Medley of Cutting Boards and Kitchenware

Here are examples of other cutting boards and some of the other wooden objects that would be found in the same setting.

There is a funny story about the hand hewn maple bread bowl in the picture. When I cut down a maple tree in my yard in Newport News, Virginia, I kept this piece and after it had dried decided to try my hand at hand carving a dough bowl.

Wow, was it a lot of work! It takes a lot of whacks with a mallet on the bent gouge to hollow the interior. Doing the sides was even harder. After many labors I set it aside. Many years and three moves later when I was living in Albuquerque, I tired of seeing it unfinished in my shop and completed the project.

Some time later I spoke with my son, Todd, by phone and told him that I had finished the job. He exclaimed with disbelief: “Dad, you didn’t! That thing has been sitting around your shop half done all of my life.”

I do tend to finish what I start. However, that may take years or, in this case, decades. Some things can’t be hurried.