decoy carve-in over the weekend

Friday night Jacob and I dined on a feast my wife made of Mahi Mahi covered in a White Flesh Peach Salsa, Smoked Basmati Rice, and Arugula Salad topped with Fried Goat Cheese, then we headed out to the shop to cut out head blanks to carve on Saturday morning.



As you can tell my wife is a hobby chef, so when we woke up Saturday morning we found this note on the coffee maker. Kristan "He Done!" grinds a head here. He got the nickname because everytime we'd start a new project, he'd be done about the time Jacob "Spoonie Lickin" and I "Slow down over there, you can either be fast or good!" got done drawing our lines on the wood.



At some point during the morning, we took a 5 minute breather to float one of Jacob "Spoonie Lickin's" recent frond decoys.



Jacob gets a bite of spoonie while Kristan "He Done!" sets some eyes.


We finished up the hollywoods and took a lunch break, greeted by more post it notes in the fridge. (That's a baby peach pie)

After lunch we put away the dust makers and broke out the paint, we were focusing more on techniques than finished decoys this weekend.



I really wish this picture had come out better. That's Kristan's BWT, Jacob's half finished hen in the foreground, and my bird in the background that only ever got blocked in.



What can I say, it had been a long day and we had to stop SOMEWHERE! My wife cooked us BBQ chicken, potato salad, sweet corn on the cob, garlic bread, and salad with homemade ranch.



We took a much needed dip in the pool (beer and antics),




...ate some homemade strawberry pie and called it a night.

Sunday morning, Kristan cut some stock out on the saw while Jacob and I painted. Kristan's bandsaw is in storage so I told him to bring some wood and cut out some blocks while he was at my place.



Kristan got the idea to take a picture of where we came from and where we are. We joked a few days earlier about throwing each of our first three birds in my pool and giving an award to "best worst" Left to right, Jacob's birds, Kristan's, mine.




Blocked in drakes.



Painting details.



Finished practice boards.



A snack we forgot to eat.



And something totally unexpected happened at the end. Kristan insisted in giving each of us a decoy before he got on his way home. I forgot to get a picture of Jacob's but it is just as cool as this one. We couldn't decide which ones we liked best after Kristan left two on my shelf and said "you guys choose."

How is it at all possible you aren't 500 lbs?

Carving burns bucoo calories.

Well, I am closer to 500 than I am to 0!