Hovland is east of Grand Marais, Minnesota, on the North Shore of Lake Superior.

I am obviously having fun turning my favorite burls. These have the right balance of challenge and reward. Aspen burl wood is always beautiful and each resulting bowl gives great satisfaction. This post shows several aspen burls on a large log. It is always fun planning (visualizing) the bowls that are possible from such a burl. The first four images show the log with its burls and the result of cutting it to give two pieces (bowl blanks) for turning. Note that there are two

I love turning aspen burls but they are very rare and I depend on loggers to sell them to me. These days most loggers seldom leave their large harvesters and stopping to get burls slows down their operation. I only got one aspen burl during the past 3 years! A few weeks ago a friend and I purchased eight large burly logs from local loggers. Here is a photo of a few of the logs. Each log is 15-20" in diameter and contain several large burls. We are sharing the burls. I starte