Postcards from the winter

One day of poetry at the Raw-Jah house.
Genuine happiness pouring out of the most simple events...

It's snowing!!!

Crank power

With this post I would like to document and share a very handy and useful woodworking technique that I had never seen applied before: I just figured it out on my own... solving the problem of working with a living element like wood that keeps always it's own Soul alive even if it is apparently perfectly machine-cut.

In order to complete the wooden floor that lays on top of those lovely logs that I levelled few months ago, I just applied and perfected the reverse concept of the method explained to handle (straightening and fixing) tapped boards... and using even thicker boards (32mm on top of those 20mm boards of the ceiling).

The top boards lay about 3 degrees off the alignment with the lower ones so that the two layers tighten each other up in groups of 4 or 5 boards across the whole length of the room.

Ready for rainy days

Big effort working against windy weather and short time... but finally we are ready to withstand the winter! The last weak points on the property have been protected here at the Raw-Jah house. 

WOW amazing beauty of here & NOW

Giving thanks to all the good shining stars up there, you are able to see what's been happening here at the Raw-Jah house lately through someone else's eyes... looking at the pictures of amazing neighbor Antonietta Benedetti, talented teacher and great photographer!

Just click on the next picture and you'll jump straight to the slideshow she made.



Gratitude and happiness...

Bye bye babilon

Step by step, one piece at the time, in spite of all the unpredictable events of this year, today here at the Raw-Jah house we have just managed to get all the crappy materials removed from the property and be disposed according to the environmental regulations.
I am talking about those old style roof tiles made of asbestos fiber which is a well known harmful material since many years now and it's illegal in Italy and in most of the world. It was on the high priority list since the very beginning... so finally we are able to look at the future with a much more positive attitude.

There is some inspiring beauty in this old roof frame.

Tapping into wooden boards

In these days another phase have just been accomplished here at the Raw-Jah house, setting in place about 35 square meters of tapped fir boards on top of 12 leveled logs.

It's going to be the first out of the three layers in program.

So here is a few practical tips and handy tricks to set tapped boards in place... even the most tough ones.

Logs in slow-motion

Los Logs in slow-motion, slide show of the past eight months.
From  September 24th 2019  to  May 31st 2020 

 

Leveling academy

For the specific task of leveling irregularly shaped logs, I am pretty sure this post could be really handy. After two weeks of practicing this technique, everything became smooth and easy to accomplish with a quite good result... or at least, I am quite happy with it! I wrote about this task a few days ago but I didn't explain the most essential part of it all... which is marking the pieces before cutting it.

Here is the most essential set of tools: the spacing blocks.

Yoga of woodworking

In these days, while I keep up with the tough and time consuming meditation of leveling logs, a few thoughts sink in deeper and shape up in some sort of a personal set of guidelines that makes the basis of my own Yoga-of-woodworking. This is not meant to be teaching anything specific but maybe it could be useful to someone... who knows. Definitely it is automatic routine that keeps me going on effectively and in full safety (thanks heavens) since long time and so it's been very useful to me. Some thoughts and actions are very obvious... but it's always a good reminder.

It's beyond Yoga since it's very physical and could be tiring or dangerous. It's an active meditation of awareness, almost like a martial art or a dance. I am going to show also some of my top favorite tools and what I am using now.

Leveling logs

In these days I am busy at the Raw-Jah house with one of the most tricky and meticulous carpentry jobs that I have ever done: resetting the level of the upper side of 12 logs: they are about 5,5 meters long. 

Ware Soku Kami Nari

This is an amazing gift that I received over 6 years ago from a wise japanese man, great musician with a bright Soul. It's a very empowering meditation of gratitude and re-connection with everything in Life: WARE SOKU KAMI NARI

All together it means I am a Divine Being. It is so beautiful to perform this in a big group. Follows an explanation of the meaning of each movement and pronounced sillabe.

Just focus

Just a simple basic thought of my own.
Whatever it's happening within our personal horizon, choosing what to focus on changes completely all the lights and shadows around ourselves.

Food from the wild

Today my first experiment with a wild crafted herb in Italy that I didn't know before. Alliaria from Brassicaceae family. Nice frittata omelette came out of this handful of leaves.

Miso lessons

Another big personal lesson closing this new batch of miso this morning. Very deep meditation from the early stages of setup till the moment of cleaning up all the working space.

Follows a brief series of personal thoughts and notes, listing all crucial points to consider for future productions.

Miso in miso out

In these days I need to make a lot of preparation, boiling jars, setting up pots and ingredients. Last miso is ready to be taken out and a new one needs to start brewing from scratch. All organic ingredients grown in Italy.

Some of the first jars. Over 17 kg this round from the first big bucket and about another 7 kg still resting in another smaller bucket.

Bound to the wild

After setting the support arches for the roses a few days ago, finally today arrives the moment of taking out the plastic wraps from the branches of the roses in the garden. 
This time I do not have any willow for tying like I used to do in the past, so I am going to experiment with an alternative option that I have been selecting from the wild since last year. Right now it looks like this...

Bamboo arches

Today I need to face the challenge of preparing the support structure for the roses that I plated last year. They have already started to open their buds and the time is running into Spring... I do not have many materials to work with (just a couple of bamboo poles, one long, one short) but I have the very best hand tool to split them...

Emergency FFF Farming Fields of Fire

Between the very many japanese ideograms that tickle my mind, some of the most interesting are in the sequence shown in the following picture. The two ideograms on the left written together form the one on the right that means "field".

The other two by each other mean "fire" and "rice paddy". It's a very peculiar combination if we consider the conceptual sequence of the symbols: first it comes the fire in order to make a field from the rice paddy. This clearly points to some sort of ancient agricultural practice and in fact, in some places in Japan, at the end of the harvest season, farmers still traditionally burn rice husks on their rice paddy. They pile up all the husks in a steep mound and then set it on fire lighting it up from the top so that most of it turns into husk charcoal biochar, ready to spread on the field. This is believed to give back to the soil the silica and the nutrients that are needed to grow rice the following year.

Four hundred days for two hands

I haven't been posting much lately but my fingers, instead of typing on the keyboard... they really had a lot of jobs done! I just realized that... Now follows a sequence of photos taken in about 400 days since we moved in here in Italy at the RawJah house and all demolition job was done by two hands (by the way if you like you can check out my video on how to count till 400 with 2 hands here). Few comments, pictures talk.

This is the beginning steps of the first stage of the interior renovation works in the old wing of a century+ year old building, along an ancient canal. It's been quite a discover journey so far, in the techniques and troubles of the old timers.

Ground floor door opening