Sunday, October 26, 2008

Wolf Creek

Meg and I went down to Wolf Creek this afternoon, mainly to get out of the house on a beautiful autumn day. But, business first!

I resumed work on the Alabama Marble 'Falling Star'. I picked up where I left off by cutting the outline along the other edge of the preform.

Then, I began the process of carving the forms from the slab.

I did quite a bit more work on the front side before I flipped the piece over. I wanted to begin the other side before too much progress was made on the front. I wanted to make sure that everything would come together, front and back, as it should.

I've started to 'block in' the main movements.

This is how the back side looked at the end of the week.

Marble is MUCH harder than limestone. This piece has already trashed 2 diamond blades and broken the mounting screws on 2 other blades. You can see a hairline crack in both blades from the 11 o'clock position of the rim, leading to the hub. If I use them any more, they will fly apart. Simply put, it's expensive to work this stone, both in labor and tooling.

This is a view from the side of Lapland Road. Lapland is the last holdout for Timber Rattlesnakes in Meade County. And speaking of snakes, I missed my photo opportunity when Meg moved a HUGE rat snake off the road. It was at least 5 foot long!

When we stopped on a bridge over Wolf Creek, we saw this beaver dam, which had raised the water level behind it by at least 3 to 4 inches.

Beside the most remote stretch of road in Meade County, is the head of Wolf Creek. It's a cave spring of unfathomable depth that comes up under this ledge.

It's too much fun to jump off the ledge into the pool. The water is so cold, it will take your breath away. Over the years, I've taken many friends to this remote spot.

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