Hands-on education in wood leads to small business

MOSES LAKE — A nice cutting board can be a thing of great beauty. But that’s no reason to be gentle with the cutting boards made by Samantha and her husband A.J. Simmonds and sold in their store A Plus Woodshop, the newest addition to the Downtown Moses Lake Association’s Obra Project business incubator at 205 S. Division St. “It’s hardwood,” Samantha Simmonds said. “It’ll blunt the knife edge before it scores the wood.” The cutting board Simmonds holds up is nearly a rainbow hue of colors — brown, tan, magenta, orange — all from the fairly exotic hardwoods the two have learned to work with over the last several years.