josh winkler cabin

 

Yesterday I helped Josh Winkler with some CNC woodcuts. Josh is a recent hire to AppState in the Art Department and so it's been good to get to know him a bit better these last few days of our residency. Yesterday at lunch I was asking Josh about the area he grew up in Indiana. He's originally from the area around Shelbyville, IN but has lived in Minnesota for the last several years. He mentioned to me that he has a cabin in Indiana that he built. So he showed me the photos above from his website. He said this took him fifteen years to build as he would work on it a few weeks out of each summer as he camped on site and built it. The rock he used was from the site except for the lintels and the wood was from ash that needed to cut and the local Amish milled it for him in return for some of the wood. I am in complete awe of this. Inspiring. Speechless...

clearing land

It was the first day of Spring Break today. The little spots you see out in our front yard are American Robins. There were so many in the yard; it was beautiful. I worked most of the day on clearing more laurel from the hillside in front of our house. I made three super large piles that are going to take a while to burn. It's really opened things up in terms of seeing our house. I look forward to seeing things when we have leaves on the trees. I uncovered some large trees that we just being smothered by the laurel. I still have a lot of rootballs to remove, but the uneven terrain should be good for laying out some trials sections for the girls and I to ride. Jill and the girls came out to help the last part of the day and I was so thankful. I was running out of steam.

 

home: woods

I spent some time up in the woods last weekend. I really love our woods and the view from up there. As you climb the hill behind our house you get up high enough that you are able to overlook our house. Jill and I have been discussing buying the rental house with the owners. I have a dream of building a studio and this location would be amazing up in the woods; but my equipment transport up to the studio would be a big pain. That said, it's gorgeous up here! I hope to be able to figure out a plan for a studio in the coming years if we end up buying this place. The woods reminds me of our woods when I was a kid...just more steep. I would love to be able to retreat up into the woods and work here.