the bottom pool is on the cool side though comfortable and there is a cold water pool off to the side for those feeling adventurous.

After the hot springs trip I drove over to Idaho to spend some time with family and friends. While on the farm I went out with my dad and collected a bunch of different woods to try friction fires with.