My friend John (of the beer holder fame) and I had been talking about making custom coasters for his various brewed/distilled products from the farm out of some cool wood from the farm. He really admired my Guiness oak coaster and noted that a ancient cedar had fallen near his driveway.
So my wife and I drove over to the farm with my trust tree bow-saw (don’t like to use a chainsaw for this as the chain oil contaminates a lot of the wood, plus super thin kerf). The three of us marched down his driveway into the woods on the side. I started cutting the tree, when john notes “hey, that whole areas has a lot of poison ivy…”
(I do have an excellent cure for it with citrus solvent, and it was gone hours later, but story for another day)
Now to the amorous turkey. There is a seriously weird turkey on the farm, who kind of is a playah with the ladies. Except there aren’t any female turkeys yet (they hatched but are too young) so he kind of picks humans (both genders) and kind of tries to mate. He went after my wife (the vet) and latched on hard to her leg giving a big hickey until she could pry him off. By the way his head/neck check colors from red to white to blue depending on mood (red is love/excited)
Anyway, got two really nice cedar branches (bright red inside and incredibly fragrant).
I mad a jog on my miter saw to cut .25" thick slices (well .223 as it turns out), and while that little block doesn’t look super high tech, the slices are perfect. The wood is quite well dried out already, but does have a lot of oils of course.
I had to put this in the corner of the shop near some stuff since even with the shop vac on full blast through the dust port, cedar dust is shooting everywhere. Smells nice but is a mess.
First 3 brews. I might make the production ones a bit thicker as they tend to crack (not on lasing, but removing the masking). I will put a finish on the real ones. He will host them on the farm website.