We’ve had a secret here in Minnesota until just a couple of weeks ago. Winter had ignored us … and we were OK with that. Other people I chatted with across the country were shoveling out from under piles of snow and shivering through low temperatures. I listened with sympathy, but kept mum about our weirdly warm and dry winter here in the upper Midwest. I was afraid that I would jinx us, that the Nordic spirits would figure out that they had been far too kind. All of that was just silly superstition, apparently. Last night as I was walking to the store in -15° air temperature (yep, not wind-chill), after having shoveled a ton of snow in the last week or so, it all suddenly made sense to me why the volume of woodworking increases so much in the winter. Even if you make a crummy project, at least you can burn it to keep warm!
So, stay inside and keep on making sawdust. Take advantage of the season and build to your heart’s content. I suppose that spring is coming, but I’ll need to be convinced. It was only minus 8° this morning: things are just getting better and better!
– Rob Johnstone, Woodworker’s Journal
