I was contacted by a person who asked if I could turn some bowls from special wood. The wood came from old silver maple (Acer saccharinum) trees that were planted by his great grandparents in the late 1800's. They arrived from Sweden with their parents (his great, great grandparents) in 1879, 141 years ago. He discovered the location of their homestead in an 1898 plat map of Isanti county, Minnesota. The current owners of the land shared a photo of the old farm taken in 1903

The winter has come early this year. We have already had over 16” of snow which quickly turned to slushy ice as the temperature dropped to 5 deg F. Most of this soon melted but a few more inches of snow has already fallen. The Fall Art Along the Lake StudioTour was very successful (all twelve aspen burl bowls sold by the third day) and at the end of the ten day tour, only a few bowls remained. I also earned a very stiff neck from all the last-minute sanding. I have been worki