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Unique Turned Fiber Tools in Native American Hardwoods

The formula for a Russian Spindle includes a Wood Turning Tool that is simply amazing.

Russian Spindle Ingredients

The English Oval Skew from Robert Sorby has cut the turning time on these complex spindles in half…

 No tool is probably responsible for turning more turners away from the lathe than the Skew…When things go wrong with this tool, they become the object example of what not to do…& most turnings on the bad end of a Skew mistake do not survive. It's Oval profile makes for a smooth surface on a long cut...

 I will use it nonetheless & its application drives all other thoughts from my mind while in use…Very much of a Zen like experience when used well...There is really no other way to make a cut across the grain of a burl and leave a mirror smooth finish. The Burl in the Photo is spinning at 1100RPM and is stopped with a 1/4000^th’s second exposure…This is one photo from the Time Lapse Sequences previously posted on You Tube!

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The ImaginariumForge attempts to illustrate the creative muse that inspires TheDancingGoats
Our work is available on ETSY: http://www.etsy.com/people/TheDancingGoats

The Other Bee:

Osmia lignaria is the Native American Bee

Close up of the OMB Catalpa Hive Body

The Orchard Mason Bee is a shy and gentle master pollinator. I use a 6 inch by 6 inch block of end grain Catalpa mounted to an Ash frame...The Females will lay their eggs in a 5/16th inch hole by preference, but I put a few 3/8th's and 1/2 inch holes in the block, so that I can stick the cocoons in there for a hatching chamber if I need to order some. The smooth holes are 5 inches deep. There are 5 broods in this hive, each with about 30 little ones. The males are at the front of the mud plugs and are mostly expendable, just like in a Honey Bee Hive...

One of 4 OMB Hives that we keep at Oak Knoll Farm

Try putting up a hive and see if the little holes get plugs of mud in them before ordering your OMB's.

I made and gave one to a friend and he had OMB's fill its space within a week...

They are 'The Bee in Black' Watch out for the BIB...They are hard to spot...

Just Google: Osmia lignaria  for lots more info...

I got mine from Leon at http://www.jjcardinal.com/ and they seem to be happy at

Oak Knoll Farm.

New Video of the Bees at: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheDancingGoats/videos

See Http://TheDancingGoats.com

The ImaginariumForge attempts to illustrate the creative muse that inspires TheDancingGoats
Our work  is availble on ETSY: http://www.etsy.com/people/TheDancingGoats

I never tire of the mysteries of a Bee Hive…Their little lives are so very foreign to our nature…Their difference and dedication is admirable and fascinating. Manipulation of the hive is not something we do lightly & will always have a purpose associated with it. Making room for the growth of a new hive and making sure they can lay in enough stores for winter is our main priority…The new video shows us adding a new layer or Super to the hive...

Honey Bees building new comb and laying in the goods...

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What happens When in a Honey Bee Hive?

The next layer down in the hive is full of activity

Adding a new layer or super to a hive is done as a part of the growth of the hive. A healthy hive will grow and if they fill it up, they may decide its time to go...Or many of them will...Always mysterious to figure them out. We watch the Hive closely and when the last two outer frames are being laid in a Super, its time to add a layer to the hive.

A new Frame being filled with Honey by the Girls

This process works the same in both the 8 Frame & 5 Frame Hives we use. These photos were taken during the Time Lapse I posted previously

For my ETSY Customers: See Http://thedancinggoats.com

The Light from the Andromeda Galaxy left there at the start of the Pleistocene, two and one half million years ago…

The beginning of the great grinding planetary trials by ice and fire for Gaia…Cycles of wild climactic variability that have tested our kind so hard, we have been left with only rumors and myth. A vast span of experience with no real memory or continuity of history.

Science is only now starting to unravel the mysteries.

The fantastic mysteries in Astronomy & Ecology always help me keep things in perspective…

The Imaginarium team on ETSY held a contest a while back, called ‘Born in the Wrong Century’…As a Maker, Craftsperson, I have always felt that I was born 10 centuries too late to fit in, but in light of recent scientific discoveries, perhaps it was 10 centuries too soon…

 Like Merlin, who traveled backwards through time…Born in the wrong century…yep… That’s the genesis of the cycle in my Tolkien-esque Imaginarium soliloquy...

 From the Imaginarium:
There was a time, when every piece of fabric was hand spun…That time will come again…
Every sail on every ship…Every garment…The tents that kept out the night, hand spun all.
The spindle in all its forms is one of the oldest tools. It will probably be with us at the end of all things.
When, every sail on every ship…Every garment…The tents that keep out the night, will be once again, hand spun all.

New Time Lapse at: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheDancingGoats

Today see one hour of Bee Yard activity in one Minute!

Oak Knoll is a small farm and our bees polinate our orchards...They are Italian Honeybees...We have been feeding them using an Amish Style Feeding System
During the Great Drought of 2012...There are two hive styles in the video. An 8 Frame Amish Hive and a 5 Frame Garden Hive with added Supers on both. I think the Bees like the 5 Frame and to me it resembles the hollow logs they seek out in the forest...They will need 80-90 pounds of honey to safely get through the winter...
My Amish friends are much too modest to advertise, but they make wonderful Cypress Hives at a very resonable price.

A 1000NM Deep IR View of the Bee Yard



New Time Lapse at: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheDancingGoats

My customers always ask how I get the burls that I turn so smooth...The secret is the 'The English Oval Skew' Another example of 'Beauty & Peril' in my work...Peril from its use...Beauty from the result...The Oval Skew requires great concentration, but produces a result like no other...A lateral cut with this tool leaves a turning with a glass smooth finish...I keep it razor sharp...The English Oval Skew’s Oval profile allows me to make a smooth lateral cut across the grain of the wood, including burls…The surface it leaves is amazing…Sanding in both directions with the reversing motor on my Antique Atlas Screw Making machine is the other secret to the smooth finish on my turnings…Fiber folks are a discerning group and a sticky turning just will not do when it comes to fiber tools!

Persimmon Russian Spindle