Stick surplus

I remember explaining this circular saw cutting posture to a chap a few years ago. If you have no stopper for horizontal cutting where you are working and you have a lot of cuts to do you hold the back of the saw up high and push down on your cut so the work can't go anywhere. It also makes it really hard for the saw to kick back as you have all of your upper body weight to put behind it if you need to. When I was showing the guy I promptly sawed through a nail, because I was so intent on making the point rather than checking for the right spot to saw. Hey ho. I still won't let my son use a circular saw as I consider it one of the most dangerous buggers out there, but the day is fast approaching. Watching people use a tool is an education, but you have to actually pick the thing up to get anywhere. When I was younger I remember getting into a spot once with some of my dads tools, it was an arbor set up with a little table saw thing on one end of an arbor and a cone thing that grabbed a felt wheel for polishing on the other end. The felt wheel was hardly ever on the thing and one day when I was working on the saw it decided to have a go at my dangling sweater. It got quite a grip on it and had me pulled right in towards the saw so that I could only just reach the switch. Kids aye, what are they like. I was more worried about pulling the sweater back into shape to avoid disclosing the event than the near miss with the saw.
We now have a mountain of wood to work through. It is hard not to start seeing all this stuff as materials, there is a huge pile of zelkova sticks out there that could be used for walking sticks or stick chairs. I shall just have to harden the heart and cut as many up as I can. There are also masses of zelkova stumps that look as thougth they should be used for something. So much stuff out there that it was easier to chop up some of the sticks this evening than to get through to the wood pile.
Charcoal on cartridge 38x53cm