Waiting for more supplies

That's better. Got this page all set up.

I have a lot of spare time this week since I don't have any of the wood I need to make a pipe right now. Making a pipe would make me very happy. It is a cold day in michigan, and I'm trapped inside without much to do. I'll probably carve a couple beads out of some oak I have laying around, just to have something to do, but I'd really rather be working on some briar.

Briar is the best wood to make pipes from. It is a very dense wood, with unusual, amazing grain. Briar is a particularly good wood for pipe making for a number of reasons. The first and most important is its natural resistance to fire. The second is its inherent ability to absorb moisture. The burl absorbs and stores water in order to supply the tree in the dry times, and likewise will absorb the moisture that is a byproduct of combustion. Briar is cut from the root burl of the heath tree (Erica arborea), which is native to the rocky and sandy soils of the Mediterranean region.

The brair I use in my pipes is from greece and italy. I'd like to try some of the others, particularly the algerian briar, but I don't have a supplier for it at the moment. For the time being I am forced by lack of funds to buy small amounts of wood at a time, but I am hoping that I can soon start keeping my stock of supplies inflated enough to keep me from running out.

I'd like to have a few more pipes posted in my etsy.com shop, but with an art show coming up I don't have many pipes to show at the moment. Over the next two or three weeks I should begin to post a bunch more. Sometimes it is just hard to be patient. Luckily I have an excellent wife who is great at keeping me from getting in a funk over waiting. And speaking of waiting, I think she's waiting to get at the computer, so I'll leave off here.