The tall male hummed a sing-song sort of tune as he worked. He found that music of any kind helped break the monotony of his work. Even one who loved carpentry could get bored with stripping logs, but that was his appointed task for the day. Much to his surprise, he was almost finished stripping the last of the twelve tree trunks he had scavenged during his first days in Dahlia. He would still need more in order to have enough for Colibri's greenhouse, but the exact amount would depend entirely upon how many panes of glass he was able to find. The prospect of finally moving on to a new task gave him an excited boost of energy and he began to pull the long draw knife across the tree's trunk with increased vigor and speed. With each pull of his sinewy arms the sharp blade cut the bark and other surface imperfections from the old spruce trunk. His gooseberry green eyes were always moving from his hands, to the blade, to the tree trunk and back. He did not want to cut himself or cut the wood too deep. Both of those outcomes would be bad, although it was evident to the reddish brown male that the former of the two was far more unpleasant than the latter.
At last, with one mighty pull of his arms, Rath removed the last of the trunk's bark, leaving an almost whitish, naked looking spruce trunk laying across the fabricated saw horses in front of him. "Finally...I'm finished," he muttered to himself, his tenor voice carrying with it a tone of accomplishment and relief. He placed his double handled draw knife in its ratty leather sheath before taking it back inside his house. There was no need to expose such a valuable tool to the elements anymore than necessary. When he returned, he carried with him a relatively short, single bladed axe, the one that Haku had given him. Now, he was going to make the logs square instead of round. Not only would this make them easier to store, but they would also be better suited to any cutting or shaping he might need to do later in the project. Turning to the log, which he still had laying on the supports, the male began to chop very carefully at the edges of the log, doing his best to create a flat edge. Normally, a lumberjack would use a special kind of axe for this job, not a regular wood felling axe, but at this point Rath did not have such a specialized tool. So, with careful aim, Rath began shaping the first of his twelve logs, the axe blade producing a gentle thudding noise as it struck the wood.