Christmas Ornaments and Snow"flakes"

This One's for Natalie...My Green Thinker

Cradle to grave...farm to fork are expressions used to describe a new wave of activity in the environmental sciences. The technical term is life cycle analysis. For any product or process, all of the inputs and outputs and their environmental impacts are considered in the analysis. This allows for someone to take a comprehensive look at how we impact planet earth. Have you ever thought about the ripple effect one item in one meal has on our environment. I took the opportunity to research what the impacts were for

a 3 oz. serving of beef sirloin steak. Three ounces is the USDA suggested serving size for an adult (so why do restaurants serve 8 or more ounces in a serving?). I have created an Environmental Facts label based on the Nutrition Facts label that is currently required to be on all food. The beef provides 7% of our daily requirement for energy but it takes 24 times as much energy to produce those 146 kcal in the beef...most of it from fossil fuel sources. It took 2,000 gallons of water to produce 3 ounces of meat and meat production does produce greenhouse gases that contribute to the warming of our planet. Production of meat can also acidify and add nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus (eutrophication) to lakes and streams polluting fresh water. These are just a few of the environmental impacts. All modern food production impacts our planet to different degrees. If consumers were given this information, would it change their eating habits? Let's do it and find out!

The Agnes Lamar Conference Room

Several years ago the Bradford Pear that was next to the driveway split in half during a major storm. I eventually cut down the tree and dug out the stump. Earlier this year, one of the ladies at work passed away with more than 45 years on the job. We decided to name a conference room in her honor. Several suggestions were made for plaques to hang in the room. I volunteered to make one. I immediately thought of the root ball that I had dug. I had thrown it in the woods behind the house. I managed to find it all the way at the bottom of the hill. I cut a cross-section through the root ball with the chainsaw, sanded it flat, covered it with several coats of epoxy, and then embedded an engraved sign in the last coat of epoxy. There were numerous voids in the cross-section where the roots had grown around rocks and soil in addition to a highly figured grain pattern. This unique plaque now hangs in the Agnes Lamar Conference Room.

Cubic Perspective

I thought I would post pictures of one of my most recent projects that also used my newly acquired drum sander. The turned polychromatic, segmented platter is 14.75 in. in dia. and 1.575 in. thick. It is constructed of walnut, cherry, and mahogany. The feature ring consists of equilateral parallelograms or rhombuses in different grain orientations to give the illusion of a cube. There are a total of 146 pieces. It is finished with tung oil and carnauba wax. I donated it to a charity auction at work.

Speaking of new additions...

I was at a craft show a few weeks ago and I came across a Japanese man who grew exotic unusual miniature trees. I was captivated by miniature roses at only a quarter of an inch long and miniature azaleas a beautiful fuchsia color. I tried and tried to decide which one I would like to bring home with me. I went back and forth between several different trees but finally I realized that the one I really wanted was the miniature orange tree. It is totally real and the oranges are edible although they taste more like a lemon. It is alive and doing fine thanks to the little plate under the tree that waters itself (kind of).