Mediterranean Wood

My parents spent their vacation in Croatia and they brought me a few pieces of wood that do not grow in our country. The first one is almond, slightly rotten in the middle section, but it has interesting colors.

The second piece is from "crnika" tree - google says it is called holly oak/holm oak. The wood is very hard and people use it for axe handles. I'll see if it can be used for spoons as well... surely it can't be harder than ebony :)

The last piece is "kostela" or "fafurikula", European nettle tree. I could not find much info about this wood, but it is probably similar to ash wood and sometimes used for furniture.

Experiments with these new woods will be coming soon. Special thanks to Eugen Sikirić for sponsorship and to my father for transporting the wood across Europe :)

Cooking Spoons and Pebbles

In the summer I searched the pile of wood in our garden and I found the rest of the excellent plum wood that I used for carving before. I split it to thin planks and used one plank to carve a cooking spoon. The picture shows the new spoon in the front and one older in the back - it is slightly cracked because I didn't have any better piece of wood at that time.

Next picture shows a birch cooking spoon. The wood was quite knotty, but it made the handle nicely ergonomically bent.

The last item is a pebble from birch wood. The piece of wood was spalted (colored by fungi). It was not suitable for spoons, but I knew how to use it anyway.