Carving outside in summer

[DiLeon]

IMG_0128.JPGIf you got any good techniques for working outside???? please add suggestions.

Carving outside the sun is shining and UV here is a high 11 in the tropics... Which means it will roast you just like a pig. Also the minute I get out and settled here comes a rainstorm and if not that the mosquitos will eat you alive. I went to a top botanist's house one time, she was in her gardens all day long. She told me she uses those outdoor umbrellas....that she got the plastic pipe and put it in the ground in various places, at times cemented it in...all at ground level so no one trip on it or the lawnmower would hit it. So I started putting pipe in the ground big enough to hold the stem of the umbrella.....and sometimes cemented it in. Today I have six holes in various areas. My umbrellas although did not last in our sun and humidity would break within a year...that is until I started painting the canvass or material with house paint with primer, two coats..making them waterproof plus last at least five years or more plus my favorite colors....some times I will paint flowers on them. When you are painting, open the umbrella fully and put on the ground rolling it as you paint.

I keep my umbrella up unless we are getting a wind storm. I live in the tropics so they are up the whole year. They get put where ever I am going to carve. If buggy I drag out the electric cord and a box fan with something to put it on and point it directly at me,,....that keeps the bugs at bay plus keeps me cool in the high 80s and mid-90s the fan also keeps the sawdust away if I am sanding.

Amazon has a seven-footer for about 40 dollars and 50 dollars for nine-footers, this week I painted two of them lime green, two coats ..they are up. And I can move them to another hole if I am doing gardening to carving. Since I have been doing this, I am outside more than inside. I have one under the lychee tree with lawn chairs, that is one I sit in the most although the cats know it is time to jump in my lap and we sit outside and soak up nature. And the lizards run up my legs and eat the flies that land on my legs, no fan...LOL. I also have gotten ....umbrella good ones on autumn sales. This year I lost two umbrellas in a winter wind storm, did not listen to the wind warning and it broke the umbrella branches.

I read where you can tolerate summer heat if you drink apple cider in your water, this works for me. I have to drink massive amounts of water when outside and inside due to high, high humid, which causes major sweating. The only thing that cools me off is going inside the shop when to hot and turn on that shop fan. As soon as the body cools, back outside again. I love being outside as I also grow exotic gardens and fruit trees. Full of butterflies, birds, and bees. The photo is in the banana garden,....gives you the idea.

[DiLeon]

IMG_0121.JPGThis is another area, someone gave me broken black marble from a contract job.....I made a round cement patio in which I inserted a pipe to hold the umbrella. This umbrella was my first one...seven years ago, although I coated it with white roofing material and then painted it....one thing about these umbrellas the cats are often in the chairs. Great place to sit in the summer and carve, or enjoy the day, and if it rains no worries unless it is lightening then time to go inside. Although you can not see it this was painted dark golden yellow and tree branches and leaves were painted on it with arylic paints. Makes for a fun and very usable project.

[Brian T]

I've only carved outdoors once. Was an artisan's exhibition. I was criticized for leaving a small handful of wood chips on the lawn grass. I can't think of anything polite that I might have said at the time. That was so depressing that I decided that I would never accept another invitation without telling the organizers of the risk.

I have a 21" box fan. I'll copy that idea for the bugs, please and thank you. We have mosquitoes here the size of bats.

I can sit and carve in the shade of my big spruce trees. Zero maintenance as they grow part of a new canopy every spring. They get drippy in the rain. Would have been perfect 2 days ago when 2 PM in the shade was +35C/95F

[DiLeon]

[QUOTE=Brian T;n1199603]I've only carved outdoors once. Was an artisan's exhibition. I was criticized for leaving a small handful of wood chips on the lawn grass. I can't think of anything polite that I might have said at the time. That was so depressing that I decided that I would never accept another invitation without telling the organizers of the risk.
/QUOTE]

I do not do group exhibitions of any kind, I am not into the latest political agenda they have. I always in the past been talked into do doing them and always leave upset. Wood chips in the grass....really? in a world gone mad,.. ecosystem needs wood chips in the grass, not chemicals.

[Brian T]

I just packed up my things and walked away. I won't be going back, thanks.

[Arthur C.]

Di, that looks and sounds a lot like Louisiana...We have sun sails that we run from the house eaves to a board fence to shield the house and rock garden from the afternoon sun until it drops behind the trees. This spring I had a lot of concrete removed from the backyard and replaced with sod and garden, which also helps a lot in alleviating the heat retention. Also have a covered deck behind the house, but I still find it too hot and humid from June through September, plus inconvenient, to carve outside. I do yard and maintenance work only in the mornings, then knock off the manual labor for the day. Can't take the weather like I used to.

[Merle Rice]

Hi Di, looks like a Great Place to Relax, but bad place to Clean up the Chips from Carving . Merle

[DiLeon]

Hi Di, looks like a Great Place to Relax, but bad place to Clean up the Chips from Carving . Merle

I study permacultural a while back and have thought about teaching it. Basic it is a natural way to process the soil...wood chips are the best way to turn bad soil into black gold.....no fertilizers and no sprays for weeds, and trees and plants are super healthy. I am the one standing in the street waiting for the woodturners to bring me truckloads of wood chips which they deliver in leaf bags which I give them, plus a 12 pack of good beer. Saves them the trip to the dump which they are more than happy to give me. Four inches twice a year around the trees and the whole gardens...hard work, but I am not pulling weeds, the chips keep the soil cool and moist, and breaks down into superfood for any plant....plus I can grow mushrooms. I will also take sawdust from non-treated trees. Anyone who makes remarks about wood chips in the lawn eats their words later....smile. So I power carve in the lawn, water the dust into the ground, carving chips get moved to the flower bed if too big. The lychee tree found out grass growing under the tree robs the ground of nutritional feeding, so killed the grass and it now has chips. Got the best bananas in the whole island, no sprays, no chemicals in the ground and the taste is great plus 200 percent organic. No chips in the yard means I am dead and gone....LOL, Just lately I have had six major truckloads of chips come in. Anyone who uses chips like this has super healthy trees and plants, turns dead soil into growing soil. Party time for the worms. So no cleaning of chips but for a few that get stuck on clothes or cats.

[DiLeon]

Di, that looks and sounds a lot like Louisiana...We have sun sails that we run from the house eaves to a board fence to shield the house and rock garden from the afternoon sun until it drops behind the trees. This spring I had a lot of concrete removed from the backyard and replaced with sod and garden, which also helps a lot in alleviating the heat retention. Also have a covered deck behind the house, but I still find it too hot and humid from June through September, plus inconvenient, to carve outside. I do yard and maintenance work only in the mornings, then knock off the manual labor for the day. Can't take the weather like I used to.

Honestly each year I say it is getting worse and worse ...the heat. But I do not have AC normal cost of electricity for a house here about five hundred dollars a month. Unless you got your whole roof in solar panels ....may cut cost. So I have to get used to the hot weather...no choices and the house gets hot about noon.... Fans are my only cooling. I agree.. June to the beginning of November is bad outside. I do notice the people I know who do get outside have no AC....I do know people who go sit in the Mall to get out of the summer heat here. I do most of my manual labor the minute the sunrises..to about noon, and then.mid day forget it. So I chalk it up to getting my vitamin D.

[pallin]

Oh Di, you live in what many people think of as paradise! Thanks for sharing some of the reality. I like to carve outdoors to get the clarifying effects of direct sunlight, but only at the final stages of a carving. We're about five miles from the Pacific Coast, so the temps are moderated. Ten miles further inland can be 15 degrees warmer.

[DiLeon]

Oh Di, you live in what many people think of as paradise! Thanks for sharing some of the reality. I like to carve outdoors to get the clarifying effects of direct sunlight, but only at the final stages of a carving. We're about five miles from the Pacific Coast, so the temps are moderated. Ten miles further inland can be 15 degrees warmer.

We have a lot of people flying here for a vacation the last few months. What they do not know here in paradise is a shortage of rental cars, during the last year's shutdowns the rental car places sold their cars to the mainland leaving a few. So paradise hotel and air flight cost to Hawaii is nothing compared to...the rental cars will cost you seven hundred dollars a day to a thousand is normal cost. Uber wait is about two to three hours if you are lucky. So people are stuck where ever they land.... unless you got about seven thousand to fork over for a car a week to drive around. The insanity of cause and effect of a pandemic. The complaint is why does not someone warn them about these issues?...money talks, truth walks....; in the land of rainbows..

[Randy]

Heat and humidity from May to November on the central gulf coast. Heat 90 + and dew points in the upper 70's, humidity in the 90's to 100% is a typical summer day. With no breeze. Referred as the "Dog Days of Summer". Howevere most of the late fall and early spring are times when I will take my Jaw Horse vise and a box of carving tools to a park on Mobile bay and carve the day away. OH I should share on the back of the Jaw Horse I mount a Rod holder. On a good day I bring dinner home also. But in the summer the window unit in my shop make carving posible.

[Just Carving]

After Hurricane Sandy, I had all my trees evaluated by an arborist as there were four 30 year old plus cherry trees and one maple tree. The maple tree was the one that caught my eye as I could see it swaying in the wind from the ground up. Maple trees don't have much roots compared to others. Longer story shorter, all the trees came down. So, I transplanted a couple of cherry tree seedlings that popped up in the back of the yard from cherry pits from neighbors' trees. Anyway, I needed shade in the mean time. So, we had a huge patio umbrella and holder in the shed but it's heavy and the wind kept blowing it over--even with a concrete block sitting on top of the base. We bought a smaller one--actually a beach umbrella. I took a empty cat litter bucket, put some drainage holes in the bottom, added a half a bag of 3/4" mulch stone with a 2 to 3 foot long piece of PVC pipe in the center. I put the beach umbrella in the pipe. I had portable shade that I could move wherever I wanted in the yard. Then after the umbrella went flying Mary Poppins style on a windy day while I was sitting under it, I lashed the umbrella to the PVC pipe with a piece of old clothesline rope.

Now, nine years later, I don't use the umbrella much because I have shade again.
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Well, on the bugs, I still haven't solved that one. Best solution is to just go back in the AC with the cat. He's the indoor bug controller. He's recovering right now from a busy night.
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BobL

[Nebraska]

I often head out to Wyoming or Colorado for a little fly fishing lots of fine memories sitting under pines or aspen carving a ball in the box.

My sunroom allows me to enjoy the light and views of carving outdoors without the unpleasantries of bugs heat or cold. It is heated air conditioned. In winter I carve at 65* and in the summer 78*

[Eddy-Smiles]

Your sun and heat is very similar to what we experience in central Florida except that your 8-10 degrees in Latitude further South. And I can attest that there is a difference. **** near got myself court martialed while in the Navy for getting a sunburn at Pearl that put me out of commission for 10-days. But the one difference that I do remember is that you have more of a sea breeze than we do and have more benefit from the trade winds. I love to carve outside and do so as long as I can stand the heat and humidity. However, June through September is not a great time for the elderly to be out in the heat. I even bought myself a small table fan to keep the air passing across my body but that's works for only a short time. With it being June 5th I'm now settled down in my den in the air conditioning. My wife is not real fond of the wood chips in the house but as long as I make a decent attempt to keep them under control it doesn't really bother her.