beaver hide - goofy romantic

Can't sleep, won't sleep, whatever. I'll miss Joe when he's not available for impromptu lessons in life. He seemed ancient when I met him nineteen years ago. Rife with wealth in wisdom earned through hard years of the poverty called subsistence, he's a prize. As Mum has offered socks crafted with the accuracy of many years of attentive practice, so has Joe and an example of his brand of mastery in the gift of this raw hide. I've always been lucky I suppose, but just now I'm feeling heaps of love.

At one time I would have thought this a rather gruesome offering, but that's not so now. I've learnt a bit more about sharpening knives since that time for one thing. For another, my attitudes about the wild environment around me have changed dramatically. The contrast between what it was like idealistically looking at "the wild" from a position more removed from the cycles then and now are profound. Like a wood lot, things die and are born. Like my experience, things are sometimes wasted at the hands of avarice or some other shortcoming but, can be made beautiful when spiced liberally with integrity.

I've never been much in the loop of fashion and being so happy to have this fur, taken from our river, is no doubt several steps out of sync with much of what passes for fashionable.

As long as I've known Joe he's taught us how to take without raping and how to give with an open heart. The beaver have shared this too, but few of us have the patience to listen that closely to their lessons. I'm so grateful to live where man doesn't dominate.

I'll have to count the tiny nail holes around the perimeter of this hide. There seems to be one every centimeter or so. The skin side is hard and smooth enough to be shiny. No fat or muscle fiber left to spoil it. Now to find someone to tan it well.


Beaver pelt - skin side with loonie



Fur side

Masterfully knitted socks

Thanks for these Mum. You've always inspired me to keep a keen eye out when i do my own work. Somedays I wish I was a knitter too.

Old school rewards:

Boo's water colours

Boo's latest adventures in water colour painting. This was her birthday card to Mighty last weekend.

spring 2009 / M's bday / wifi

Spring has officially begun. When I walked out of the house yesterday morning I heard geese. There can't be much open water to keep them here, but they are driven to get the trip north underway.

I saw a flock of snow geese way up high riding a southerly flow this morning. It's eight degrees Celsius today and things are getting mucky quite quickly. I put some flax straw down in the walk ways to try and help keep the dirt from tracking in too badly. The sun has been warm enough to heat the house today. That's the first day we haven't needed a fire in a while.

I'm sniffling and struggling to fight a cold so that takes the edge off the feeling of celebration as the season moves along. I've got another five hours of wood to fell I think so I best get on that before it's syrup time again. I feel like a bag of dirt though and thus, not very motivated.

We had a house full last night celebrating the Wee Juan's birthday. Our eldest was in fine form although maybe it was just a fever fueling her rosy cheeks.

I spent some time during the day using an older GPS hand held device to attempt to confirm or tighten my compass estimates for clearing a line of sight to the wifi tower 5.8 miles away at the municipal dump. Futility ruled and I can only hope newer versions are much more useful.

work on ravaged watch case

A client knows he's got a mediocre watch, but it may have saved him a lot of pain so he wants to remember it well and in good running order.

I needed to make a seat for the crystal to adhere to and I think I won. More will be reveled. :)
Cheers!

Fireworks Kelso's 16th bday

Tonight marks the second time I've been invited to get close to a professional level fireworks shoot and loved it both times. Tonight I got to light a few racks of them myself. If you like looking at fireworks in the sky I had a crappy seat, but if you enjoy the concussion like i do I had the best seat in the house. The sense of risk is keen with ignition. I'll have to get my test written and become qualified to do that stuff. It's crazy fun. Home a little late for helping someone install *nix first thing in the morning. All I want is connectivity and we can work out the rest of the details later. I think I'd like someone to make me breakfast too. That may be asking a bit much.

Marketing

I've resisted for so long, but raising my profile is a must. I've gotten more efficient with the time it takes me to do the work so it's now time to fill more time with work.
It feels odd to be entering into this stage of my work. Before I could get the Craig's List entry done I had a bite on the Kijiji entry.

song of the day

An old Elvis tune. A little less satisfaction played by Guitar Shorty. A Brilliant offering today on Buck56's show.