[Steppes] Osage harvesting (was Steppes Bowyers Guild)

[Patrick Cuccurello]

> Maybe an early Saturday morning bowyers meeting at the
> site is in order. To encourage more work a "carry what
> you cut" arrangement might be helpful. :)
> Seriously plan on allot of work cutting these; the
> outside light wood (first 1/3 of the wood) goes fast,
> then you start breaking chains deeper in. If you got
> axes, bring um. You'll be glad you did. Bring
> something cheap to seal the ends on site as well
> (glue, polyu, wax, mud, etc) or your pieces will start
> cracking within days.
> This is rare, good stuff so many thanks to our host
> for the offer. Lets talk about times good for said
> host and maybe setup a survey of which needs to be
> harvested first.

Actually any time after about 8:00am is good.  This weekend I am going to go
over the area and see exactly how many of them there are.  They are mixed in
with the oaks.  We plan on leaving the oaks as shade for the horses.  We'd
leave the bois d'arc also, but it has those nasty thorns and the branches
tend to snap in winds.  The last thing we need is a horse getting a big ol'
thorn in its frog.  The address out in Quinlan is:  3053 Private Road 2282
Quinlan, TX  75474  903-356-4443.  You can enter the address at Mapquest and
get excellent maps.  I will post directions on Monday with a survey of how
many trees we are looking at and their diameters.  I'd recommend heavy
gloves if you have them.  Being impaled by these thorns is not a happy thing
and they have a resin on the outside that makes you itch like heck after you
pull the thorn.

On a side note, this is not near as altruistic as it sounds.  I have always
had an interest in bow making and this seems like an excellent opportunity
to meet some bowyers.  This is also an art that is under represented in the
Kingdom (or at least not well known) and I feel it is part of my duty as a
Laurel to try and support you folks as much as I can.  I would love to start
seeing some of these showing up at Laurel's Prize, Kingdom Arts, GW Artisan,
etc....  It is an incredibly Period art and one that I think deserves
support.  So if you show up, be prepared for me to pick your brains
<<grin>>.

Pet.