Well, I'm back after a long weekend away. Spent last weekend in Cour de Alene Id. at the Timber Framers Guild western conference. It was fun to catch up w/ old friends and meet some new ones, and always get inspired by all my peers doing such great work and sharing it through the Guild. This year we had Ma Bing-jian here from China talking about and showing how to lay out and cut Dou Gong bracket sets composing of 40 parts. See image below. Another high light for me was the joint busting- it's watching a crash at nascar for a timber framer. We had glu-lams, scarfed beams and how cool a keyed beam. The keyed beam had a point load of over 40,000 pounds before failure.

My buddy EJ of Med Hat design/fabricate up in Gallatin Gateway Montana is up to some cool stuff as well. I stopped by there and visited. They are working on a prefab project that will be trucked in three modules to the Ruby Valley in July.

I love what a craftsperson can do w/ a vision.

Stay posted for the updates on the Pushroot Community Garden Gazebo. My latest thinking is to truck it down the Lander 4th of July parade on it's way to it's next home.

While winter wants to hold on a bit longer, we are ready for warmer more stable weather. This last week I got the lions share of the remaining siding on house addition done. Lena, my daughter helped and that was a lot of fun.

Also in the works is the Pushroot Garden Gazebo. I am very excited about the look and style of the structure. I hope to get going on this in the coming weeks.

spring break

Spring break is here and it's snowing like crazy. The crew has taking the week off and I'm using this time to get caught up on my own house addition and some estimating. We will have about week to finish up Lowham's timber framed barn when we get back to it next week. Andy and I had a powwow this morning on some of the details for a recycled timber framed gazebo. WWB will donate the design and cutting of the frame. Once the frame is ready and there is date set we will raise it at the Pushroot Community Garden. Look for more details to be coming.