Alright, let's go ahead and get started. Again, thank you all for joining us for today's webinar. This is the sixth in your eight-part series to complement your in-person training for the Texas Heritage Responders Team. And these programs are made possible through the generous grant funding support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Today's program is the conclusion of our little three-week marathon of webinars. We'll have a couple of weeks off and then pick up a session in May. I'm going to go ahead and pull over your webinar schedule here just as a reminder. If you end up missing any of these upcoming sessions, I will email you after the program with a link to the webinar recording. Simply email me when you've finished viewing the program and I'll mark it on your file. Before we begin today's presentation, just a quick refresher of technical notes. On your screen, you'll see several boxes including one labeled chat on the left-hand side. Of course, use this for asking questions and if you do post a question in the chat box, you'll receive a response from me. Any questions will be noted, collected, and then I will verbally ask them about our presenter at the conclusion of this presentation. Today, our presenter shared a PDF with us that is available in the files box at the bottom of your screen. Click on the title to highlight it in blue and then click the download button to save a copy to your computer. And with that, I'm very pleased to introduce you all to today's presenter. John Brandon is the owner and principal conservator at East Point Furniture Conservation. East Point is nationally recognized for providing conservation services to individuals and institutions that place a high value on their furniture. John is certified by the Smithsonian Institution to work on objects ranging from national treasures to family heirlooms. With 35 years of experience, he has worked on major collections of American and European furniture from museums, the US government, and private collectors. As an NHR team member, John has responded to large and small disasters including Superstorm Sandy and locally after Hurricane Harvey. With that, I'd like to turn things over to John for his presentation on furniture salvage. OK, thank you, Jess. And good afternoon, everybody. It is afternoon here in Maine. So it's my pleasure to talk with you today and I hope I can prepare you for salvaging furniture. My goal is to make this as practical as possible. And I think you'll find it straightforward. So right here in the beginning, I'm going to show you a couple of pictures of an historic village museum that experienced a flood. And I've been involved in several disasters. But this doesn't mean that I know everything there is to know. But what it does mean is that I have experience. And what that experience has taught me is to be ready for anything. And when you run into a situation where you don't know what to do, you can consult with a colleague if you need advice and call somebody on the phone. And that's just what our team leader, Dennis, is doing here during our response to the Houston flood last year. We ran into some taxidermy that none of us knew anything about. So Dennis called a friend who happens to be a taxidermist. So it's not unusual to find yourself in unfamiliar territory. So before we really begin the presentation, I'd like to start here with our first polling question for everybody. In fact, there's going to be four questions and we'll just ask them one right after another. And this will give me a better idea of our audience and who I'm talking to. So it looks like we have a good representation of conservators. And the next highest one is other. So conservators have a lot of experience handling objects. And I think this will be useful for everybody. We're going to talk about how to handle objects in particular furniture. The next polling question would be, Jess is running that for me, so here it comes.  Aha. Okay, it looks like a number of people have touched furniture before. At least tried to repair it or refinish it. And I like the last category that says wish I had. Well, you just may get your chance. Hopefully it won't be during a disaster. The next polling question, what type of furniture do you have in your collection? So I'm presuming that everybody is associated with some kind of a museum collection. A bit of a more complicated question. You have to think about what's in your collection here. Looking like most people have historic furniture, old things, not too many modern, some veneered. Most of what we'll talk about today will be geared towards older aged furniture with veneers, made of wood. So this is going to be useful for a lot of you in many ways. Josh, just a quick note about that. Unfortunately, people can only select one answer. So I realize there might be some cases where people had multiple Olivia just noted modern and historic. But yeah, great to still get a sense of that. Okay, I'm pulling up the last question now. Have you ever used linseed oil or lemon oil on furniture? Don't be afraid to say yes. I have done that myself. And so I'll say just a little bit about this. You shouldn't be doing that. Linseed oil was an old tried and true kind of way to maintain your furniture, but it's not a good thing. And even these newer oils like lemon oil or even pledge over-the-counter kind of furniture polishes are not good to be using on a furniture collection. They create more grime than anything. And there's better ways to care for your furniture. Mostly what I tell people is to leave it alone. Don't do anything. Just keep it clean with a dust rag. So okay, we can stay away from the oils. All right, we'll pick it up from there. And so just to be clear, and I'm sure everybody understands this, that salvage is the initial response to a disaster aimed at saving the object. We're not talking about conservation treatment here. And that will come later on when the salvage operation is over and the disaster is behind you. You're probably familiar with this list, and many more items could be included here. In my experience, the most frequent kind is an event that involves water. Even if it's a fire event, there is usually a heavy water component because of the fire department blasting everything with their water hoses, or the sprinkler system in the building has soaked everything. Most of the furniture you encounter, the primary material will be wood, but it often includes other materials. So you may have to call on your training for those types of materials, even though you're dealing with furniture. Here's one example of a non-wood piece of furniture. While there's probably some wood underneath the seat that holds the frame together, the chair is primarily leather and horn, plus the upholstery foundation. Upholstery foundation materials include everything but the show cover, in this case the leather. So the foundation gives it shape and provides strength for sitting, and we'll talk more about upholstery in a moment. So wood is a relatively durable material. It falls somewhere in the middle in the range of durability of objects. And we can prioritize furniture based on how it is constructed, such as having veneers or the materials that are attached to the furniture, such as gold leaf or upholstery. And just a reminder here, all of these slides, all of that information is contained in that furniture salvage handout that you can download. So this is already written down for you if you just take that handout. Since wet events are the most common, let's cover that first. Wood is a hygroscopic material, and there are consequences for that. And that means that it will absorb water. So these are before and after pictures of a flooded church interior. The water level rose to about halfway up the windows, so it was very deep water. And you'll notice in the right hand picture that pulpit that's laying on its side, that used to be up near the front of the room. And this is another picture of a flood aftermath inside an historic schoolhouse. The furniture floats around in the deep water, and then when the water recedes, the furniture drops in place wherever it is. You'll notice two desks in the front did not move because they were bolted to the floor. And so here's my pointer here. These desks right here are bolted to the floor. And in fact now I see a third one right here. So I mentioned that wood is hygroscopic, and that means it will absorb water. And we need to be aware of this when we encounter wet wood. This picture is showing you the end grain of three different boards. I'll get my pointer here again. And so this is the end grain of the board here. All three of these boards started out the same width, and that was about 10 inches from this line over to this line. Then the bottom board was fully saturated with water. The middle board has about 12% moisture content, and the top board is oven dry and has essentially no water. And what's happened is the wood has changed dimension. So when wood takes on water and gets wet, it expands, and when it loses water, it shrinks. And in this case, we have about a half an inch difference in dimension just because of the water. Things to look for when you run into wet water. It's going to take on the weight of the water it absorbs. High humidity will activate mold growth. Vineers and joinery will delaminate because of water-soluble adhesives. And veneers can become deformed, either when they get wet or as they dry out. And as we just saw, wood will expand when it gets wet, and this can cause doors and drawers to get stuck shut. Blanching of coatings means that water has penetrated into the finish and caused a disruption of the finish, which impairs the transparency of the coating, and it usually turns white. I'm going to show you some examples of these conditions, and then we'll look at salvage procedures. So here's an example of a phone operator switchboard in a wooden cabinet. This piece was almost completely submerged in water, and the waterline, as you may have noticed, came right up to here. So again, this was deep water. What you see on the surface as a hazy white layer is a combination of blanched coating and active mold growth. This is an extreme case, but you'll run into varying degrees of this. Here's an example of active mold on the legs of a table, and you may be more familiar with seeing mold like this. This is an example of a veneered panel on a chair leg that's delaminating as a result of water exposure. Another example of veneered furniture. This is a desk, and this one is to the extreme, with every inch being covered with veneers. Here's that same desk showing one side in raking light, which demonstrates how extensive veneer delamination can be. These are parts of a table that are detached because of exposure to water. So it loosened the glue, or the adhesives. So we have some structural pieces and some veneers, and when you encounter loose elements, they should be gathered up and labeled and placed in some kind of a container for safekeeping so they don't get lost. You might be tempted to place them in a plastic bag, which is standard museum practice for those of you in collections care. But if the items are wet, it's not good to enclose them in plastic because it won't allow them to dry out and it will promote mold. In this example, I'm showing the pieces stored in a drawer that's part of the table with an identifying label. A small cardboard box could work just as well. When you need to move an object that has damaged veneers, you'll need to take some precautions before wrapping it in padding or a blanket. The front of this clock case is covered in a variety of different kinds of veneers. In this case, a water pipe in the ceiling burst and sprayed water on these veneers. Before we look at the damaged veneers, I want to say a word about moving objects like this. In the right hand photo, you can see that it's wrapped fairly snugly in a furniture pad. Be aware that tall case clocks like this should be disassembled before moving. In fact, they're built such that they're intended to be disassembled. The bonnet slides forward and off the case, and then the clockworks can be removed, which includes the dial and the pendulum and the weights. On the right, you see that the bonnet has been removed, and the backboard is sticking up at the top of the blanket. This is the backboard. It runs all the way from the top to the bottom. It's one continuous board. It lends rigidity to the case, and you can feel comfortable carrying a tall case clock by handling the backboard. Now let's take a closer look at the bottom panel, where most of the veneer damage occurred. Here's a closer look at that panel. You may notice a couple of horizontal cracks. I'm going to point those out. These cracks are along here, and another one here. These are very old cracks, and you can tell that because the cracks are dark, and they have darkened with age. If these were new splits, you would expect to see fresh or light-colored wood along the edges of the cracks. Remember that this entire panel is a thin layer of veneer glued onto a secondary wood substrate. The old dark cracks are stable, and by that I mean the veneers are still well adhered to the substrate. What has happened here is that the substrate would split, not necessarily because of this water event. It's just because this is a 200-year-old clock, and the wood developed a split. The substrate developed that split, and then being very thin, the veneer followed the substrate and split at the same time. Also notice the top right corner and the bottom left corner. I'm talking about right here and down over here. These are veneer losses, and the pine wood substrate is visible here as a lighter-colored wood. These things that I've just pointed out are not of great concern in terms of wrapping the object in a pad, and that's because these areas are stable and still well adhered. But when we view this panel from a different angle, you'll notice a condition that should be a red flag in terms of wrapping the object.  They are definitely unstable, but by some miracle they're still in place. And here's another section a little further down the panel, and it's not hard to imagine the danger and the damage that can happen if this is wrapped in a padded blanket. The fabric of the pad can easily catch on the protruding pieces and the sharp edges, and the veneers could get ripped off of the object. The solution to this is fairly simple by using a barrier layer between the object and the blanket. In this case, glassine paper is used, two or three layers of it actually, but anything will work that is smooth and will slip across the surface without catching on the veneers. The glassine is wrapped around the area that needs protection, and here it's tucked under the lower edges so that no tape or attachment is necessary. Then it's wrapped in the blanket and is now safe to move. Here's an example of joinery that is separating. Even old repairs can come apart. And again, this is usually due to water-soluble adhesives that get wet. And in case you haven't seen it, I'm talking about this area right here. Right around there, we have this long split, and down here is a dowel joint that has broken and come apart. This was an old repair, and the water from the water event penetrated that repair and the glues released. This is what blanching looks like. In this case, the whole table got wet, but it was quickly dried using towels, which saved most of the finish, except the spot where a book was laying on the surface. Water seeped under the book, and the book was never moved. So the water was trapped there for a long time. And this is a close-up look of that blanched area. I want you to notice the paper along the edge of the blanching right along here and down here at the bottom. So that paper is still stuck to the tabletop, and this is a caution to be careful when you separate objects from each other that have been wet. Even if they have subsequently dried out, they could still be stuck together. I don't recommend that you attempt repairing the blanched area. That's a tricky maneuver that should be left to a conservator. Beyond drying the piece, there is no urgency in fixing the blanched finish. So let's talk about salvage actions. Here are the most important actions to be considered. If the furniture is in a wet room or is exposed to the elements, then hopefully you can locate a dry storage area where you can take the furniture for drying out. If you don't have a dry location, then dehumidifiers can be used to dry out a room. I can't emphasize enough that wet furniture needs to be handled carefully. It will be heavy, and you need to be careful about handling loose joinery and veneers. This is an example of a dry storage area where wet objects have been moved. You'll notice the stacks of chairs, which is not the best thing to do, but you won't always have the perfect dry storage area, so you make do with what you can in terms of space. As I mentioned earlier, have helpers to move large objects and make a plan for safe moving. By far, most damage occurs to furniture during moving and transportation, so make sure everybody knows and understands the plan for moving an object. In this case, the bench was disassembled into two pieces before transporting. This was a particularly large object that required many hands. This is the upper section and the lower section going down the stairwell. Perhaps you can't move objects to a dry location for whatever reason, or maybe only the floor is wet at the site, in which case raising the object off the floor using blocks may be the most expedient solution. And by the way, this is a good strategy for normal storage of objects to prevent them from getting wet in a minor flood event, especially if they're stored in a basement. And then air circulation is important to dry the furniture and to discourage mold. Air circulation speeds up the drying process. Don't use hot air. You may have seen commercial salvage companies using hot air blowers to dry out a wet house. Those are not good for furniture. They dry the wood way too fast, which promotes distortion of the wood, deteriorates finishes and the glues, and causes rapid shrinkage of veneer and gilding. The idea is to dry the wood slowly to prevent distortion, cracking or splitting. And upholstered furniture deserves special attention because you're dealing with a combination of wood and lots of textile materials. Besides drying the upholstery, the next most important thing here is to decide whether to save the upholstery or to remove it. This is usually a curatorial decision, and they should be involved in the decision-making. It might be obvious, but I want to remind you that once you remove the upholstery, it's unlikely that it will ever be reinstalled on the object. It just isn't technically possible. But removing it can speed up the drying process. So here's a case of an historic house that had a water event because of a burst pipe. And this group of upholstered furniture did get soaking wet. And so we're looking at the collections person and the curator here discussing the upholstery and deciding what to do about it. It turns out that this furniture was owned and used by a famous Civil War hero. And this is the original upholstery. We're looking at the actual silk fabric that his wife picked out. This is the original workmanship of this beautiful tufting on these sofas. And so there's a discussion here about are we going to try and save the upholstery, dry it out, or do we want to just remove it and make the job easier for drying out the furniture. And here's another shot of that same, a piece of furniture from that same suite. This is an armchair. And you can see the water staining that's occurred on this silk upholstery. A close-up of the same chair. So it's pretty badly stained. But we were still in discussion about whether to leave it on the chair or to remove it. And then we decided we wanted to look underneath some of these trims that go around the arms. So we removed a portion of the trim and this is what we found. This beautiful bright blue color underneath the trim. And so it became evident right away that these silk fabrics had undergone severe light fading. So in this situation it was decided to remove the show covers. That means just the silk fabric. And we were going to try and save all of the foundation materials. So we removed the trims and the silk cover. And, well, before I speak about this slide, I'll just talk about drying out that furniture. It was kept in a room, a dry room with many fans circulating air for about three weeks. And a solid three weeks of circulating air helped dry out that upholstery. It actually dried it out quite well. So we can still work on the chair frame even though it's got its upholstery foundation material still in place. The foundation includes the springs underneath the seat, the webbing, the horse hair stuffing, the cotton batting, the muslin covers. And you'll notice that the original tufting was preserved. The tufting are the wells that you see in the back of the chair. Try and point those out. That's a well of a tufted part. And then we have several of these wells and the same thing on the seat. So in this case, we lost the silk covers, but we saved all of the original material and all of the original workmanship of the upholstery foundation, which is considered valuable. And this is that same chair after new covers and new trims were put in place. But in some cases, it may not be advisable to try and save the upholstery. These chairs were in a flood and are from a theater and are used as props in productions. The property manager for the theater advised us that the chair frames were worth salvaging, but she didn't want to save the upholstery and, in fact, they regularly re-upholster them depending on the production they're used for. So in this case, the upholstery was considered expendable.  And this is a big help in allowing the wood to dry out. So without the upholstery, the dry time is reduced to about a week instead of three weeks. I'm going to talk a little bit about removing mold. This is starting to get into the realm of treatment, but it's pretty straightforward, and I think it's within your capacity to attempt if you have the time and the inclination. So let's look at some examples. First, you want to let the mold dry out. If you tried to clean mold or wipe it off of a surface while it's wet, all you're going to do is smear it across the surface. So we're looking at the bottom of an old wooden table, and all of these white spots are mold, active mold growing on there. And first, you can remove as much as possible using a HEPA vacuum and a brush. And again, it has to be dry for this to work. But a vacuum doesn't always remove all of the mold spores. In which case, you can resort to wiping the mold with a cloth dampened with solvent. What solvent, you might say? Here's where I want you to pay close attention because it really matters. In this case, I'm wiping the bare wood, and it's unfinished wood. And in that case, the solvent should be a mixture of water and alcohol mixed in a ratio of one to one.  And this is what you may see in your rag after wiping the bare wood. This is dirt and grime that's come up on the rag, and it's nothing to be really concerned about because you're going to wipe up any accumulated dirt. Here's an example of active mold on the table legs, the same table legs we saw earlier in the presentation. And this is a different situation because they are on, the mold is on a finish. And we cannot use the alcohol solvent here because alcohol will definitely damage a finish. So in this case, you can wipe the surface with a rag. Well, let me back up for just a moment. First, you would want to vacuum this surface with a HEPA vacuum, which I've already done here, and you can still see there's a lot of mold still on the surface. But you can wipe the surface, as I'm doing here, with a rag dampened with plain mineral spirits. And again, that dampeness with the mineral spirits helps wipe up the mold and remove it from the surface. And I'm just talking about your hardware store variety mineral spirits. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. This is from my Ace hardware store. And for the alcohol and water mixture, I mixed my own. It's a one-to-one ratio. And again, it's just your average denatured alcohol that you can get at the hardware store. Or you may want to use isopropyl alcohol that you can get at the pharmacy. And in this case, it already came diluted 50% with water. So that was very convenient. And it works just as well as making your own mixture. Here's another example of mold on furniture, particularly on this leather seat. Some of you may recognize this as a Gustav Stickley oak chair. And there's a paper label from his workshop on the underside of the seat. And here I am vacuuming the mold using a small brush in one hand to sweep the mold toward the vacuum nozzle. The nozzle itself never comes in contact with the chair. And I remind you that the mold must be dry before you do this. And notice that the vacuum hose is draped over my shoulder. This prevents the hose from knocking against the furniture. This is the brush I use for that particular chair.  And I've trimmed the bristles to an angle so that they come to a point. And I made them a little shorter so that they're a little more stiff. And they did a better job of flicking the dust out of the crevices of the mold. So here's a picture before I cleaned it and during the cleaning process. And you can see that the mold was primarily trapped in cracks in the leather. And that's why that little brush and the vacuum were so useful. This is the paper label that I told you about. And it's in pretty poor condition. I'm going to go at this with a brush or directly with a vacuum. But I do want to remove that mold. And in fact, it was pretty successful at it. That's it after it was cleaned. And this is the way I went about it, is to get a piece of window screen. And this is fiberglass window screen instead of metal window screen. It's a plastic or fiberglass screening. Protected with blue tape around the edges where I cut the edges of it. It's about one foot square. And now I can bring the vacuum nozzle down to the paper and vacuum right through the screen. And the screen holds the paper in place so that we don't lose any of it. And so that's the technique. This isn't on the actual label, but that's the technique using the vacuum nozzle with the screen. So now let's cover a fire situation. The main thing here is careful handling to prevent further damage. And this is a client's home that had a house fire. And luckily enough, there was very little damage to, or there was damage, but there was no, very few things got actually burned. The flames you see are shooting out of the kitchen. The rest of the house suffered smoke damage. And this is what you'll see in the aftermath of a fire. It's always a mess. And not only is there smoke, soot, and ash, but everything is soaking wet from the fire department. And as I was preparing for today's webinar, I realized that dealing with fire is similar to dealing with a wet event because it includes drying, vacuuming, and air circulation. What I want to impress on you is the first item on the list to avoid touching the surface of soot and ash. That can cause a real problem when it comes time to clean the object. So if you need to pick something up, try and get it from underneath or from a non-presentation surface. I'm not going to go into cleaning soot and ash very far because it's, again, it's tricky and I think it's best left to a conservator. Or possibly a conservator could consult on your particular situation to develop the best cleaning protocol and then train some volunteers how to do it. But it can be a risky treatment. The one thing you can do is remove smoky odor using activated charcoal deodorizers and by circulating the air. This is an example of a carbonized wood sculpture. It's a 4-foot tall sculpture and in terms of salvage, there's not a lot to be done except don't touch the charred wood if you need to move it. As you can imagine, carbonized wood is fragile. After salvage, a conservator can consolidate the wood and restore the finish. This is a small painted box that was in a house fire and has soot on the surface. So again, you want to be careful how you touch something like this. This was cleaned using a dry eraser technique and dry cleaning methods are usually best because wet cleaning can drive the soot further into the surface. And just so you can appreciate why this is important, this is a close-up view of an aged paint surface showing an alligator texture. And you can see how easy it would be to trap excess soot in the texture of this surface and that's why careful handling is important. I want to give you an idea of how smoke and soot can penetrate an object. This is a cabinet with a fitted interior and the outside doesn't look too bad for having been in a fire. And when you open it up, it still looks pretty good, even cleaner than the outside. But soot tends to settle out on horizontal surfaces and can penetrate inside closed cabinets. So to finish up, I'd like to show you two examples of how a disaster plan can make or break the recovery from an event. I'm mainly aware of this because I assist organizations with disaster planning and I've seen how it makes a difference. So I think it's worthwhile devoting just a couple of minutes to this. This is an historic farm museum and its main components are the structures and their contents. This small organization had a rudimentary disaster plan in place. The plan said that if the barn ever caught fire, bulldoze the back house. And for those of you not familiar with New England architecture, this is called the big house, then the little house, then the back house, and the barn. And the back house is the structure that connects the barn with the rest of the house. Bulldozing the back house would break the connection to the main house. And this was a conscious decision to sacrifice a portion of the building in order to save the rest of the house and its contents. Unlucky for them, they did experience a raging barn fire but the plan was executed and they successfully saved the main house with all of the contents. And you can see where the back house was bulldozed. So the barn disappeared in the fire. The back house disappeared with the bulldozer but the little house and the big house were saved. And there's a little more to this story. From where I took this picture, behind me is a chapel on the grounds. And this is the chapel. It's about a hundred yards away from the house. On the night of the fire, they carried out the second part of their plan, which was to hand carry collection items from the house over to the chapel. So they organized a human chain and moved everything into the chapel. So this is a success story and it relied on having a disaster plan, as rudimentary as it was. The not so good story happened at this village museum. The collections are stored in the historic structures and in the warehouses. Just on the right-hand side of this picture you'll see the front of some of the historic structures. They had no disaster plan and the grounds were flooded a few years ago and the contents of all of the buildings, including the warehouses, got wet. And they too had a bulldozer. And while their intentions were good during cleanup, the bulldozer was used to push the collections out of the warehouses and into this pile. So instead of having water damaged collections, they ended up with a pile of trash. And so you do strange things when you're in the grips of a disaster. And here's a case where a disaster plan would have helped them think through this scenario ahead of time. So that wraps up my comments for today and I'm happy to entertain questions. Great. Well, thank you so much, John. We did have a couple of comments come in in the picture that you shared of vacuuming the mold off of a chair. Jeff and Jennifer noted that you weren't wearing a mask. Was there a decision to not have PPE as a part of doing that work, or what can you tell us about that? Right. Yeah, so that picture of me vacuuming without a mask, that was not in a disaster situation. That was actually in this storage area of the museum where the chair is stored. And it was a good environment with a good HVAC system. And I do wear PPE when I'm in a disaster situation and there's lots of mold and particulate flying around. But it would be as if let's say you had a little mold on a chair at home in your living room. Would you don all of your PPE to clean it up? It was that kind of a situation. Low risk, I would think. I'm glad to see that people are paying close attention in the health and safety presentations that we did. I am too. Very good. Whoever asked that question. Olivia asked, are there additional procedures in the salvage of a pulstery wet with sewage water? That was a big issue after Harvey was just looking at the contamination in the floods. So what can you say about that issue? My first response would be to get rid of the upholstery. Again, you'd have a discussion about that with the curatorial or whoever is the decision maker on that. But I don't think you want to mess around with that. If you want to try and save that upholstery, it definitely needs to be washed and cleaned. And to do that, you have to get it off of the furniture. And if it's going to be worth anything after you get it off the furniture, it means you have to take it off very carefully. And that's time consuming. That takes a lot of time. So you have to be willing to, number one, wear all of your PPE while you're removing all of that upholstery. You have to have the time and the inclination to do that. So if you can fit all of those things into your work schedule while a disaster is going on, then that's the way you could go about it. But I would suspect that if you're in a big disaster situation like that where things are covered in sewage, is to remove it, cut it away, and throw it out. Sorry to say. We had a question come in from Mary Beth as well, wondering about when you shared in that slide the image of furniture elevated with wood blocks. Wondering if the wood on the floor might absorb water and cause the piece to not dry. Yes, yes. Very good question. Yes, that wood will absorb water. So if it sits there long enough, the water will eventually migrate through the wood block and start to touch the bottom of the foot. The primary thing those blocks are doing, they're keeping it out of standing water so it's not sitting in an inch of water. If it buys you time so that things are up out of the actual wet water and you would eventually want to move it off of those block woods to a dry storage area. But this is a situation where you may not have a dry storage area immediately. And yes. If you can use something besides wood then that's all the better. Wood is inexpensive and easy to cut to length. It's just, it's in an emergency situation it's an easy thing to do. Great point. Yeah, go ahead. Very good. Time to give me thanks for that answer. We had another question from Jennifer as well, asking how long can she leave mold on historic furniture before cleaning it up? They're in the midst of recovery process and have some other priorities. So the mold is dry on that furniture now. So how long do you think they can leave it be until they need to address it? Right. Not immediately. I would take care of your other priorities. I don't have a definitive timeline for when you should actually get to it. So I don't have an answer for that. If it's dry and if the furniture is in a dry environment then that mold will eventually start to go dormant. It'll still be there. Still be on the surface. Just sitting there. But as long as it's in a dry environment then I would say take care of your other priorities and get to it when you can. Great. Well thank you. And I see, Steve is typing a question now. If anyone has any other questions I would encourage you to drop those in the chat box on the left hand side there. Obviously furniture is a collection item that I would expect most of you have. So it could be a range of topics you all might want to discuss here. I see a couple of people typing. So while we're just waiting for those answers to pop up or those questions I should say to pop up I am going to go ahead and just pull over the survey link so I don't forget it. So again as with past programs if you just click on evaluate the webinar to highlight it in blue and then click the brass 2 button that should take you to the survey monkey to evaluate today's session. So we had another question come in from Olivia wondering are there additional procedures in the salvage of wood, wet with sewage. So kind of follow up to the other question about upholstery that is contaminated by sewage. What would you consider when dealing with wood that's been affected by sewage water as well? Right. I would wash it. I wouldn't be afraid to wash it. It's already been wet once. So I would wipe it down with more water and even a mild soap. I think you want to use people tend to use too much soap and that's what you want to be careful of. A few drops of soap works wonders and use clean rinse water. So like I said the furniture has already been wet. Use more water to wash it off with some soap. Yeah, great point. I think that's important to remember in a lot of these different materials we've been discussing about, you know obviously it depends from material to material but to not be afraid about rewetting objects when necessary because if they've already been exposed to water to get them in clean water might be an important step in the process. So Olivia is wondering again to follow up how far do you think the contamination can penetrate into wood? Oh wow, what a great question. Okay, so I've wondered this not about contamination but I've often wondered how deep does a finish penetrate into the wood? So in my well let's back up a little bit. You can soak a piece of wood in a bath of water and the water will penetrate 100% through the wood. So if contamination is carried in a water or a solvent, if it's in that environment long enough it'll go deep into the wood.  So I've tried this. I've done this actually as a little experiment and then I cut the piece of wood in half so I can see how far the water penetrated. It's not very far. It takes a long time for that water to penetrate. And it also will depend upon whether it's going in the end grain or the side grain. The end grain of the wood that's where all of the open vessels are in the wood grain. And it will soak up water much quicker much more like a straw. The end grain is in the water. That's soaking up water fairly quickly and much more deeply. But if it's from the side grain it goes very slow. Kind of a general answer to that question but get the full range. That's very interesting, yeah. I've heard that researched before. Yeah so then Olivia was also wondering she says some people think that you can grow deep inside of wood. Do you have any comments on that? Yes I do. If there's moisture in there the mold will grow to it. It does. Again I've worked with some very wet wood that was wet for a long time and when you cut it open the mold is all the way through. So it can travel up and down the vessels of the wood grain even if it's in the center of a tree a 2 foot thick tree. Wow, Steve Pine he asked a big question. To finish answering Olivia's question I think mold grows in wood if the wood is wet. If the environment is there the mold will grow. I'll read Steve's I think it's more a reply to some of the previous comments. The original poultry is treated differently in the reproduction or non-period fabrics then having the fabric documented will often be helpful in finding replacement of poultry. Foundation profiles of original will also be important to document. He says in a pinchill take a photo of the entire repeat of the pattern but his goal in the worst case is to cut out a full repeat of the pattern in lengths of trim sufficient for buying replacements. I'm going to try to capture the useful documentation. Thanks for adding that Steve. I was going to see if we could check with Steve to see if he had a microphone on his computer. If you want to chime in with anything try to drop your line separately Steve but I'm not sure if you saw that. If you do have a built-in microphone I can connect that if you'd like but feel free to jump into the chat box Okay so Mary Beth is asking if the wood has mold deep inside is it possible that the mold will reappear at a later date if it's not completely removed? Well yes you have probably heard this in your other webinars or training that mold spores are everywhere you can't get rid of mold spores in our environment and it's just waiting for the right environment to come to life and so if mold is deep in wood but it becomes dormant it can also become active again all it needs is the right environment so the answer to that question is yes it can reappear at a later date and then Olivia I was just wondering if you had any additional protocols or suggestions for handling wood that is moldy deep down so all the way through are there anything different that we should be aware of? No this is going to be common sense but when you're working with objects you can only work with the surface you can't get down inside the wood to do anything you want to get it in an environment where it becomes stabilized and stop the mold from growing and that's the best you can do you can't open up the wood and remove the mold thank you Steve Pine thank you for that on the upholstery that was very well put and very good to know about documenting upholstery before you remove it the profiles all of that stuff is so important again, as I said and as Steve well knows, once you remove something it's lost and if you haven't taken a picture of it you're going to forget what it looked like save pieces of the old fabric so that you'll always have them in your archives even if it's not on the object okay great and then yeah, Mary Bath was just wondering too so a previously waterlogged piece should remain in a dry environment forever if you want to address that I guess dry meaning ideal environmental controls okay, there is I'm going to answer this in terms of a furniture collection, but when you say waterlogged you can also get into the realm of archeological waterlogged wood and the protocols for that would be completely different which I cannot speak to but if a piece of furniture became completely waterlogged I would want to dry it out and I would want to keep it in a dry environment and when we speak about a dry environment what I'm talking about here is a relative humidity of 40 to 60 percent just that general guideline of keeping your furniture at 40 to 60 percent relative humidity environment so that's what I would do with furniture as I said, archeological waterlogged wood is a different story and I think the answer could be completely different okay, you're an archeologist and she understands that okay, I'll bet that's why you asked that question I'm suspecting that as well great, well I realize I accidentally lost the surveilling so I'm just going to fold that back over again like I clicked on something that made it disappear so there's that back if anyone was wondering where it went thank you for such great questions and discussion after it's really an interesting thread that we brought into the conversation here so I didn't really see too many other questions coming in so I'll just wrap things up by saying thank you to everyone who participated and thank you to John for sharing your wisdom with us today and as I mentioned we have a couple of weeks off thank you all for this last three weeks of joining us every Wednesday we have a couple of weeks and then we pick back up in early May and looking forward to seeing you all then thanks again John okay


Hello, hello everyone. My name is Laura. This is my channel Laura's Little Library and welcome to today's video This is my November wrap-up It's November, which is pretty good for me. I mean October was amazing, but that's That's a whole other thing. So Six Books was pretty good for me Um, and all of my reviews are up on Goodreads So if you want to see like a physical version of my review You can go ahead and follow me on Goodreads or become my friend And then and the link to my Goodreads is down below in the description as is all of my other book is social media So you can go ahead and follow me on there and why they're down there. Why not just click the subscribe button hit the bell? I am posting Four videos a week. Yes, you heard me right so Because of my recent little leap of absence Which is explained in my life slash book is update video that I did before the bullet journal that just went up Um, I kind of explained I had COVID and so I didn't have the energy to be filming two videos a week But now that I'm feeling much better I will be making up all the videos that I missed plus I had bonus videos planned for December anyway So I'm posting four times a week for the month of December So click subscribe and hit the bell so that you're notified every time I post because it's gonna be a lot and it's exciting But yeah, so let's Now let's just get into the video and talk about the six books that I read So the first book that I read was curses by Alicia McBride and I read this as a finishing to My Halloween reading extravaganza spooky season in October and so I had such a good reading month This was for my shape shifter week It seemed a lot like a beauty in the beast retelling I don't know if it officially is or if it just drew a lot of influence from But it's like a beauty in the beast gender swap. So the princess I believe she is a duchess and She was her mom wanted her to get married to someone and she was like no So she got cursed by a fairy to turn into a beast Until she marries either someone of her choosing or her mother's choosing by her 18th birthday 31st birthday, you know something like that and in this society curses are actually somewhat common They have found an elixir Made from a certain rare flower that can help reverse the effects of a physical curse for a short amount of time so that is our Beast and our beauty is the son of a con Family so his parents are common his siblings are common. He is a common man And he gets hired by the princess to help her figure out Who would be a good husband?  I rated it three out of five stars. I think it was a pretty solid book It's it's a bit of a longer one. It's a bit of a chunker So I the audio book really helped me get through this one, but I felt like there were parts that could definitely be taken out I felt like there were just kind of unimportant parts to kind of make the book shorter and a little bit of a faster read To make it a little bit more enjoyable Like there were moments where I felt like I was falling asleep or I had zoned out and then when I came back to the Nothing had changed. Like I didn't miss anything. We were still in the same scene or still doing this It's all doing that so when I can zone out and then like come back into a book and feel like I didn't miss anything That to me just says that it's either really slow-paced or things can be cut because it couldn't keep my attention Really, I loved I love the characters in this It's really fun because she's kind of part of this support group of other cursed people So you could kind of see it wasn't a strong a bond is like found family But you could definitely see the relationship between Then as a commonality of being cursed and I thought the curses themselves were really unique I wish we had dove in a little bit more into the Fantastical of the world whether it be the curses or magic in general or where the fairies came from I felt like we could have had a little bit more background on that and a little bit more world building rather than just easy politics It was a very interesting ending. I will say that but Honestly, so I mentioned how I really like the characters Especially our main male lead. He's a favorite. I love him, but honestly my most favorite character of all Hob the cat the cats will always get me the cats will always be my favorite characters if they're Mentioned for more than like once in the book or like Once a couple times on a page, you know, so yeah, I thought it was just a solid book it I read it all the way through. I Enjoyed moments of it. I really enjoyed the characters. I kind of liked the plot, but it wasn't It wasn't super unique But it wasn't super Not necessarily predictable, but just You know, it wasn't too generic, but it wasn't too unique. So it was kind of it was a solid It was a three-star book. I also read sweet and bitter magic And this is by Adrian Thule and again continuation from October This was one of my witchy books and oh, I loved this book. I loved it so much I don't I didn't write down what I rated it. So I can't tell you what it was Hold please. I See what I rated it. I rated this five out of five stars. I loved it So this follows two different women two different witches technically one is Tamron and she Has this dark mysterious past that got her like exiled from the coven And now she's to that first so that she can't feel love or like joy or really any of the positive emotions mostly love um And so she is living in the village just doing little things for people But instead of paying her money she takes love from people so that she can feel and Then we also follow run and she lives with her father who is not doing well And then a plague comes upon the land and she's like oh, no, my father's not gonna do this I'm secretly a witch. I never went to the coven, but I should have So now I gotta figure out how to stop the plague to save my father so she ends up teaming up with Tamron and They they go on this hilarious adventure to try and find the witch who has started the plague Oh my gosh First off the banter any book that has banter as good as this is just going to be a four-star book Most likely and so I love the banter between the characters. I love the relationship I thought it was so interesting a grumpy sunshine trope I should mention and this was definitely the book that I was like Grumpy sunshine Because I loved it so much in this book She's grumpy because she can't feel love and she is sunshine Just because it's who she is and I loved it I loved their relationship and there were so many twists and turns in the plot There are a couple times where I was like it could be like this or it could be this or it could be that and then I know and then it ended up being something else and I was like, oh my goodness That is amazing there you it you would figure out this one big twist and you'd be like oh, okay Oh my gosh, and then you and then another twist will come along and you'd be like yep Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. That makes sense. That's coming. Yep And it just kept going that way and so The characters were great. The plot was great. I liked the world building Yeah, I just five out of five stars. I very much enjoyed this I also read this on a plane when I was traveling So the fact that I was in captured and loving the story as much as I was is Pretty interesting because if I'm reading while I'm traveling there's a pretty good chance that I'm gonna have a harder time with the book either Because I'm forcing myself to sit down and read it from beginning to end because I have nothing else to do in the airport or You know I get distracted by other things in the airport and then I lose track of the book And then I have to start over and then it just becomes a whole thing, but Yeah, I read this all the way through. I could not put it down such a page turning. I loved it It's a five out of five star book for me And then I read seasons of the storm by Al Cosimano and I rated this four out of five stars It's another slightly chunkier book that I read the audiobook for this which was very nice because they had Two people for the two point of views that we follow. Although. I think sometimes we follow Multiple point of views we mostly stick between the two main characters, but they only have the two narrators So that got a little confusing, but that's an audiobook thing We wouldn't have that issue with the actual book. So this follows the idea that Chronos runs the seasons with real people So what happens is when someone dies they're given the choice to die or they could be turned into a season and So what that looks like is that there are people seasons all Across the world embodying the four seasons. So our main character Jack He is one of the winters and he's working in like a certain region of the States and He and you know the better you do then you can get promoted to going to a different region Like oh, he might get promoted to going to Alaska because that's it would be nicer for him However the cycle of the seasons change By the next season coming in hunting and killing the current season And it's that cycle so Jack comes and kills the full person and the spring person comes and kills Jack So that's kind of the premise of the story and that's what intrigued me to pick up the book There is another book coming out that I would like to read I don't know if it's just going to be a duology or if there will be more I kind of hope it's just a duology But basically what happens is that the four seasons so four people Decide that they don't want to live this life of perpetual Hunting killing dying rebirth So they decide to break out and see what happens what I found to be it's also a love story So it's a love story between Jack our winter and Floor our spring and you start the book with them already in love like they haven't told each other that they love each other But we the audience already know that I thought it was very interesting to start the book with them already in love I kind of wish we could see a little bit more of them falling for each other rather than just being like I like this person I don't know how to deal with that, but I wish there was a little bit more about the same time It's a thick book. I don't think the book should have been any longer and So it's because they love each other, which is not allowed they want to break out and We have a wonderful found family in this story I loved how the four seasons came together and each season person also has a handler There's so much to this world I feel like I keep forgetting little elements until I'm like spitting them at you Each person also has a handler who stays behind and it's like the guy in the chair who's like They're coming they're on this street run or you can hide in that place like there's someone in the chair telling them what to do So it's really really at the aid of them except the handlers get sent away recently or pretty soon after them getting out So I was kind of like Bummed that half of the found family went away and was gone for majority of the book It was still pretty good It wasn't really fast the beginning and I kind of wish it hadn't been quite as fast because like I said there is so much To this world to understand that I felt like it was all kind of thrown at me And then once they got out of it then it really slowed down And so I felt like the pacing was just a little off. It was too fast at the beginning too slow in the middle I did love the ending to this book, which is why I'm excited to pick up the next one seasons of chaos I thought it was a pretty good ending But I wish there was just a little bit more to the magic and everything like it's very seasonal Which is why I think this is a good book to read between seasons. So like right now from fall to winter Although it did snow this morning. So like very much Transitioning into winter. I'm sorry if you can hear our neighbors baby crying in the background I thought it was just all a four out of five star. I liked the premise. I liked the found family and like the characters I just feel like it was the pacing was just a little too off And there are a few things that were kind of hard to keep up with but it was a pretty good way And next up I read volumes five and six of hordemia here I'm holding volume four because I don't own volumes five and six But it is a manga that follows two main characters. It's a friends to lovers the female she She is a popular girl who secretly has anger management issues But she also has to look after her little brother as her parents are always away on business While our male main character He has a lot of tattoos and piercings that nobody knows about because he has to hide them for school Everyone views him to be very dark and very gloomy. So it's their unlikely friendship that leads to a romance and I love it so much I like how as we're getting deeper into the manga We are meeting more characters and learning their backstories and I'm just overall enjoying it and loving it as I have been Moving on I read deal with the devil by kit rocker and I gave this two out of five stars so this is an a pop apocalyptic book it's the idea that everything has burned and now there's this big company that kind of monitors everything and Yeah, I Had a hard time with this one. So two out of five stars like I said The world building was pretty difficult to understand Because we were just kind of plopped right at the beginning of the book and not given much Explanation and the explanation we did get was kind of confusing And so by the time I had figured out what the world was like I was already like more than halfway through the book and then at that point I was behind on the plot because plot also did not make much sense to me either So it follows two crews. We've got both of them are like X Tech core and tech core is the company that like rules everything or something and so the The crew full of guys is like ex-super-soldier and the crew full of girls are like super smart also ex-soldier types and they the One crew is Given a task to do something and so they need to involve the other crew But I don't understand because they they can't tell each other exactly what's happening So I don't understand how they actually came together and agreed to work this job together Like I don't I don't understand because it seemed like there wasn't any common ground that they were working towards I Also had a hard time with the pacing of this book It seemed to like I don't know it seems good at the beginning But then it just kind of slowed down But then like an event would happen like I don't know it was just really weird I had a hard time keeping track with it The plot was kind of all over the place the romance. I did not like I did not feel any chemistry between The two main people that the romance was between because we go back and forth between POVs and The romance between those characters Fells super flat for me. I didn't like it. I didn't get it. There was no chemistry However, the romance between the side characters. I loved but obviously we didn't get very much of it because they were the side characters But I was like that's the relationship that I like this month. Not that great Yeah, I had so I had a hard time with that I just I didn't like the romance. I didn't like the plot the characters were okay Also from the description of this book My I thought it was going to be like these Librarians who are saving books. That's kind of the description that it gave me and What it ended up happening was not that we didn't get the whole feeling of them being by librarians until the epilogue and that's because like they do more than just save books like they also They also provide for the community in any way that they can so a lot of times that involves like getting organic food like actually healthy natural food for the community which is really cool, but I just felt like there wasn't enough like Mention of their caring for books that actually made much of a difference. So I was kind of let down by that Maybe and later books in the series that has more of a it's a more part of the book But I'm not interested in continuing with the series. So I'm putting the series down I give it two out of five stars. It just wasn't my thing Like I don't have anything against apocalyptic books I would love to read more of them, but this one just wasn't it All right, then the last book that I read at November I finished it right at the end of the month was the nature of witches by Rachel Griffin and this I rated I Rated it four out of five stars Personally, I enjoyed the book a lot. I can see how it would be like a 3.5 star read But purely because I enjoyed it so much. I'm giving it four out of five rather than just three point five so this book follows the idea that there are witches and Witches draw their powers from like certain seasons. So like spring witches summer witches autumn witches and winter witches and they deal a lot with the weather and kind of the nature of the earth so because This book deals a lot with climate change and the fact that humans are Destroying the planet causing climate change and causing all these counter-traffical things that happen And these witches are doing their best to kind of counterbalance that Because they don't have enough witches what is happening is that witches who are not in their season are helping out And because they're not in their season, they're being depleted and they are dying So they're losing their magic and they're dying And that's That's bad So the actual So that's kind of like all the background happening But we actually follow a girl who is an ever-witch and that means that she doesn't draw her magic just from one season She is strong all year round and she can draw from all four seasons But she's had a very hard time with her magic She it has killed the ones that she loves before and so she hates her magic She wishes she could get rid of it. She she just has a hard time with it. And so the plot of the book is her training and her learning how to use her magic and how and her figuring out how to like actually like her magic and That just kind of is the plot of the book. It's it's the idea that if she can if she can If she can harness her power and like control it then she can help with the issue of Which is being depleted out of their season But like that there isn't much Towards the end of the book like you don't get that at the end of the book the end of the book is her actually Like liking her magic so I feel like you know There wasn't too much plot to this book and normally I'm a plot driven reader Not a character driven reader, but I didn't mind it and that's mostly because of the atmosphere So the book is set at a school for witches who are learning how to use their magic and it starts off Transitioning into fall and the book ends Transitioning into fall and so it takes over the course of the year each season is just so beautiful and like the description of the nature And of the magic and of the different witches who like come into their season like it's a beautifully written book with the seasons. I Think it's perfect to read in autumn in full time for that reason but yeah, and then there's also this major Subplot of romance between our main character and the person who is training her and I liked the romance like I think it was fine What I went one thing I also really liked about the book was the growth that our main character goes through Because I didn't like her much at the beginning But she she grew a lot and then because of that she grew to like I grew to like her like Basically partway through the book the character just gets a spine and starts like actually living as an independent human being and I I appreciated that I I'm glad that that was the route that the author took. I think it was a good thing Our main character also has a pet cat whom I love The cat's name is nox as an equinox and I thought that was one of the best things ever But yeah, so it really was just an atmospheric pretty book um But one thing I will say though So the ending like I won't I won't do spoilers I don't do spoilers much on this channel. And if I do I'll let you know But I will say that the ending did not make a lot of sense to me It seemed like something happened in the ending And then there were no consequences of it or like something bad happened But ended up like not being bad or like just nothing came of it So I got really confused by the ending So if you've read this book, please like comment down below if you have because I want to talk about that ending I want to understand it better because it just made no sense. Um Like I said, I won't spoil it so Uh, but yeah, I I think enjoyment wise it was a 4.5 Star no, it was a four star read But I think the book itself really is more of a 3.5 stars. Um But yeah, like like I didn't read through it very quickly like I wanted to finish it But it just took me a while to read because I just felt like there was no plot There was nothing that we were working towards other than her training Which obviously took an entire year it takes a while which made for a little bit of a slower read, but So those are all six books that I read in the month of november Thank you so much for watching this video. If you liked it, give it a thumbs up Otherwise, I will remind you to subscribe because I am posting four videos Every week this december and so that's pretty exciting. Um, so you want to hit the bell so that you're notified and you don't miss any of them and Yeah, otherwise follow me on my social media down below and Yeah, comment below if you've read any of these what your thoughts were what books you read november And yeah, until I see you all in the next video. I wish you happy reading


Could you talk a little bit about your experience of David, where I feel in a very privileged position because of our devotion we have just given our lives over to being here at this is because that's what's truly helpful for our mind right now and we get to spend a lot of time hearing from David directly, anything you feel to share for yourself about your experience of that? Of being in proximity? Yeah, I mean this is a book of people sitting at kitchen tables with David and we actually sit at kitchen tables with David all the time. Well my experience has been just a very consistent upliftment being around David and having so much energy to constantly give and share without end and I just feel always carried deeper and deeper in the midst of the talks that we're more part of and yeah I don't know if there's anything else to say, it's just yes I'm winding in action and it feels like it's always just the spirit really speaking through directly to whatever is helpful for me to hear in the instant. So recently he asked us what our wishes were for the summer which was a funny thing for him to say but I'm here to ask you again now what's your wish for the summer? I'm just wanting to open up to deeper and deeper love and connecting and intimacy and to really come into myself, the capital S self, to just let myself be in my joy and share it and shine it and just be in a rest with that. Yeah I heard just to let yourself go, it's like just, it's involuntary. You've come from quite a Christian background and even though this is a course in unwinding the mind from the previous forms of Christianity into the true experience of being Christ, maybe you could speak to that a little bit. Yeah I feel like it was definitely given for me to have that backdrop as a kid and I felt like there's always this spiritual seeker in me so while in church I felt like there was this subtle discernment that I had that I knew when my heart was tickled from certain things and not so much from others and yeah it feels just like the words in red what Jesus spoke is what I really resonated with and the freedom and the experience that it was communicating and yeah it just feels like a lot of the fluff and the nonsense that was needed it was just laid aside, it was just a stepping stone, it was a good foundation to continue on elevating and truth and experience the truth and yeah I felt naturally led to this pathway, I felt very kind of magnetized to it, it was just so involuntary to come out and join the community and get involved with the course and just so drawn to David's YouTube videos so yeah I felt like I didn't really have a choice in it it's just there's a call in my heart and this is what was given and it's so concentrated and straightforward and yeah I just feel blessed to be a part of this. You know there's ones that they come and like before I even met you you were on that trip with Chris and Val and I heard them say and we have Cody here with this new guy and I instantly could feel this resonance there's just this vibration of reflections that are going to be truly helpful for you in your life that just keeps showing up and it's all pre-arranged we don't have to actually traipse around the world trying to meet people that would be good for us to connect with or know anything about you know we stay in one spot and everything just like everyone else comes right in front of us.  Yeah in fact all our running around trying to be really good and trying to be really willing is like could you just sit down for a second so I can impart something to you. Yeah and you just have to wear yourself out which is what I'm approaching. You're maxed on that. Yeah I've been pretty active with that I'm trying to improve myself or be better in some way or worthy but it's just to give up the energy directed in that and that focus is like dropping that and just recognizing the innocence the present innocence and worthiness. And again that's magnetic. It all starts coming towards the self we're experiencing ourselves as and everything just gets taken care of. We're just witnessing miracles instead of trying to make them happen. Yeah this one's they're not satisfying at all. Yeah. They're misdirected or I'll bestow it here type. Yeah. Involuntary. Thank you. Yeah thank you. Be lovely. Have you come talk in our chapel.


Okay, let's do this. Hey there, this is my story about riding the SoCal Desert Ramble in Southern California. I'll start by saying that this is one of the most beautiful bike packing trips that I've ever experienced. There's a nice mix of terrain including washes, a bit of single track, isolated dirt roads, a jump through Joshua Tree and even some high alpine. Oh and Slab City is definitely worth a visit. The ride is 500 miles long, there's some solid elevation gain totaling 30,000 feet and bikepacking.com rates this a 7 out of 10 on difficulty. The route starts in San Diego and finishes in San Bernardino near Los Angeles. I rode this on a hardtail with front suspension, my Priority 600X, a dream machine that I designed with my friends at Priority Bicycles. What makes it really special is the pinion and gates low maintenance drivetrain. If you'd like to learn more about this bike, I've shared some links in the description. If you want to watch my complete in-depth experience on this route, I made an entire series which I will link below. In this video, I tied together all the best moments and left only the natural sounds, exactly the way that I experienced it when I was out there.  Please help me out by subscribing and if you really want to keep this channel going, consider joining my Patreon. Okay, that's enough blabbering, let's get to the adventure. It feels really good to be here by the ocean. It's calming for sure and I'm also grateful just to be here in the warmth next to the Pacific Ocean. I'm a Colorado boy, you know that, this is pretty special for me. Ah yes! Woohoo! Alright, this is my beautiful Priority 600X all dressed up. Let's go. Let's start this thing. I'm ready to pedal. Up and over some mountains and into the desert and sleep under the stars. Let's go take one more look at the ocean. Check this out. Woo! Yeah! Getting closer to getting out of the city, I think. I love this bike path. I'm in Chula Vista, heading into the mountains. Oh yeah. Look at this. Going up a little hill and I'm feeling good. I'm getting further and further away from the metropolis. There's no way anybody's riding up this thing. It's a little steep here. That awesome tree. I'm a big fan of trees like that. That's the kind of sign I like to see. Okay, so it looks like I'm definitely going to get wet here. Check it out. That's a lot of water. Oh, God. Oh, it's so deep. Oh, God. I'm going to regret this. Oh, my God. Whoa. This is actually pretty strong. Oh, God. Come on. Well, if it was like middle of the summer and I knew it was going to be super hot all night, I wouldn't worry about my shoes being wet, but they're going to be wet for a while. And this is where I'm heading. Get up that steep area. What's up, Shadow? How you doing, bud? Uh-oh. You got some dogs coming and they look angry. Hey, hey. Hey, leave me alone. Hey, get out of here. So I just got off the road. This is the route now and it turned into a super steep, rutted out trail. It must have gotten a lot of rain recently. Maybe that's why the river's raging. Love, Shadow. Just a little bit more. Oh, I'm not camping. The sun went down. It got cold. It was, I couldn't find any camping. I asked some people, went to a bike shop. They said, yeah, not happening. I'm so cozy. And I think this is the best part of the room. All right. It's peanut butter natalatai, mana tortilla. Mmm. That was pretty darn good. So I just looked at the weather for alpine. Uh-oh. This is no good. High wind warning. So the Santa Ana winds coming in from the desert. And you know, we'll see how bad it gets. So far right now it's manageable. Here we go. Just got a smile. That's all I can do. That's the best way to fight wind is by smiling into it. You can see the big buildings of downtown San Diego. All I'm on now is tucked in here a bit, which is nice. It's blocking the wind and full force. The wind has chilled out a bit and I've just got my head down. I'm thinking about life, all the beautiful things. You know, when I come on these rides, it allows me a lot of time to just think, think about the people I love and what I love and, you know, I have Thanksgiving coming up in a week and I'll be home for that. And there's always a lot to be thankful for. And sometimes it's just easier to walk. I don't exactly know where the trail is going to go, but I have to go up and over those mountains right in front of me. Not bad. Nice view up here. I'll give you an idea of where I've come from. I've been riding that little skinny trail right there. And over there and now right here. I have a feeling when I get to the top of this mountain, I'm going to get demolished by the wind. This trail is much flowier than the last one, which is nice. The other one was full of rocks. Who put all those rocks there? So I'm at about 5,000 feet above sea level. Yesterday I was at zero and it's a lot colder up here. Here we go, Anza Borrego. Just got my first view of the Anza Borrego Desert. It looks nice down there. Beautiful. Yeah, technical here. That sun feels good. It's crazy. I don't know how any vehicle could deal with this. There's a lot of loose rocks and it is steep. Former down here, which is nice. The sun has set. There's a little bit of sun left on those mountains right there. And I'm pedaling hard because on my map it says there's an RV park with hot springs. And I would really, really love to jump in some hot springs. It also says that it closes at sunset. So I'm trying to get there before the office people leave. Okay, I made it to the RV park, which is great. But the bad news is the hot springs are closed. I got here a little bit too late. Ah, what a bummer. Life is funny. I am sitting at a picnic table in the dark about to eat my favorite beans, Amy's refried beans. And check this out. I even have a little bottle of chalula, fatty burrito. It is 6.30pm and I'm about five minutes from crashing. Today was a day. It was hard. It was long. I started at 6.45, ended at about five. The single track uphills were very difficult and certainly the wind did not help. That was some serious wind. I thought we had strong winds in Colorado, but the Santa Ana's maybe even stronger. Buenas noches, amigos. Good morning. It's about 5.45. It's still mostly dark. Buen provecho, amigos. Food always tastes better when you're outside. This little head bob there. This is a great place to sleep. Thank you, soft piece of sandy ground. Alrighty, let's go. Ah, the sun is up. The sky is blue. Looks like it should be a nice day. Alright, my friends, let's have another beautiful day on planet earth. No flaties, no crashes, no whammies. And today I'm going to be heading through a wash called Canyon Sin Nombre, which means the canyon without a name. And that should be a good adventure. And then I'll head up towards Borrego Springs. Here's my turn off. I've had about 10 or so easy highway miles, and I'm taking a turn into the dirt, a sandy wash, Canyon Sin Nombre. And this is about 20 miles, and depending on the conditions of it, it can be very slow and sandy. If there's been rain, it might have packed it down. I have no idea what the conditions are. But time for some adventure. Here we go. Woo. Reminds me of the white rim. This little sand surfing. Oh, God. At least it's downhill right here. Oh, yeah. It's definitely deep. I have 2.4 inch tires, which is a little wider than the average, which should help. But yeah, this could be the longest 20 miles of my life. We'll see. Oh, God. Woo. I'm going to let some air out of my tires, which should help with traction a bit. If I can stay to the side, it's a little harder.  Very reminiscent of the Baja Divide. Oh, getting deep right here, for sure. Okay. Okay. Woo. Come on. Come on, buddy. I can only hope that the conditions will get better. Or maybe they'll get worse. I have no idea. You know, this reminds me of the very first time I did the Baja Divide in 2017. That was my first ever bike-packing trip. Up until that point, all of my big adventures had been on pavement.  This is excruciating. And it really took a while of riding the Baja to realize that, you know what? When this kind of stuff happens, you just embrace it, and you just go slower. You know, most of my trips, I'm used to just hammering and going fast. But sometimes you just can't. And fighting it does not make it better. So this is one of those moments where I'm just going to be going slow. And that's okay.  Wow, look at that. I'm being aided by the fact that this is all downhill. So momentum is taking me through. Once I have to go flat or uphill, that's going to be a lot more difficult. Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo, woo. Oh, yeah, this is like my own private canyon. I'd be surprised if I see anybody today. We'll see. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's not so easy. I feel like I'm going to Star Wars plant it out here. And it's amazing to think that yesterday, less than 24 hours ago, I was riding in the Alpine Mountains above San Diego. This couldn't be more different. Oh, here we go. There's some sand for you. Oh, okay. Going into an Ocoteo forest. These plants are beautiful. I love them. This is the sandy sand. Oh, man. Check this out. Open expanse. Man, that's stunning. So there's a reason why I'm doing this in the winter and why everybody does it in the fall or winter. There's nothing out here. And in the summertime, forget about it. It would be insanely hot. Even right now, I don't even think it's 70 degrees and it feels pretty warm. Now we're going to go down this steep, steep, choppy road. I made another little canyon. It's amazing how many roads are out here. Four-wheelers definitely get after it. I think there's a lot more of those than bike packers. Oh, come on. You can do it. Come on, buddy. How you doing, Shadow? Keep charging, bud. Keep charging. Look at that. It's pavement. I'm psyched to be here. I'm about 15 miles from Borrego Springs. Once again, I'm racing sunset. It's going to be a close one. It sure does get dark early here. And this area really holds special meaning because I think it was this road in 2009 that I pedaled on when I rode the cruiser bike across the country. You hear how quiet it is? All you can hear is my little twirly thing spinning. Okay, so I'm about five miles outside of Borrego Springs and I rode by this American Legion and I saw some RVs set up and I thought, you know what, maybe I'll stop and ask them if I can camp here because the last two nights I've been getting in at dark and I would like to have a little bit more time to chill. So I stopped by, $5 camping. They've got water and food and all sorts of good stuff. All right, thank you soft piece of ground and thank you American Legion for letting me stay here. This is kind of hilarious. Here's some subtle desert art. It looks like Wiley Coyote on the road here and a giant blood stain across the highway. I already ate this morning like 45 minutes ago but I can't pass this up. Look at this gigantic bean burrito from Los Gilberto's. I'm excited. I just stopped at this mega gas station. Look at all the stuff they have. They have Cinnabon Pizza Hut, KFC, Yogurtland, Taco Bell. What? They have it all. But you know what I got here? My favorite Mexican cookies, the principes. Now I'm on this rowdy highway for a bit. Luckily I have a nice wide shoulder. Hopefully the cars are respectful. I'm heading down towards a town called Westmoreland and I hear they have amazing shakes made out of dates. So let's boogie 30 miles away on this thing. Alright, I made it to the date shake capital west of the Mississippi no less and I'm really excited about this. It is so good. It really is fantastic. It feels like summertime out here. It's very warm and there's lush fields. I think of alfalfa being grown and right now I'm heading straight toward the Salton Sea. I am kind of close now to the Salton Sea. Back in the day, it used to be big and it probably came all the way up to right about here. This area is an interesting story. In 1905, it flooded and it was a beautiful sea and then developers were like, oh this is cool.  I think that happened for a time but the water has been receding and receding and receding and there's not much of a sea left. Just a tiny, tiny bit. Alright, it's 3pm. The sun over there is going down and I need to start looking for a place to camp and it's not going to be at this factory. I'll tell you that. No thank you. You see that right there? That's my room. I haven't even gone in yet. I'm not expecting a whole lot. I'm just excited to have a safe place to stay and it's right there in room number three in Nyland, California. You know how to make a peanut butter, nutella wrap, deluxe. You throw a banana in there. Here we go. No crashes, no flaties, no whammies. Off to Slab City. I've been excited about Slab City for a while and all the art that I'm about to see. So there's a lot of different art, at least from what I've seen online but the most well-known one is Salvation Mountain and it's right here. This is fascinating. It looks like a post-apocalyptic movie set. So here I am riding along, wondering what I'm doing here. Nobody's around and then this very happy smiley face comes out. It's Dr. Spencer. How are you doing, my friend? Hey, I'm doing great. It's a beautiful day. We got a little wind but the sun is shining. It sure is. We're in Slab City and we get 350 days of sunshine here. What do you do here? Well, I plant right over here if you'll take a gander over here, you guys. I have over 6,000 plants there. It's a botanical garden. I've got seven different types of spinnages, five different types of kales. I've got bamboo from all over the world, from Burma, from Thailand, from Vietnam.  I've got a solar oven. The solar oven is big enough to cook 12 large pizzas at the same time and we have amazing dinners here. I like this. The Galactic Please Patrol. You could spend hours, days in this entire city checking out everything. There's so many little intricacies everywhere and most things just put a smile on your face or make you think about something differently and make you appreciate the beauty that artists put into all their creations and yeah, it's all good. Like this.  Yeah, kind of feel like I'm in Star Wars out here. And right next to East Jesus is Dot's place. Dot, how you doing? Pretty good. How are you today? Doing great. What's the story with your installation? Well, just like a lot of other people, the desert inspired me to create artwork and I've made kind of like an art camp. We call it amazing art. When you travel around and look through it, you'll see how it's a bunch of trailers kind of mishmashed around each other, looping on each other and each one has installation work inside of them. Like this one that you're going to explore called the Skeletrarium. Let's start with my mummified mermaid and then moves into all sorts of bones and weird, what not, some things that I've collected out here and then some of the other trailers have like books in them or a tax attorney or a party. So pretty popular one too. Why do you think this area in specific inspires artists? The desert air. It's got to be the desert air and just like the freedom, the vast expanse of being able to see so far and I don't know, it's just inspiring. And you're always adding to it I'm guessing? Oh yeah, yeah. We've been here for years and I'll just keep adding and keep adding and keep adding until I'm completely bored with it. Very cool. All right. Taxidermy dinner party. Oh, look at this. So sometimes you wake up with plans and then sometimes those plans change especially when you're on an adventure. I came here in the morning, think I'd spend a couple hours check out some art and continue on about 65-ish miles but then I met Dr. Spencer. Fascinating human, loving human, kind human, my kind of human and he's like just stay here and the itchy part of me was like I gotta keep going. I'm on a tight schedule. I gotta make the miles and it took a while to be like you know what? I'm okay with it now. Like this is what life is all about. This is what being the boss of me is all about. I can take a day off and explore a fascinating place and connect with a wonderful human and that's what I've done and so I'm gonna stay here in this little RV back here and I'll get up tomorrow and ride hard. How's that sound? And I would have had like a 20-mile-an-hour headwind all day so it would have been a miserable day of riding that way when instead I've been hanging out here having the time of my life. My heart is happy. This is why I travel. This is the exact reason why I travel to connect with amazing humans and I'm really happy to have met Dr. Spencer. Buenos dias. This is where I slept on this open-air mattress right here. Super comfortable. I really appreciate all your kindness in meeting your smiley face warmed up my day yesterday and I stayed the whole day because of it. That's fantastic. Yeah man. You have a good one out here in the desert.  Yeah. It's a good one. Beautiful. Have a good trip. Thank you. Watch out for the big rigs. Yeah, you know it. Goodbye my friend. Goodbye Church of Enlightenment. That was an amazing 24-hour stay. We shouldn't have as much headwind today and I'm feeling good and rested and my heart is full. No crashies. No flaties. No whammies. We got three dogs running over to say hi. Hopefully they don't do anything. Hey. Hey. Get out of here. Get out of here. So as I'm bumbling along on this road I'm thinking back to my conversations with Dr. Spencer back there and he said something that was really poignant and simple. And he said if you don't like something change the way that you think about it. So in this moment my initial reaction to this road is I don't like this. This is hard and annoying and it's slow and it's making me tired. But if I take his advice and change the way that I think about it it's great. I get to go slower. I get to enjoy this longer and I'll end up where I end up and that's where I'm supposed to be. Extend that thought to lots of things in life. You know. If you don't like something just figure out a way to flow with it. Doesn't mean you have to like it and force yourself to smile or something. But just look at things in a different way. You know throughout my life when I would be confronted with the challenge I would used to tend to fight it and force it and that only affected me negatively. Now I try to look at other solutions to every problem and the other positives of when things are hard. And I always have to remember that I get to be out here. I get to ride my bike.  And it's Sunday. What else do I have to do but pedal. That's pretty awesome. This is a good spot to chill. What do you think? Nobody that way. Nobody that way. And as slow as this road is at least I'm not on that busy highway on the other side of the Salton Sea. That was kind of nuts. Out here all I can hear are planes flying overhead and the sound of my tires crunching gravel and my jaws slowly gnawing on hard cliff bars. Look what I just found on the ground. Free food. It's a lemon. Bitter. Woohoo man.  And these palm trees behind me right here are date palms. One of my favorite things about Southern California is that there's great Mexican food everywhere. I just got a bean and cheese burrito. A quesadilla. Chips and salsa with fresh salsa from this area. And a Fanta. That's where I'm headed. Up into those mountains right there. Here's my turn off that will take me into Joshua Tree National Park. I won't get there today because I'm going to go look for a camp spot pretty soon. But here we go. These aren't fireworks you're hearing. This is like a target range. I'm pooped. And this looks flat even though it's full of shotgun shells. I think I'm good. Alright, I'm all set up. It's crazy to think that this morning I woke up in Slab City. Completely different world from where I'm at now in Gun City.  It really was a beautiful day. I say that every day but man it's just a privilege to be able to ride a bike and that's all I got to say. So I thought they'd be done shooting guns in the dark but they seem to keep going and this is going to be real annoying if this carries on all night. I hope they run out of bullets. I tried to get far away. Most of them were down further so I came up but there's a few rascals up here just shooting guns and drinking beer.  You know I understand shooting guns but why litter the natural world with all of this junk and plastic. I mean this is a wasteland out here of refrigerators and lawn mowers and stuff people are shooting at. It's so weird. Anyway, I'm off. Gonna have a great day. It's beautiful. Heading into Joshua Tree. So I camped at about a thousand feet above sea level and I'm going to be climbing today up to about four thousand. Got a little bit of uphill to do but that's alright. It'll warm me up. Can you make it? Well yes I think I can. I'm finally seeing the famous Joshua Trees. They're pretty cool looking. They look like something out of a Dr. Seuss story. All gangly and you know just different than the average tree. Okay I had to lean my bike up against one of these Joshua Trees. It's like school picture day. Yeah looking good. Gotta check out these rocks. These jumbo rocks. I don't think I've ever seen a landscape quite like this. I've been to the desert, many different deserts but these piles of rocks everywhere really. That's something new to me.  Huge Joshua Tree. That was a great day and a new national park to me. I made it. Pioneer Town. This is wild. It definitely looks like an old Wild West Main Street. I love when things work out. I was hoping there'd be room to camp here. They have a little campsite called the Corrals and there is plenty of room and I'm going to be right behind the mercantile. Woo and it's going to be chilly. I'm already cold. This is the coldest I've felt on the entire trip. I feel so good to be here. I got my igloo set up. I put the rain fly on tonight to keep heat in. I think it's going to be a little chilly. I just watched the informational video in the museum and so this place was founded in the late 1940s by Hollywood guys, even Roy Rogers who wanted to build like a Wild West set for their movies so they didn't have to travel so far to Arizona and stuff. This is what they built and a lot of the old timey movies were filmed here and still to this day there's a lot of modern commercials and stuff filmed here in music videos. I know this is all fake. It's not a real Wild West town and it's kind of cheesy but I love it. I love cheesy stuff. You know me. It puts a smile on my face.  It's cold. So today I'm heading up, up, up to the snow-capped peaks and then hopefully down into the backside of LA. What? Oh yeah.  Feels good. I'm going to be going a lot of uphill today up to about 8,000 feet. It's time for my morning thoughts and I always do my best thinking on the seat of a bicycle. It's kind of meditative and I've been out here riding for seven straight days now and I'm really grateful that I'm here right now in this moment and I get more in tune with my body and just the sounds of nature and birds overhead and the sounds of my tire slipping through sand. You know, bike creaking here and there it really is quite special and then when I get home from a ride like this I feel recharged and I feel like my heart is bigger and I'm more loving and caring and compassionate which is always a good thing, right? And when I'm on a bike adventure it really forces me to be hyper present in the moment at all times and when I'm in the present moment at any time that's when I feel the most alive for sure. Oh, I see some white stuff on the top of those mountains over there. Oh, the air is crisp up here. Tastes like Colorado riding through some icy slippery patches here. I imagine with just a little bit more snow this road is completely impassable. I lucked out. I was riding by this hotel Fireside Lodges and it was one of those spontaneous moments where I'm like, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna go there and so I'm sitting here loving life you heard me talking about gratitude this morning well I'm very grateful to be here right now and this is my Thanksgiving gift to myself and of course my bike is right next to me it has to be, right? Look at that beautiful sunrise and that cold snow Okay, thank you amazing bathtub and bed Yeah It's cold there's no doubt I am at a ski resort and people are skiing today It smells really good out here you know that pine needle smell Christmas tree smell and that's what it smells like Oh, bummer All right, nice day for a walk in the woods I guess Good news is I have all day Okay, some of this is packed hard enough that I can ride it it's kind of like riding through the sand Woo, well that's a pretty big Well the good news is there's no way I'm going to get hit by a car out here It's actually not too bad The snow is pretty hard easy to walk on Going top speed here Man It's like sledding Yeah, buddy Look at that view That's where I'm heading right about there Who put this tree here? I can't bunny hop that high Okay Carry on I thought I was done with you snow Back in the sun Oh boy I might be getting wet here The snow has turned to water Bit more uphill here It's not a free ride all the way down Pretty It's pretty down there Every time I think I'm near the top of whatever I'm riding up It's not, it just keeps going And the worst part is there's all these little flies that are following me and they're biting I need to go downhill to get away from them but there just isn't any downhill That is quite the wall of rock right there So I just looked to my right and I see this and I'm thinking is that a mirage? Are for Ryan Look at that Los Angeles There's the dirt There's the pavement I finally made it Today was way harder than I thought it was going to be I figured seriously 3 hours to go 45 miles downhill That's pretty reasonable right But man this took almost 7 hours And it was beautiful And it was fun And I got to reminisce about how wonderful this adventure has been In so many ways Tomorrow is Thanksgiving And thanks And now I'm here in LA at some They're going to be building some cookie cutter houses here It looks like It's fitting that I pop in on the edge of LA And I'm not here alone This is really the best part of today I have a new friend Dave How you doing buddy?  You want to be on YouTube? Thank you so much for being here This is amazing A little welcoming committee Means the world to me Can we go get some bean burritos? Absolutely Oh yeah Look at this And look at that Hey there my friends Check it out I wrote a book And I'm really proud of it It's called The Long Way Home And it chronicles my very first bike adventure From Honduras to Boulder And how that journey led to a life Of being an adventure storyteller I'm really excited to let you know That it is for sale now At dozerbook.com Also I printed this In my beloved hometown In the most eco-friendly way possible No trees were cut down To make this book And check it out If you don't like all the words There's even photos So go on over to dozerbook.com And pick yourself up a copy I promise you It'll put a smile on your face