Wordless Wednesday

Serendipity

I suppose that in the long run, we create our own luck through learning, planning, making contacts with people and just keeping an eye out for opportunity. Teaching up at the WoodenBoat School over the past two weeks, people have asked me how I got there.

My father and I have been into canoes in one way or another pretty much since I can remember. We're also both woodworkers. Wooden canoe building and repair just came naturally.

I was approached about 4 years ago by the administrator of a private school where I take furniture-making classes during the week. I had run out of project at the end of the class and was looking for a filler. I decided to make a double-bladed paddle for the Wee Lassie I had built as the fill-in and had it on display at the end of year open-house that the school puts on for the public. It drew so much attention that she asked me to write a proposal to teach cedar-strip canoe building at the school. The proposal was accepted and I've taught 5-6 students to build Wee Lassie or Wee Lassie II canoes every year for the past three years.

A little over a year ago, a man by the name of Jonathan Klopman came into my workplace looking to buy some of the product that we make. Jonathan is a marine surveyor and had taught a class on the subject up at the WoodenBoat School. One of the sales people I was with let slip that I taught people how to build canoes. Jonathan suggested that I should either go take some classes or talk to the school's director, Rich Hilsinger about helping with a class. I didn't think much of it at the time, but I ran into Rich at the WoodenBoat Show in Mystic last year and spoke very briefly with him at the time. He handed me his business card and told me to send him an email. Not much went on for several months. We finally started discussion about a class in September when the new course catalog was being prepared.

At any rate, this year I taught up at the school for the first time. Suffice it to say, it was a great deal of fun and an experience I hope that I get the opportunity to repeat next year as I have improvements that I'd like to make.

All of this has put one thing into perspective : I am a firm believer that there are times in your life when everything comes together. This was one of those times when a chance meeting made the preparation, learning and experience all come together.

On Passion

Passion takes many forms. The forms of that I usually think of is romantic passion, passion for profession, passion for your hobbies or your art and passion for life in general.

On Rush's album "Hold Your Fire", they sing a song titled "Mission" about those people who don't have the passion, drive or talent to create wonderful art in it's many forms. It is both hard and sad for me to realize that for some people, their existance is little more than getting up, going to work, heading home to dinner and television and then getting up to do the same thing the next day.

I've spent the past two weeks in a wonderful and magical place in Brooklin, Maine called the WoodenBoat School teaching people to build cedar-strip canoes. The people who both work here all seem to have passion for their work, their art, the craft of sail and the building and repair of wooden boats. They instill in those students who come here that same passion and a sense of wonder and amazement at what is possible. I can't count how many times this week that I've seen both students and staff members light up with that "ah ha!" moment in their eyes. I've known for a long time that I have a passion for small wooden boats but hadn't realized its true depth until I got here. I feel a desire to do more and better work as both a teacher and boat-builder to be able to help others to experience the joys and passion that I have by sharing.

So, as I get ready to return home, I find myself physically tired, but with a renewed drive, determination and focus to do wonderful things.

"Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death" - Auntie Mame

No, I haven't abandoned you!

Some of you who may visit this blog fairly regularly may think that I’ve abandoned you. This is not the case. I’m actually on ‘vacation’ up in Maine. I say this in a sort of tongue-and-cheek manner as I’m doing one of the things that I really love to do which is to teach people how to build cedar-strip canoes.

The facility I am at is particularly wonderful. There is a waterfront with a variety of rowing, paddling and sailing boats up to about 30’ in length that the school owns. Classes in seamanship, coastal voyaging and coastal paddling are all taught down here. The school also has guest moorings and it’s not uncommon to wake up and find that one of the windjammers has arrived the night before. There is also a shop where all kinds of boatbuilding are taught – from modern tack-and-tape construction to very traditional lapstrake and caravel planking. The shop has a staff of three people who keep the place humming along with a stunning efficiency. The materials are very good and the tools and facilities make life easy. In the last week in the shop, there was a 14’ lapstrake boat, 12’ caravel boat, three canoes, one Rangely Lake boat, and 8 surfboards built! Off campus at a local craftsman’s shop a class in blacksmithing and welding were taught. I mistakenly forgot to bring a camera to take pictures of the ironwork that came out of that class – some was really intense. The variety of what is offered is amazing and the instructors that teach are some of the best in the world in what they are teaching.

More posts with more pictures to come!

Price of fuel...

It seems that recently the price of gas has gone from, "No way..." to "OMG, WTH?!?" As a matter of fact, the cartoon above comes from the point in time when it was "No way..." In our area, gas has literally gone up by almost 35% since early February. So, it is only fitting that as a boat builder I try to improve my MPG:

A recent study found the average wooden canoe builder walks 23,000 steps or 6.7 miles in building a wooden cedarstrip canoe. Another study found that the average canoe builder drinks, on average, 7.8 gallons of beer while building a cedarstrip canoe.That means, on average, the average wooden cedarstrip canoe gets about 116 miles per gallon (MPG)*.

Kind of makes you proud, eh?

* Cited MPG is for comparison purposes only. Your actual mileage may vary depending on the square-footage and physical layout of your shop, and your distance away from the beer capitol of the world, Milwaukee, WI.

Wordless Wednesday

OOPS! Ok, wordless Thursday, not wordless Wednesday - I'm a busy guy!

With Big, Nasty, Pointy Teeth!

Killer Bunny = Chipmunk?

This evening I went to my father's house with my chainsaw to clean up a fallen limb that was a remnant of the other night's storm. (See below...) When I arrived in the backyard, I noticed a mess of blue jay feathers on the lawn near a water container that sits on the ground and serves as a bird bath. Someone had had a bit of a picnic.

Not far away, was a pile of boards covered with a blue tarp. Sitting on top of the tarp was a very bold chipmunk. He was all of 3 1/2" tall, but sitting on the top of the pile like he owned the place. As I look, I notice...

Nah. Couldn't be.

I moved a bit closer to the chipmunk.

No way.

I'm now within about 10' of the chipmunk. He's stamping his front paws on the board as he sort of rocks from side to side, but he's not running away. He's got a small blue jay feather sticking out of the corner of his mouth and is chewing on the end, the feather sort of moving back and forth as he chews.

RUN AWAY!!!

Well, I guess Monty Python's Killer Bunny has competition!!!