Tuesday 3 September 2013

Carve Carrbridge

Saturday was the annual Carve Carrbridge Chainsaw Carving Competition.
I wasn't taking part this year but my wife Alice was. She was the only lady carver this year after Nancy Hemmings had to withdraw. We were blessed with good weather again, there was a couple of spots of rain at one point but it didn't develop into anything. I was Alice's "saw bitch" , my job entailed shifting the big bits of wood about and helping to start our biggest saw which is very heavy and can be a sod to start. A great day, Alice carved a bench with a bird of prey at one side ( a shy height hawk I believe ) and an owl at the other side.

Alice with her carving.

The event was won by Peter Bowsher with his carving of an old woodsman, with Iain Chalmers second with a very big bear and Tim Burgess third with an equally large Bird of Prey.


Pete,s Carving

Iain's Carving

Tim's Carving

We ended up buying one of the carvings in the auction, probably the biggest carving of them all as it was carved into the log leaving the log at full height ( about 8 foot 6 inches ). It's getting installed by the big lorry with hiab from Spey Valley Hire sometime this week. It was carved by Uinnsinn Bateman from Ireland, Alice and I are very pleased with it. It is a biggie, and once it's installed it won't be moving anywhere.

Uinnsinn's carving.

Being involved with the competition albeit only as a helper gets me twitching to have a go again, I've been thinking what I could carve if I entered next year......
We got a lot of the off cuts and smaller logs remaining after the competition so we can have a bit of a refresher and get something carved. Sunday was another nice day although it was very windy and Amy and I had an afternoon carving at our compound. Amy started carving a horses head ( no pic available ) I carved an owl from an old log and a face under a roof !! I don't really know what to call it. Tim Klock carved one in the quick carve competition on Saturday and it looked interesting.

My owl

My face under a roof.

Not too bad considering I've hardly carved anything in the last three years. ( I carved a couple of birds of prey last year but they looked more like crows. )