INTRODUCTION:
IF you are new to my diatribe ramblings, you may enjoy the diversion, or get frustrated, hard to predict ahead of time really. I like to write in my country, folksy, dry sense of humor style, telling life from a perspective that many of us enjoy and promote, and many others have never known or forgotten about. I know my writing isn’t up to publication standards, and I’m “comma happy” as my writing teacher used to say, but even with the run-on sentences, rabbit trails, bad grammar and punctuation, I try to use my project stories and Blogging to document the turns and twists of the personal Journey I’m on. I conceive the stories I choose to share much like a personal diary that I don’t mind others reading, telling the ins and outs of the life I’ve chosen here in Kansas, struggling to run a one-man studio, raising two kids with my Wife, and enjoying all that God has Blessed us with. I hope you appreciate the perspective and diversion for a few minutes.

I’ve been very busy with work this year, Thank God, and so I’ve not had much time or energy to dedicate to any blogging or story telling for awhile. So many cool things have happened to me and my little one-man-show here in Kansas, and if I don’t start blogging them, I’ll move on by them and forget to document “things” here in the Flint Hills.

Wow, A Big Tree
Recently, the State was pulling out an old bridge to replace with a new bridge on one of the old gravel roads North of my house a little ways. In the path of this work was a humongous Burr Oak tree. The man with the State, and the contractor running the Track Hoe love wood, and they hated to see this old gem pulled out and pushed into a burn pile. So, they started calling around trying to find someone that would take the tree, and use it for something, anything, even fire wood.

The Last Time I was notified of a Huge tree free for the taking, it was in New York State, and I had two days to remove it from the job site. So, I don’t know what happened to it, I couldn’t handle that one. This however was a tree about 4 miles from me, so I was ready to pounce.

Several folks looked at it for firewood, and decided it was too big, and so they “passed” on it.

Getting The Call:
Then, my neighbor lady heard about the situation and suggested my name. I was on site the morning after the call, and hauled the tree away the following morning. After talking with the excavator operator and setting up a plan for saving the oak and loading it on a trailer, I looked around to enjoy the day a little. I spotted an even bigger double-trunk sycamore tree beside the old oak, and on the other side of the road a big old monster walnut tree. I inquired if those other two trees were also available…...and they were not. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, and so I happily went on my way, brain running fast, trying to come up with a plan for cutting, loading, hauling, unloading, and slabbing the big old oak.

I would have taken the tree the first day I was on site, but with the 100+ degree days, and the heat already rising pretty quickly mid-morning, I was glad the excavator operator would let me start at daybreak the next morning.

So this is what the Sunrise Looks Like?
Daybreak? I never start anything that early, except maybe a dream. I’m a late-nighter, or used to be that is, these days if I’m not snoring by 9pm, it’s a good day. Now that I’m an “artist” I don’t carry a watch, don’t set an alarm clock, and pretty much enjoy the fact that I’m living beyond the grasp of modern society and everyone’s need to be connected and facebooked, and cell phoned, and walking around with electronic gizmos attached to their ears, running on tight schedules…..multi-tasking they call it. I used to live that life also, except it was a Bag Phone in those days and a pager, oh how I’m so glad that is all gone. Life isn’t like that around my shop and home, at least not most of the time. Anyway, I dusted off the clock, plugged it in, set the alarm and got up early.

Introducing My Faithful Helper:
Here’s my son in a couple of photos. My son wanted to come along, and at 5:15am the next morning when it was time to go, he was regretting that decision. But, with a couple of shakes and prodding, he hit his feet, put on shoes, and away we went, carrying a couple of pop-tart packs and some water. Remember getting out of bed and heading toward the day without brushing your teeth, or your hair, or even putting on clean clothes? Oh, the joys of being a boy. Oh, but I do have to admit that I still do that some these days myself.

He loves to go Logging. He was so excited, I don’t think he stopped talking the entire trip. Although, he spent most of the hard work time throwing rocks in the creek….remember those carefree days? Although at this point most of the real work falls on my shoulders, he does like hanging out with me whenever I’m on a big adventure like this, especially if we can drive a “monster truck” while doing it. At the end of a day, he feels that he’s really helped me, and from an encouragement standpoint, and the talkative company he is, he does help. It will be interesting to see how he grows and develops and what he decides to do with his life in the next years. Right now, he’s convinced that he is going to “move out” when he grows up, but he wants to settle down not too far away, like out behind the shop. That makes me smile every time we talk about him growing up, finding his own way in this world, making decisions. He’s already pretty sure that he’s ready to be the “boss”, as he’s tired of everyone telling him what to do.

Normally, we putt around the hills in my old 1972 GMC Sierra pickup truck, so he’s a fan of old trucks and big trucks. Recently I overhead him showing my parents the “truck my dad bought me…”, an old non-running 1970 Chevy Pickup truck that I traded even across for a non-running Ford 8N tractor. They guy wanted my tractor so bad he showed up one day with the truck on a trailer, so we unloaded it and sent the tractor home with him. Now my son thinks the “new” truck is going to be his. I guess I’m proud to have him adopt “my” old truck like that, and I hope to find the money to get it running some day for “us”.

My son enjoys bumming around with me, he loves summer time, and if nobody else cared I don’t think he’d do much else. And, he loves to go anywhere that he can throw rocks into some water. Since the tree was at a bridge project, throwing rocks in the creek was pretty good motivation for getting him out of bed early. He has learned to skip rocks pretty well, a strange little flick of his wrist that he’s learned, which just makes them tap, tap, tap, tap on the top of the water for a good 10-16 bounces. My old-man wrists, ruined by carpal tunnel back in my sit-at-a-computer-corporate-job-years, can’t do it like he does, and my old pitcher’s shoulder won’t spin as fast either. So, I’ve had to admit that already at 9 years old, he’s passed me on by in the rock skipping (what’s next?). I can throw harder and farther than he can still, but he can out skip me by at least double now.

The tree was too big to pull out of the hole in one piece, so the track hoe operator laid it down so that I could take off the limbs and lighten it up some. The limbs are 18”-24” dia, and so I gathered them also in a second load that I didn’t get a photograph of. They are big enough to make some really nice coffee table slabs out of.

Once the limbs were removed, the root ball and log were pulled up on level ground where I could really inspect it well. The bottom 15 foot or so of the tree is hollow, rats!

I cut off the root ball and about 8’-10’ of the log base, making it small enough that I could almost get the 42” chainsaw bar through the tree diameter. I still had to cut on both sides, but now I also have a hollow section to use, and it fit on the trailer.

I’ve become a huge fan of “Picker Sisters” on the television (who wouldn’t be?), and those two creative ladies have inspired all kinds of new creative brain movement for my future work. I don’t know yet where it will take me, but I’m inspired, and have started piling up rusty junk for whatever comes.

So I know I’ll figure out how to use this hollow section at some point, so I took as much of it as I could. The rest of the Log will be slab cut from edge to edge, through the large branch crotch section to make a few table tops to use in Nakashima Style furniture pieces. I can buy plain old oak boards pretty cheap about anywhere, so when I go Logging, I’m looking at making big boards, the type that I can’t buy anywhere else, or at least that I can’t afford to buy anywhere else.

Where to get this Big Baby Cut UP?
Nobody around me has a mill that will slab cut a tree this size. So, a friend and I are building one. I’m hoping to have it ready this Fall to start cutting up the growing pile of logs I’ve been accumulating for the past 12-18 months, in expectation of this new log mill. When finished, I’m trying to get a wide cut in the range of 66” across, big enough to take a portion of the limbs and main crotch from these big trees here around where I live.

Yuck, Sweat and Itchy:
Sorry for the “sweaty” shirt photo, have you ever tried to wield the biggest saw Stihl makes with a 42” long bar. Takes a bigger man than me for sure. I’ve used Stihl saws for several years, clear back when they were mostly made of metal. I can assure you that this big model is no normal saw that you are used to. When started up, it pops and pops like some sort of bored out drag bike at the Harley races. Pop, Pop, grrrrrrrrr, as I pull the trigger in slowly. Cutting through green wood on a 24” dia. oak limb with this saw is about a 20-30 second delay. Feels sort of like what I imagine holding one of those hot rodded saws on the Timberjack competitions is like. Way to go Stihl.

I was so excited to get this log “home”, that I didn’t even notice the huge vines of poison ivy growing all over it. So, I’ve been dousing myself with bendryl lotion ever since. I just hate that stuff, but even all of the sweat and itching are going to be worth it when this majestic tree becomes something cool for a person’s home or business.

Wow, What Equipment:
In the photos, the only thing I own are the worn out t-shirt and jeans and old tennis shoes. I borrowed the truck, trailer, and Stihl saw from a great friend.

thanks for reading and traveling along (and you didn’t even get in the poison ivy!)
Mark DeCou
www.decoustudio.com

And, honestly, I can’t really help everyone, as I have to work in the shop myself, so I have accepted an invitation to teach a Powder Horn Building and Scrimshaw Decoration Class at the John Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC. The date will be mid-July in 2012, and it is planned for a five day class.

We’ll discuss the history, techniques, and build a horn in class with a display stand, and decorate it with your own scrimshaw artwork. I will supply all of the materials, and reference sources. So, this class will be a combination of two classes, teaching both historical and contemporary powder horn crafting and scrimshaw decoration. Getting this all done in five days will be a chore, so come prepared to work. Several of my powder horns have more than 200 hours of work in them, so we’ll do as much as we can accomplish in the five days we are together in North Carolina.

This class size will be small, so if you have interest in this class, contact the school and put your name on a waiting list, as their catalog to the public will be released in early 2012. You can also contact me with questions, or comments about the class, but I can not sign anyone up, I’ll just refer you back to the Folk School for registration.

If you would like more information, please email me at mark@decoustudio.com

thanks, and hope to see you in North Carolina
Mark DeCou

Here is a Link to the John C. Campbell Folk School website

Here are some postings I’ve added about Powder Horns:
Scrimshaw Powder Horn
Scrimshaw Powder Horn
Montage with Several Powder Horns
Blog on building a powder Horn
Blog on adding Scrimshaw to a Powder Horn

You can see more of my Powder Horn and Scrimshaw artwork at my Website

He is talking pretty much non-stop, excitedly going through his backpack showing me all of his Hot Wheel cars, and commenting on them, telling me how fast each will go, and which one is his “favorite one”. He has a lot of “favorites”, and I enjoy listening to him talk and how he appreciates the things he has to play with.

When I buy him Hot Wheels cars as gifts, I typically buy him the “classic, real looking car” toys, and an occasional cool looking hot rod. I keep all of the Corvettes and Pickup Trucks for my own collection (he borrows those once in a while to play with carefully, while his cars get run off the table, and tossed around and walked on without as much care as I wish he had).

I’ve been teaching him the names of the old cars this way.

When he doesn’t know the name of the car by memory, he’ll turn it over and read the bottom of it to me.

He says, “What’s Mal…Malis….Malisaw… what’s this say Dad?”

I stick out my hand and he gives me the car, and I look at it through my trifocals and say to him, “Malaysia…that’s where it’s built.”

Then he comes to another car, “Th…Th…Th-land? What’s this one say Dad?”

I look at it and say, “Thailand, that’s where it’s built.”

He’s quiet for a long awhile, and he says, “When I grow up I want to live in Thailand!”

I respond, “What? Why would you want to move to Thailand?”

He quickly replies, “That’s where all of the cool toys are made, and I want to make toys for children when I grow up.”

I ponder that one for the rest of the ride, all the rest of the day, and then also on the ride back home.

Back at home Saturday night, I pull down from the shelf my own Hot Wheels car collection (I have all of my old toys) to see what they say on the bottom.

These old cars are ones I collected as a kid, and they are kept up out of reach of today’s kids.

My cars are all metal, and heavy, and feel really goooood in the hand, and they quickly bring back a fun flood of memories. My cars ranged in age from 1967-1972, and my cars are stamped on the bottom “USA”.

However, there is one plastic topped car in my collection, and it’s really a piece of junk, and I quickly remember that as a kid, this car was always the slowest one I had, and I didn’t played with it as much.

I’m curious and turn it over, and it has “1974 Malaysia” stamped on the bottom.

Enough Said, it’s a sad enough story as it is.

You want to fix this economy?

Go make something USA….before all of our kids leave!

Thanks for reading,
Mark DeCou – “Proud to be called a blue-collar working American that still makes something”

UPDATE 3-28-2012:
MISSION CASKET BOOK & PLANS AVAILABLE:
After Posting my Casket Stories and Photos on Lumberjocks, I have been overwhelmed by the response from readers. There is quite a long thread of folks wanting to build their own casket, or wanting to build one for a close friend or family member.

There are many reasons a person would build their own casket, including saving money, assisting someone with a need they have, doing something custom made because it is special, just because you want to, keeping your hands busy at something during the grieving process, a conversation piece, etc.

All of this email traffic about caskets has relayed to me some really sad stories, and stories of great courage, and exposed a real desire by some do-it-yourself folks to build a casket. And, there isn’t much on the internet or in Print Form to help you get started.

So, All of this internet attention lead me to a teaching invitation at the John Campbell Folk School in the summer of 2011 on the art of casket making. To assist the students in that class I wrote a step-by-step instruction book and drew some drawings, making the Book a total of 78 pages. I tried to use my Book as a way to teach the project, but also teach woodworking skills in the process.

If you would like a copy of my Book/Plans, visit my Etsy.com store to purchase a copy for yourself

——————————————

NOW BACK TO THE ORIGINAL POSTING:

I’ve really tried hard during this recession to focus on working, and not typing.

To that end, I’ve not spent much time on Blogs and Project Stories and Forum Topics, like I did the first year after I joined lumberjocks. My goal for the silence has been to work hard and survive as a business entity until the public starts buying expensive furniture pieces again.

So far, I’m doing well, I’m busy, healthy, and booked for several months out. I’ve not been selling much furniture, especially not the time consuming carved things I’ve been asked to build in years past, but I’ve been staying busy with smaller items that people have ordered. And I can attribute 94% of my sales the past 18 months to my lumberjock’s postings, Etsy Sales, and eBay sales, the rest has been word of mouth marketing.

So, I’ve been trying to keep off the computer and just work on the commissioned items, while adding a bedroom onto our house, handling church issues again, and spending some quality & quantity time with my Wife and two kids. I’ve also been helping one of the neighbor kids build a solid-body electric guitar, while I build a Bass guitar, a long-term goal that I’m finally accomplishing. Just a lot going on, and not much time for typing lately.

But, I decided to break the silence this morning with some exciting news….....

Through my postings on lumberjocks of my casket building projects I was invited to teach a class on Casket Building at the J. Campbell Folk School

I believe the class will be called “Hands to Earth: Building a Family Casket.”

Actually, I’m a little scared. My dad was woodshop teacher, and so he’s more experienced in teaching, but I’ll just have to do the best I can. At least I have about 16 months to sweat it out and get the preparations made. I’d like to come up with my own Casket Building handbook, and some drawn plans by that time as well. So, I’ll have plenty to get done between now and then.

The goal of the 5 day class will be for each student to complete a casket, roughly based on my design, allowing for some styling deviations that I feel we can accomplish in the duration of the course. This will be mostly a product-skills based class, but rooted in the process of teaching how a family can build a casket for someone they love.

The class is not intended to teach how to start up a business building caskets, which I get contacted about quite often from internet surfers. Rather, the goal with the J. Campbell Folk School course will be more family oriented, and personal, and designed for me to teach about hand making one casket for someone you love. The process can be very helpful in dealing with the grief associated with a dire diagnosis.

Due to the time it takes to hand build a casket, normally it is not possible to wait for the death to happen and then start the work on the casket. Therefore, normally the situation is one where a family member knows the inevitable is approaching, adn the family has time to make the plans and build the casket. Then the family works together to build a casket for the funeral.

In one case that I worked on, the wife of the sick man couldn’t bring herself to ordering a casket while he was still fighting his cancer, so her family contacted me secretly and asked for me to start work on a casket for them, just in case he lost his fight with Cancer. Two weeks later, I delivered the casket to the furneral home.

From that experience, I saw first hand how stressful the process can be for the survivors. In the case of my Uncle’s casket, the nurses at the hospital reported that he was so pleased to tell them about his nephew building him a a special casket, a Mission Style one, just like he wanted. He called me on the phone and we talked about the wood to use, the design that he wanted, and many other things that he wanted to tell me.

And so the goal of my class will be to teach the skills needed, save some money for the family, and let them work to handle their grief while working in the woodshop together.

The handmade casket can be simple, elaborate, personalized, and perfectly fitting for the situation. The last time I had to help my family pick out a casket, all I could think as I walked slowly through the display/selection room was, ”boy, I wish Grandpa would have let me build one for him…...I could have made it so much more personal for him, and probably saved some money in the process…...”

My grandfather just never could make the decision to have me start on the casket for him, and so I missed out on that opportunity. So, instead, while waiting for the funeral, I built a Hat Rack/Cane Stand/Coat Tree that held his favorite Cowboy Hats, Walking Canes, and Blazer. So, eventhough I didn’t have the chance to build his casket, I did pour my grief into another tribute for his funeral. Incidentally, the Pastor that did the funeral service contacted me after the service and asked to buy the Hat Rack Stand for his office. We made a deal on it, and placed a brass plaque dedicating it to the church in the name of my grandfather.

I work out grief the best when I’m busy building something. I restored a Corvette one time after a breakup of a long-term relationship. Then, a few years later I restored a Harley Davidson one time when my wife and I were having struggles. I just seem to work out grief best by staying busy. I’m hopeful that there are at least 8 other people that are the same way, who would like to come and learn how to build a Casket.

I think for this upcoming Casket Building Class that having some basic woodworking skills are recommended, but we’ll get something built with whomever signs up for the class. The school has a large woodshop that we’ll use, and also an open-air pavillon that we can work in if we need some more room.

The date of the class will be in mid-June 2011, I believe it will run June 12-18, but the date needs to be confirmed.

The School’s 2011 catalog is a few months from being published, but if you would like to have your name put on the waiting list you can either contact me, or the school, and then further information will be sent to you as it is ready.

This class is intended to be small (8 people), so if you are really interested in the class, I’d recommend letting the school know your intentions soon.

The Folk School, and myself, are hopeful that this first class will be the start of a long relationship where I can offer teaching in various skills over the coming years. Over the past three years with my involvement with lumberjocks, I’ve received many questions about whether I could “teach a woodworking class”. I’m hoping that this relationship with the J. Campbell Folk School will be a start to that journey.

That’s it, back to work on some Cherry Bookcases…...

Mark DeCou
email: mark@decoustudio.com

New Co-op Gallery:
It’s been a busy couple of weeks here for me. I helped open a new Co-Op Gallery called the Prairie Past Times Antiques and Crafts Shop in Cottonwood Falls. I joined up, as it’s the hottest thing going right now for art in my little town. I put quite a few things in the store, and learned how to ring up the cash register. The new website for the little gallery is prairiepasttimes

Unfortunately, while thumbing though some turquoise necklaces by another artist, I dropped one on the floor and broke some beads, so that’ll cost me. I left her a note asking if I could pay for the damage. Then, I found something that I thought my wife would actually like for Mother’s Day, and I could keep my “Pledge” at the same time.

Pledging to Buy Handmade:
Remember awhile back that “BuyHandmade.ORG” website we discussed? I decided to put my money where my mouth was, and bought a set of hand embroidered dish towels with pictures of cooking herbs and their names. Really cute, like something your Great Grandmother would have had in her kitchen. Uneven lettering, uneven stitches, hand tied little knots. They are perfect for the Pledge. These towels are not your normal Catalog-Imported-Junk, embroidered by a Soul-Less Computerized Sewing Machine.

These are all hand stitched, and beautiful, and only $3.00 a piece. How could I pass those by?

I bought all that the lady had in the store, 6 total, made by a nice older woman from this area. So, I have Mother’s Day about figured out, and I was able to keep my previous Pledge.

Have you kept your “BuyHandmade.org” pledge?

Finding His Wheels, Finally:
A couple of years ago, I made the mistake of taking the training wheels off my son’s bike before he wanted it done. I kept assuring him that he could ride, and that I never learned with Training Wheels. But, he continued to insist that it was a mistake. But, it was the mistake I made after that which caused the real problem…..I let go while running along side holding him up when he was peddling.

He did great, rode about 100 feet all by himself, and then all of a sudden he noticed that he was on his own, and turned in terror to see where I was (clapping and jumping up and down behind him), and he panicked and went down in a big crash in the gravel driveway.

Well, two years has gone by, and he really hasn’t wanted to do the bike riding thing again, nor has he trusted me like he did before.

We’ve been working on that “trust” thing together, and we’ve made some progress. But, he’s continued to ride his big-wheeled tricycle, which has been a little crazy for a 7.5 year old.

But, a couple of weeks ago, he came into the shop after school and said, “Dad, I want my Big Bike out of the shed, and I want those little wheels back on it.”

So, I did as told, and put the training wheels back on. He didn’t want my help with riding, so I retreated into the shop and watched and listened out the window.

He started talking to the Red Bike, “Come on ol’ Boy, you can do this, gentle, easy Boy, don’t throw me off this time….that’s it…..easy…..”

He started making his way down the drive way bouncing back and forth between the two training wheels. After 15 minutes he came back to the shop, and said, “Dad, I want those baby wheels off my bike.”

Ok, and I did as I was told.

I asked, “Do you want me to hold you up while you ride?” He put his head down and replied, “No sir, I can do it.” He had that look on his face like I had beaten him up with his own bike, which his mother agreed with also.

He took off easy, and fell over slowly a couple of times, turning back to see if I was watching.

I had slipped back into the shop and watched out the window. So, he just started talking to the Red Bike like it was Pony again, and got up and kept trying.

Then, he came back and said, “Dad I want those small wheels on it again.”

Ok, I did as I was told.

He bounced back and forth between the training wheels for a few more times, but they really made it hard to ride.

He came back into the shop again saying, “Dad, I want those baby wheels off my bike again.”

Ok, I did as I was told.

This go around, he actually got the bike down the driveway, and turned into the grass before bailing off, jumping up and down and screaming, “I can do this, I can do this.”

It was a great moment.

So, this past Wednesday evening I dusted off Mom’s bike and aired up the tires (it has a softer seat than mine) and together we rode down to the Big Bridge and back. It was a great moment, riding side by side, him yelling, “Better keep up dad, I’m flying….”

What a great moment.

Busy Shipment Week:
I shipped my work out to California, Florida, Iowa, Virginia, and Germany this week. The internet buying coming in from lumberjocks postings is really taking over my business life.

The DeCou Studio Etsy Shop has been working well, and I’m happy I took that plunge. Have you opened your Etsy Shop yet, and cross linked your Lumberjocks Postings?

I still haven’t figured out the trick for Google finding the Etsy postings, but the lumberjock postings are driving some viewers to the Etsy Shop, and folks wanting to buy the things posted on Lumberjocks are going on to Etsy to make the purchase. This has eliminated a lot of the emails I was getting about prices for things people have seen on Lumberjocks. Several emailed this past week asking if I had any rounding jacks available to buy, and I could quickly send back an email with a short note and Link to the Etsy offerings. Saves me quite a bit of typing.

Earlier this week I typed “rounding jack” into google to see what would come up. Out of the top 10 first page items, 9 of them were my Lumberjocks postings, BUT one of them was the Etsy Posting with one of my rounding jacks for sale. I felt that was a big victory, and I hope soon other key words will find the Etsy Postings just as quickly. One thing I’ve learned about Google, one day you are number One, the next day you’re 4th page. I haven’t figured out why yet, but I’m working on it.

Moving On:
The Preaching Pastor of my little country church decided that he is now called to a bigger church up North of here, so I was up late with the other Board members last night trying to come up with a new game plan for the next phase of our little “Non-Denominational Country Community Church”. Again.

Taking a Day off for the Kids:
After getting home at 1:45 am after the Church Board meeting, I slept in this morning. It is Saturday, and I never take off Saturdays. I haven’t for many, many, years. I can’t afford to. I do take off bits of a day once in while, like with something going with the kids at school, or at the church, or a friend, or tourist dropping by for a visit.

But this Saturday, the Wife was headed to a Women’s Day at a local church, and so she woke me up to inform me that the kids were going to be staying all day in the Nursery at the chuch since I wouldn’t get out of bed. She overused her phraseology on the word “Nursey”, and I knew that was supposed to be a bad thing. And, she continued on turning on lights, opening and closing drawers. When I was a teen and wanted to sleep in on Saturdays, my Mom used to vacuum the carpets, like there wasn’t any connection. I guess that’s just the way women are, it’s been my experience anyway.

Well, the kids were really pretty excited about going to the Nursery, as they were getting a chance to play with the little kids and hold babies, which they love to do. Rachel came in and jumped up on the bed to say good morning. I pulled the pillow off my head and said, “If you stay home with me today, we’ll go fishing.”

“What? You really mean it?” she said.

I nodded and so down the hall she ran looking for her brother to give him the good news.

I was sort of shocked I said it also.

Ok, so the sleep time was officially over, and I crawled around, took a shower, and fretted some over the work I was leaving undone today. We’ve had a lot of rain this week, and the entire 6 acres needs to be mowed, I haven’t weed-eated since last Summer, the gutters are full of leaves, the oil needs changing in the Old Truck, and I’m about year behind on commissioned orders. I’ve worried at times about not having work, but now I worry about having work, all of those nice people wondering why their box hasn’t arrived yet.

Still, today was the day for fishing.

We dug out the fishing poles, and untangled them, and I spent some time teaching the kids to throw a cast line. The first, and last time, we went fishing it was three years ago. So, it was time to teach them this. I tied a rubber bouncer on their poles and sent them out to practice. Neither kid will listen to more than 15 seconds of instructions about anything, sorta reminds me of me. I had just one “toss” to show them how to do it, so I put their thumb on top of my thumb, and had their hands on top of my hands on the handle of the pole, and did the casting one time. They could see when to let go of the thumb, because their thumb was on mine. That’s all they would let me show them, one cast.

The one cast was enough, and they quickly got the hang of it, and I headed back into the shop to continue untangling my old fishing pole lines.

I then called over to the neighbor to make sure he would allow us to fish in his pond today, the one right behind our house. That pond used to belong to our little Dairy Farm, but when the property was up for sale, all I had cash for was the House and Outbuildings, so the neighbor owns the pasture now.

Eight years ago they told me that we could have access to any of their property, several thousand acres, but I felt it was better to give them a call. Five years ago on a nature walk with the kids, we stumbled right into the middle of a turkey decoy arrangement which seemed sort of strange at first, but not nearly as strange as when another neighbor looked when he popped up out of a blind all dressed in camo walking toward us.

Uh, oh. He was rightly fully angry, I was trespassing, and he was hunting.

He started to chew me out, and Riley who was only around 3 years old at that time, looked up at him and said, “I’m Riley, what’s your name…” with the cutest expression and inflection. The neighbor melted, and calmed down, but continued to express his frustration at my trespassing. He was right, and that misadventure caused me to give him a custom hunting knife as an apology-peace gift, but I learned my lesson, and so since then I’ve always called first before I trespass.

This neighbor today graciously agreed to the fishing invasion, and all that was left was some Digging for worms, and loading up the kid’s wagon to pull with all of our supplies.

It takes a lot of stuff to go fishing. Bottled water, poles, hats, jackets, tackle boxes, camera, Barbie Doll, empty bucket, sunscreen….....What we should have brought was a couple extra pairs of socks, but that’s another story. Kids and water, you know.

Spading For Worms:
Digging worms was a little hard at first, since Rachel had found some after a rain storm earlier this week, just crawling on the ground like worms do after a rain. She made up a little house for them, and blessed the 2nd Graders yesterday with a Show-And-Tell-Day Worm House Display.

She came home after school Friday evening with the new “pets” and wanted to keep them in her bedroom, but Momma said, “no!” Some Mommas are like that, and I can’t blame her since the worms stink so bad. So, the worms are in the Wood Shop, where Stink doesn’t matter to anyone.

But, going out Digging for worms today with plans to sacrifice them to the fish, was a little hard for Rachel. I had hoped we could use her “pets” to save some digging, but she wouldn’t stand for it.

So, we dug around in some tree shade north of the house, with an old shovel… until the handle broke off. So, I gathered my Grandfather’s old Potato Spade out of the shed and we Spaded for worms then.

My Grandfather used that same Spade when I was my kid’s age, looking for worms with me to go fishing with. It’s a good Spade for that. It’s such a good Spade actually, that I normally can’t bring myself to use it for anything, worrying that I might break out it’s old, weathered wood handle. He was a great Grandfather.

We found plenty of worms, and three Cicadas that hadn’t come out of the ground yet, so we took them all, and couple of grubs.

Finally to the Pond:
Later, out at the Pond, it was a cloudy day, with abnormally low wind, and I really hoped we didn’t catch anything.

I don’t much like eating fish, or cleaning them, so I honestly hoped for little success today, other than an experience in taking some time off to do something the kids have wanted to do for a long time.

I come from a family that has a long history of working 6-Days a week, and we don’t take much time to go play, like on a fishing trip. Never could afford to much really I guess. Working is just who we are. I worked hard at coming up with a business plan that would allow me to stay home to work, instead of always kissing and patting kids on the head as I drove away to a job. So, I’m home now, but I still kiss and pat the kids on the head as I walk to the shop, calling over my should, “Sorry, I don’t have time, gotta work today…..”

Back at the Pond, it was clear right off the bat, that my son had no concept of letting a Bobber sit still, or to stop throwing sticks and rocks in the water. So, I sent him and his fish scaring shenanigans around to the side of the Pond so he would move the fish toward Rachel.

He enjoyed doing a sort of “fly-fishing” constantly-casting method. Since he sometimes turns the reel the wrong way for awhile, and then corrects and goes the other way, i was kept fairly busy untangling his reel. But he was having fun.

Rachel kept moving her pole, which pulls the bobber around, and so I kept telling her to lay down her pole, and step away. During one of my lectures, Riley looked up at me and said, “Yea, and how many times do I have to ‘peat myself?” Sounded just like me and I cracked up laughing, and then we all laughed. It’s good to laugh at myself.

I believed at best, we would catch Bull Head catfish, if we caught any. That’s normally the Farm Pond fish of choice in Kansas, unless it’s been stocked for fishing. This is a Cattle Watering Pond, not a Fishing Pond, but I felt it was perfect for the day.

Here’s Riley Demonstrating his “Constantly-Casting Method”

Rachel was the first to catch one, and then another, and another two or three. All of them were really healthy looking Channel Catfish, which was quite a surprise.

I wasn’t fishing, just sacrificing the worms and rebaiting her hooks. She forgot about how sad it was to kill the worm, once she realized how fun it was to catch a fish.

The fish kept coming in faster than I could keep worms on the hooks, in between untangling Riley’s fishing gear several times.

Rachel was having a blast.

Here’s Rachel Demonstrating the Time-Tested Kansas Method of “Waiting” for Catfish

Riley’s constantly-casting method wasn’t working so well, and he was getting very tired of his sister putting it in his face that she was catching all of the fish.

He would get some bites a few times, and then would jerk the hook toward shore and recast. Not how you catch Kansas Pond Catfish.

Finally, he had something on the line, and I couldn’t hardly believe it.

He pulled in a very nice Channel Catfish, about 11”-12” long. As he pulled it to shore I said to myself, “that must be the first Channel Cat caught on a fly rod, I just can’t believe it.”

When we pulled the fish to the Pond bank, I noticed that the Cat was actually snagged on the right side fin with the clean hook. Riley had kept the tension tight enough that he got the Cat to dry land.

We all cheered and cheered him on, and finally…. he just had a blast.

While he and I were admiring his fish, Rachel caught one on her pole, and so I got the photo of them both.

Another great memory, and a great day. I hope they remember it like I will.

Oh yea, we did all “catch and release” today.

thanks for reading, who do you need to spend a day with?
M

I guess that counts, so I hope you’ll stick with me to the end, this is a true story, I didn’t make this up.

This week we’ve had some unusually cold weather, and then warm, and then cold again. I was able to put up six pickup truck loads of firewood this year, so I have enough to warm the shop, even in the middle of April, for crying out loud.

This time of year, I have to be pretty careful though, digging through the firewood pile. Spiders, centipedes, cockroaches, ants, wasps, wood boring bees, and other scary things are coming back around ready for Spring. One misplaced finger carrying a pile of wood in that condition, and it can mean certain pain from a sting, or bite. So, I’m careful.

This week I was carefully picking through the woodpile, getting the proper mix of species to start quickly, yet hold some heat.

I’ve learned to prepare my wood stove sort of like how Master Chef Emeril Lagasse goes to the Grocery Market. “A little of this, some of that, oh that looks good, need some of that, oh that’ll be good….”

Each time to the pile, I discover things that I can use for more valuable purposes than heat, sometimes it is some nice spalted areas, or burled knotty areas, things like that.

So, you get the point, I look over the wood carefully.

For some reason, I didn’t notice this though.

As I loaded up the wood stove, and started the kindling, and sat on my little fire-meditation stool enjoying my careful work, and the resulting heat, I noticed something new this time.

Huddled all together in a little “pile” was a colony of ants, all nestled down in the crevice of the bark on one log.

These aren’t mean ones, just little black and red ones.

We don’t have many scary ants in Kansas. Not like other places.

I thought that maybe this little pile of ants had all huddled up together to live out their last moments before death from winter, and it was sort of interesting to think about how they all “went-out” together.

I told you that it is a fire-meditation stool. Sometimes, as I sit on the little stool I even read from a leather bound book I keep in the shop. As much as I hate cutting and hauling firewood, I do enjoy the heat it provides, and the Stool time each day. Once Spring arrives with it’s warmth, I seem not to take time for that meditation. I guess it really is one of the only reasons I can admit that I like about winter.

Peaceful, thought provoking, quiet.

My wife thinks I spend too much time alone, so it could be that also. She is tired of my excited little stories I try to tell during my lunch, or office work breaks. You know, the type of things I think up working in the shop alone so many hours with nobody to talk to. I do a lot of praying, and thinking, and worrying, and all kinds of things that I was unable to do when I worked in a fast-paced Corporate office with the phone ringing, and bosses yelling, and co-workers telling weekend stories, etc. Which is just another reason I like being alone in the Shop I guess.

When I was first contemplating starting up my little woodworking business again, one of my close friends drove out to my place 90 miles to deliver a message. “It couldn’t be God’s will for me to start the woodshop up as a business, since I’m a ‘non-stop-talker’, and I would not be able to interact with people and be who I am really created to be.”

I contemplated his message for a little while and replied, “I think God wants me to shut up for once, and learn to listen”

Enough said, I started up the woodworking business again the next month. I appreciate the timely visits from close friends and family, but I don’t always follow their loving advice. I have a Higher Calling, at least that’s what I tell myself.

Some years have passed now, and I’m learning to listen better and shut my mouth, so I’m progressing.

So, here I sit, quietly watching the warming flames move around the wood in the stove, and I notice a little stirring of the ant pile. First, it was just a few legs moving. Then, it was a few bodies moving.

As the wood stove warmed, the entire ant pile all came unglued from each other, and they started scurrying around trying to figure out what to do. It was obvious that they were alerted to danger, and they were right.

Now, you may not have known this, but I’m a bit of an environmentalist, and a conversationalist, a greenie, and tree hugger, and a lot of other things, and I never have enjoyed killing, or watching something die, even little black and red ants. I’ll do what must be done, but I never enjoy the process. I guess that explains why I don’t enjoy fishing or hunting, but I don’t push that off on someone else, it’s just my hang up.

Just a side note, I’m a tree hugger that is true, and I love to make things from them.

My “greenie” side, only applies to using things with a purpose, conserving resources, and watching what we do with waste, and chemicals. However, I don’t like anyone forcing it on me. I do it because I feel it is the right thing to do. That’s it, and I don’t want to force anyone else to do what is right.

So, I’m sitting on the stool watching these little ants, and I’m getting sort of sad.

I start to imagine what they are thinking. I know, it is crazy, but commit me them.

I can’t help but imagine myself being in their place. Me, my family, my close friends, my neighbors, my whole community, scurrying around frantically trying to find a way out of the mess we are in.

Some ants head North, others head South, some of the ants just sit and sort of twirl in a circle waiting for a rescue. I know people like that, isn’t that interesting?

It is quick to see that some ants really work hard at finding a solution, while others just sit and spin in a circle. There has to be some good lessons from that alone, but that’s another story.

As I start to feel sad for the ants, I start to ponder a rescue.

Reaching in and removing the piece of firewood is pretty risky. It is already burning on the ends, and the bottom, and it has other firewood on top of it. I really can’t figure out how to remove the log without causing a potential fire hazard to my livelihood. After all, it is my workspace in that little shop, and besides myself, three others eat because I work in there.

As I watch, some of the ants start to find holes and voids in the bark, and they sort of wiggle into the openings to escape the heat. I’m sure they thought that they were safe, but they don’t see what I can see from my unique, larger perspective.

I can see that eventhough they burrow into the bark, eventually that whole log is going to burn, and they can’t see that.

The ants that are highly active keep scurrying around the edges of the log, peering over the edge, and turning back, moving a little farther, and peering over the edge again. They seem to be in a hopeless path of finding nothing but certain death from jumping into the coals. Yet, I respect their effort.

It’s like I can see their frustration and fear.

I start to think about how they all thought it would be a good place to wait out the winter, just huddled all together in that firewood pile, the lower part of the pile that I normally don’t get to each winter. But, this winter was different, and now all their planning has brought them nothing but certain death. What used to work, didn’t this time.

Think, think, think….what can I do?

Then, I get an idea…..Build a Bridge.

I start looking for a suitable stick, that I can lay up on the log, where the other end will extend out of the woodstove.

I imagine that with my Bridge, the ants can just all walk in a line across my bridge, where I’ll catch them in a plastic Cool Whip container, and release them to the outside.

I really like that idea, and so I picked out a stick from the kindling pile, and set up the little bridge and wait…and watch.

The flames get higher, and the situation is getting to the point of no return.

“Hurry Up Boys, cross the bridge!” I seem to be screaming to myself.

A couple of the outlying ants try out the edge of my bridge. They start to walk across it. “Yes, they will be saved!” I think.

I’ve seen enough nature shows, that I’m sure they are going to drop a scent and lead the whole colony to safety. The ants that are twirling in a circle are surely depending on one of their own to find a way out and lead them to safety.

I watch, as time after time, the Leaders get scared and turn back.

I can’t get even one ant to crawl out on the bridge. They are just too paralyzed with Fear. Could be another story in that analogy alone, but not this time.

I start thinking to myself, if I could only Speak “Ant Language” I could yell at them, “Over here, follow me, I’ll show you the way, I’ve made a bridge, follow me…please listen to me….”

But, of course, I don’t speak Ant.

From my unique and bigger perspective, I can see the path to safety, but the ants don’t, and I can’t communicate to them.

Then, I start to imagine that if I made myself an Ant, I could go down there and walk across the bridge, start laying chemical scents and lead them all to safety across the little stick bridge. They’d lift me up on the backs and carry me in a parade of jubilation, “He’s our hero!” I imagine them saying after the rescue.

But, of course, I can’t become an Ant. And even if I could become an Ant, I’m not sure I’d be enough of a hero to try the rescue. That would take a huge amount of Courage, that I may not have.

As the heat builds, and the flames grow, some of the little ants are starting to roll over on their backs and die, and it seems to be the ones that twirled in a circle. Isn’t that odd? The Ants that are out looking for their own path to safety are outliving the ones who just stayed in one place were it seemed safe. Another story could come out of that for sure.

It is really sad, but at that point I’ve exhausted my ability to come up with a workable plan to save them, without sacrificing my own safety.

I start to seriously count the cost of pulling out that burning log. First, I’ll burn my fingers, and then smoke will get all over the shop, and as I run to the door with the log, some of the hot coals will fall out on the floor into the unswept wood dust. Too much risk to save a bunch of silly Ants.

I think through how I’d take the risk and do it for a furry little animal, but not an insect, especially not a silly red and black ant.

So, I just sit there and watch them die, and wish for a different outcome.

Unable to lead them safety, nor willing to pay the cost for saving them, I watch them all die.

I contemplate whether to pick a few of the “hard workers” to save, letting others perish. In the end, I decided that even their hard work wasn’t enough to justify them being saved while the others weren’t.

So, they all died.

See why my wife thinks I’m looney?

Now, the Moral of the Story:
As I watched this Ant Massacre unfold before me, I couldn’t help seeing the parallels to Easter, and the work of One Man, a Master Woodworker, who was willing to leave his Unique Bigger Perspective, to become an “Ant” and communicate to us other ants. Then, He was actually willing to pay the ultimate sacrifice to save us “Ants”. Did He get a parade after the rescue? Well, at first, but then a week later, it was a Cross and a borrowed grave. Unlike the ants, He did rise from that Grave. So, you can see that Easter has an even more special meaning for me this weekend as I contemplate the Ants and the Fire. I hope you’ll think about it also.

Thanks for reading along,
Mark DeCou
www.decoustudio.com

(This text is protected by copyright 2009 by the Author, M.A. DeCou, all rights and privileges reserved.)

An artist and L-J’er that I greatly admire, Thomas Angle, can’t find anyone to buy his work, and he has shut down his business operation

That sort of just stinks, and should be a huge red flag for any of the rest of us that try to sell our handmade work for a living. He can work leather, and combine it with wood like few have ever done. It wasn’t their skill that was the problem for sure. Sometimes, we are victim to a culture.

I feel Thomas’ story, and the story of many others will soon be all too common.

How’s that for Optimism?

I’m glad he has found something else to do, but selling out his shop and moving to Wyoming has to be hard. I don’t like wind, or snow, or cutting calves, so I can’t follow him there. I admire a guy that is humble enough to tell others about the problem, and not just try to keep a smile on his “internet” face, and say everything is “great.” I do hope the best for Thomas and his wife, and for the guy that bought out the tools.

The Train is in the Station:
There have been dozens and dozens of professionals that have emailed me over the past year, worried about why their back log was dwindling. We all saw this economy coming a year ago, maybe longer, and it couldn’t be denied.

Back then, it was sort of like standing by the train tracks and feeling the ground move a little. You weren’t quite sure you felt it, been a long time since a train went by on those tracks. Then, way up the tracks, we thought we saw some smoke. Then a little later we heard the train whistle blow. “Yep, She’s on her way… that’s her whistle…Grandpa told me what it sounded like….”

And then we stood and watched as the guard rails came down with the flashing yellow lights (Bush reading his press release on Prime Time TV). Then, the cars on the highway all started slamming on the brakes, cars hitting each other, all squealing tires and smoke.

Now all that’s left is the suction feeling and the cold whoooooosh at the Big Engine speeds by as you stand and watch. All aboard!!

I have a good friend that lives close to a major rail road line. His wife told me one day when we stopped our conversation in their back yard to wait for the train to pass, “There goes another double decker load of Chinese ‘crap’, when will Americans learn that this isn’t good for us, oh I worry for my grandkids….?”

Her husband and I chuckled a little at her comment, and then the reality sunk in. That deep gut moving, queasy, feeling. “They are all headed to Walmart”, she went on, “I hate that place, just makes me sick…I just hate hearing that train whistle, reminds me every time what bad shape this Country is in….”

That rail line takes double stacked shipping containers by her house daily, she says it’s sometimes as often as every 15 minutes a train storms by. “Make sure you look for trains if you cross those tracks, it’s a dangerous place now,” she reminded me.

I didn’t argue with her, it isn’t respectful first of all, and I just can’t argue with her point. It isn’t good for us to fill our houses and landfills, and storage buildings, and rental garages, and empty warehouses, with all of this Junk. We buy it so cheap, there is no respect for it.

But, is it cheap?

A couple of months ago, my older friends that live by the train tracks, had their adult grandson, and his friend, and his pet dog all killed when they forgot to look to the left when they drove his pickup over that train track crossing about a quarter mile from his grandparent’s house.

I know that train whistle has an even more deep, and painful tone for them now. My heart has ached for their loss, I love them both so much.

Impressing the Jones’?
Many years ago, an older friend of mine from Wichita, KS named George Fooshee, Jr. wrote a book on finances called, “You Can Be Financially Free.” I remember one powerful line from page 39 of his book:

”An unknown skeptic has summarized financial discontent in this way: ‘People buy things they don’t need, with money they don’t have, to impress neighbors they don’t even like!’”
Copyright © 1976 by George Fooshee, Jr
Fleming H Revell Company

That line is a classic for sure.

During one counseling session with Mr. Fooshee in the mid 1990’s, my wife explained to him how she was trying to convince me to downsize and pay off debt, and I wouldn’t hear of it. He looked at me. “Is that true Mark?”

I went on with a long discourse of how if I was keeping up with my bills, what difference does it make.

He asked, “Mark, doesn’t the stress this is causing your wife make any difference to you?”

“She just doesn’t understand…..”, I replied.

Mr. Fooshee pulled out an old black book, and told me to turn to a page where a man was on a ship headed to Rome, and was caught in a terrible storm. The ship was a merchant ship, filled with sailors that knew the sea well, and had their life savings in the hold of the ship. Mr. Fooshee explained that the men on the ship had a decision to make. He told me to read on from there.

”The ship was caught by the storm and could not head into the wind; so we gave way to it and were driven along. As we passed to the lee of a small island called Cauda, we were hardly able to make the lifeboat secure. When the men had hoisted it aboard, they passed ropes under the ship itself to hold it together. Fearing that they would run aground on the sandbars of Syrtis, they lowered the sea anchor and let the ship be driven along. We took such a violent battering from the storm that the next day they began to throw the cargo overboard. On the third day, they threw the ship’s tackle overboard with their own hands.”

After I finished reading that section, Mr. Fooshee asked me, “Mark, did any of that make sense to you, what those sailors and merchants were willing to do to save their own lives?”

I acted like I was thinking really hard, and I said, “Not really, I don’t see how this story has anything to do with my wife wanting me to sell my Corvette, two Harley’s, my new pickup truck, pay off my credit cards, pay off my 401K loan, and downsize to a smaller house.”

I wasn’t lying, I didn’t get it.

“Well, Mark, someday when the storm is great enough, and tieing ropes under your ship won’t save your life, then maybe you’ll see all of your cargo in a new light, and this story will make more sense,” Mr. Fooshee said calmly.

I still didn’t get it. So, Mr. Fooshee said, “Ok folks, why don’t we eat some dinner?” His wife fixed up some veggie burgers and we had a wonderful time talking and eating. But, when I went home, I still didn’t get IT.

I did a few months later. Maybe you’ll get it quicker than I did, as I’m pretty dense.

I just need A Cup of Coffee:
My wife’s new coffee maker quit the other day. She hands it to me, “You can fix anything, give it a try.” I took the bottom off of it and saw the dreaded “Circuit Board” the end of any repair project for me. I put the screws back in the bottom and took it back to her. “Toss it in the trash, it’s done,” I said to her.

“But I don’t want to throw it away, it isn’t that old,” she came back.

So, the coffee maker sits on the back of the kitchen counter, none of us can throw it away yet. It’ll happen, but only after the pain has worn off a little.

Dropping Big Logs?
I had a log mill operator, that wouldn’t hardly return my calls for nine months, call recently begging for work to do. He had two home-builders showing up to help him cut up logs, as they didn’t have anything else to do.

He told me that he was headed to the bank to borrow some money to buy trees, so the three of them would have something to work at. But, he didn’t have any customers for the lumber, and so he was calling around trying to find some. I bought a log from him, and he’s working it up now for me, and it will become a couple of tables for a nice guy in Albuquerque when I get them finished.

So, I finally have some wood coming that I’ve been trying to buy since the Spring of ‘08, and he has a little bit of work to do. BUT, the sad part is that his story is similar to others all over the Country.

We All Saw it Coming, Didn’t we?:
Someone very wise once said, “You reap what you sow.”

Another wise guy once said, “If you sow to the wind, you will reap the whirlwind.”

Someone, not nearly as wise though, said, “Don’t spit into the wind.”

We all saw this coming, didn’t we?

Those crazy home loans with nothing down, those huge college loans for jobs that would make it 30 years to payoff, and those maxed out credit cards with introductory low interest rates, those 84 month payment plans for a new truck when there wasn’t much wrong with the old one, and those home-equity vacations and custom decks, and eating out. We all did it. Don’t forget those tax breaks for Corporations to move factories to foreign countries.

Paying off a House? (How 1960’s that is):
I knew this Country was bound for trouble when I tried to pay off my Mortgage in 1997. We got our Mortgage a few years earlier from the little personable, local, Savings & Loan branch office. Nice folks there, shook our hands, gave us cups of coffee, treated us like real folks. Several years later, some big wigs in New York owned our house, and would hold our payment check until it was just a day late each time. Frustrating bunch they were. If we sent in extra Principle, it would be held a few days more than it should. Things like that. I watched it close in those days, as I was trying to scramble enough money together to pay them off.

When I finally had the money to pay the house off, it took three levels up in Mr. Big Wig Corporation Management to tell us how to do it, and even that Manager didn’t really know, they had to go find out.

I remember watching my wife talk to the Manager on the phone. My wife repeated back what the Manager had said, ”what do you mean that Nobody pays off their mortgage? Can I talk I to your boss?”

The Wife is pretty good at getting things done, and about a week later we finally had a payoff amount and sent the wire transfer. But, I was left shaken by what this Country had become. Debt laiden.

A wise man once wrote, “The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.”

Ah Shucks, Appraisals, Who Needs Them?”
Then, in 2001, a friend of mine shut down his home appraisal business, since there was no longer a market for anybody wanting an appraisal on a house. A couple of years before that, he was booked solid with appraisals to hurry through.

“What? What do you mean that lenders don’t want to know what the market value is before they approve a loan?” I remember asking him.

“Times have changed,” he told me.

So, he went to work for a Mortgage company writing loans for houses. He called one day to say that it was not uncommon to approve loans for folks at 125% of the Purchase price, so they would have a little moving-in money, and then the borrowers put nothing down.

“What, are they nuts, didn’t they read the Total Interest-Charge Statement? Don’t you make them Initial that page still?” I asked him.

“Don’t they realize that if they ever pay off that mortgage it will cost them three times more than they paid for the house?”

“Yes, they know, they read the final interest cost, they just don’t care….” he replied.

“Mark, times have changed, and it has me worried where this is all headed,” he went on to tell me.

So, we all had plenty of warning. We just ran right through the dropped gates with the flashing red lights on it. Yes, the times had changed. A new wind started to blow, and behind it the Whirlwind. Too much free candy.

Isn’t Candy Good for You?
Yes, we all saw this coming. That Dreadful feeling, but we deny what our body is telling us..

The kind of dread you get in your Gut when something is wrong and you just know it.

But, knowing something is wrong, and doing something to change it, is the problem with human nature. You know what you are wanting to do is foolish, you can’t help yourself.

A wise man once said, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”

I can relate to that.

Sort of like the time I visited the new Russell Stover’s Chocolate Factory up by the big Interstate North of here. I knew when I went into the company store and they had free samples out on big silver platters that I should take it easy, just a taste, use moderation. I knew what to do.

Did I do it? No.

I ate so many pieces of Chocolate Covered Toffee that I had to go to my Father-in-Law’s house and just lay down on his spare bed, and I wondered if I would survive it, honestly. I knew each time I passed the big silver platter that I should stop, but I didn’t.

I did survive that day, but I haven’t been back to the Chocolate Factory since. I knew what to do, and couldn’t do it, it was just laying there on a platter, “Free, Please Take some.”

But, I got sick on that candy, not unlike our Economy now is sick from too many debt laiden Servants to the Lenders. I’ve actually been waiting on this “bubble burst” since the early 1990’s. Scared to death to borrow money, even when the Boom years were upon us. Still, once here, it is even still a shock, and I fear it is worse than I planned for.

Being Taught:
My grandfather spent many hours on his cattle ranch and wheat farm lecturing me about the Depression. You know, the kinds of things that old men wish they would have known when they were younger, and want to pass it on to someone they love. A wonderful Grandfather he was.

Daily topics like; simple living, avoiding debt, keeping your word, which weeds were Noxious, going to church, not working on Sunday, staying away from Television, avoiding spirited drinks, saying “no” to drugs and cigarettes, driving with both hands on the wheel, watching the 10 year cycle in Cattle and 7 year cycle in Hogs, and how once you start with a Chiropractor you’ll be a patient for life, and that I should avoid “fast” women, and many other gems.

And to be honest, in those days, I was looking for some “speed.” Good thing for me, I wasn’t fast enough to catch many of them, but those that I did catch caused me a lot of problems, just like Granddad warned me of.

I wish on many of those items he tried to teach me that I had listened better. We probably all wish we had listened better.

But, “No” actually, listening wasn’t the problem, it was DOING that was the problem. Some things a guy has to learn the hard way though. It’s those tough lessons that make the biggest impact on us. “Never Again, no way Jose.” That’s when real change can be made, when repentance is the goal. Like vowing to stay away from Russell Stover’s Free Sample Platters.

So, Granddad was a wonderful grandfather to me, the kind that every kid should have.

I had great parents as well. But being stuck together with Granddad, all summer farming and riding horses, repairing old broken tractors, greasing bearings, fixing fence together, trying to catch Bullheads with chicken liver, and shooting guns, you get a lot of “quality time,” together. The sort of stuff that matters in a boy’s life.

He was 17 years old in 1929, when he had a deathly sick father, my Great Grand Father Louis, with the family farm in hock to the bank. But Grandpa Manned-Up, and he worked it through, graduating from High School, doing the chores and working to pay off his Dad’s loans. It cost him most of his 20’s, and so he sort of got a late start finding a wife and starting his own family. Glad he did though.

And, you can bet that he didn’t forget the training that was forced on him in those years. And he passed it on to me. He died in early October 2008, and I’m glad he didn’t have to see it all happen this time. I hope I was able to demonstrate to him that I learned a few of his lessons.

I had two wonderful grandfathers, the other was the Dean of the Economics Department at the big University up the Highway. You wanna bet that he lectured me about the Depression?

So I got it from two perspectives, Professor & Farmer, one from the Theory, the other from the Dirt.

I started one day to write a Blog about my Grandfathers, and the lessons they taught. It was too painful, as I miss them both, and so I had to quit. Maybe someday I can pull out those files and try it again.

Optimistic?
Still, I’m an optimist. But, to be honest, my optimism isn’t based on any Bailout Plan, or one party fighting the other in Topeka or Washington DC.

I learned a long time ago to not look for them to fix things. I know they try, but when the “home folks” vote based on what someone is willing take from another person to give to them, how does any Politician get elected anymore without making the pay offs later?

But, I’m an optimist only because I work for the Master of all Creation, and He doesn’t let me down, tell lies, take payoffs, and only does what is the best for me in the long run.

And, it is scary to think what is coming for the rest of us, in the midst of this Bailout and the Nationalizing of this-and-that big Corporation that made stupid decisions. Remember though, it isn’t a Corporation that makes those decisions, it was people that did it. All with their little computer programs calculating risk, watching the ticker, plying things for the short term gain. It’s sad. And, it will happen again to another generation some day.

I’m thinking about putting in a big Garden this year. Dennis Mitchell tells me that he enjoys his garden each year. I never liked pulling weeds though. But I like eating more. I’d rather have chocolate than tomatoes, but you can’t get sick as quick with vegetables.

Corporate World Bonuses?:
I used to work in the corporate world, and I got bonuses also.

But my Bonuses came ONLY when I exceeded my goals, AND the corporation made a lot of money for the bosses.

There were times when both of those factors didn’t contribute to a bonus for me, and I was torqued-off, like they owed it to me. I did learn that getting mad about what you didn’t get is a sure way to avoid getting those things in the future.

Things change, and so do I. I learned. CLM I used to call those, Career-Limiting-Move.

However, I just can’t figure out how you take taxpayer bailout money to cover your stupid, risky behavior, and then hand the money out in huge bonuses to the same goofballs that made the bad decisions. They ought to be fired and jailed, not given bonuses.

I digress though.

And to be honest, I’d sure like to sell them a big furniture set. But would that be right? Probably not.

Ok, so today, while working up the details on my third sale in my Etsy.com Online Shop getting the ship-to address, I stumbled onto a cute little website to encourage folks to buy handmade items.

I’m all for that.

BuyHandMade.org:
So, when I found the BuyHandMade website this morning, I also joined their “Pledge.”

It’s easy to make the Pledge, give it a try, make your voice known.

The Etsy Website is supposed to be for artists only, selling handmade items they have created, or materials they will sell to other artists. I’m sure there are exceptions, but for the most part, it appears to be true.

On Etsy, there are lots of unique things ranging from clothing to furniture, and everything in between, including some things I can’t believe people thought of making, or that anyone else would purchase. But, I’m reminded that others may feel the same way about what I make and try to sell.

And there really isn’t any definition of what constitutes “handmade”, but for the most part, the website seems to have items that artists make themselves and try to sell.

Why Pursue the Art?
Many folks don’t understand why any artist would give up what appears to be a much easier, stress-free life, of commuting to the corporate jungle to be fitted for your golden handcuffs.

Do you remember Walking the cubicle aisles biting your nails watching the bulletin board for lay-off notices? What about w atching the calendar for the next “Treats in the Break Room Day”.

How about getting really excited about the new bulletin board posting announcing “Jeans-Casual Friday”? How about getting frustrated with Management because they took away the free Coffee? Ugh, the frustrations of those folks, the gall they have to take that away.

I remember those days well.

I remember adding up with a calculator the dry cleaning savings because I could finally wear jeans on Fridays. That was $2.25/week x 50 weeks a year in savings. That was before I realized I was going to have to go buy some “Business Casual” clothes to wear on that Friday. Ugh.

My work clothes haven’t seen the inside of a Dry Cleaners, or the bottom of an Iron, in many years now. Think about those savings a minute.

And, when you have gained some wisdom, know how to work efficiently and think on your feet, you are deemed too old to be useful to the Company, and they give you a sheet cake and a wrist watch and a little party that folks stand around and clap for a few minutes before rushing back to their cubicles.

Cubicles, who invented that? Ugh.

After the years of hard work though, the Company agrees to give you a pension so that you can go catch fish or hit golf balls. What a wonderful way to slide out of “here.”

Personally, I’d rather die of a rare parasite while digging water wells in Africa, than in a nursing home with a golf course view. But, that’s just me.

And, to top that, while you are younger, they pay you not to work several days a year called Holidays, and Vacations. Then, they only require about 8 hours of work a day, which if you take off the personal conversations and internet surfing, probably only works out to an average of less than 6 hours a day of work.

Still, I know it is stressful in the Jungle.

It’s why I left.

I sort of love those “Dilbert” cartoons. I just “Get” the joke in almost all of them.

I did that sort of “life” for 13-14 years, and I hope to some day get enough counseling to get over it.

Despite the “goodness” of corporate life, I hope I don’t have to go back. That’s why I work hard out behind the house in the shop, trying to give a lot of hours of expertise for a paycheck. Going back over that bridge to the Jungle is a scary thought.

But, I calculated my hourly wage for 2008, $5.04/hour. And I don’t even get Health Insurance for that.

Now, that figure includes everything, all the hours it takes to keep records, answer emails, do quotes, set up for shows, do L-J postings on the internet, photography, cutting the borders from brochures I print at home, fixing the copy machine, and all those things that don’t pay a penny back but have to be done. Oh, yea, and taking out the dust, and sweeping the floor, and cutting and splitting 6 loads of firewood to stay warm.

Why press on?

And, honestly, I realize that as each year passes, the odds that anyone would hire me back into the Jungle, is getting pretty slim. They want young folks with bright eyes and naive minds, with lots of debt to motivate them to work hard, who will “jump” when told to.

But, it was one of those choices I made, and I knew what I was getting into, for the most part.

Life of an Artist?
It is true though, being an artist, especially since there’s no Union to fight for your rights, and no Lobbying firm to get us government bail-out money, can be a challenge. Even in a good economy.

I never really saw the “boom” years. When real-estate was “booming” everywhere else, it just sort of fizzed quietly here, or sunk.

Which in hindsight, is a good thing, since I didn’t convince myself to get an equity loan against my paper-profit, like so many others have done. And, I didn’t go get an equity loan to take a Cruise, or buy a new car.

Sometimes it seems that not having money is actually a better way to live. Less decisions, less worry, less chances of anyone giving you money to borrow. Simpler it seems. Sure, I don’t have a flat screen, and my newest vehicle is 10 years old. But, if you hold until they are 25 years old you get an “Antique” car tag, and that is sort of cool, got two of them now.

I heard last week on some news program, that the Art Industry has about 2.5 Million people making a living off of it. I don’t know how they know these numbers, since nobody called me to find out what I do for their statistics, but “they” seem to know and quote the numbers. I can’t believe there are that many artists that are working and making a living from their art.

And, the statistics didn’t say how many of those folks were actually artists, and not just the support people that actually make the money selling the stuff for the artist. So, I don’t know enough about the statistics given, to really know anything. But anyway, “They” went onto say that In the art industry, there is a 12.5% unemployment rate right now. Which really stinks. Anyway, it is tough all over, and artists are no exception, except for the lack of the safety net that those Gold Handcuffs provide.

The Diamond Heads:
I remember a statement one time to me from a Huge-Corporation Boss said some years ago. He referred to the folks that were not working for the Corporation as “the Diamond Heads.”

I questioned him on what that meant.

He went on to “illuminate” that all the those outside of the “Fence” were wishing they could work for the Corporation, and that they had the red impression of a “Diamond” on their foreheads from pressing their faces against the Chainlink Fence, just wishing they could get in. So much for “worrying about the small guy” in that place.

That “Diamond Head Lecture” was a pretty pivotal moment for me, and I sort of started to feel my own “Diamond” starting to fade at that moment. I guess I was just too naive in those days fresh out of College, but it did take another 12.5 years for my own “Forehead Diamond Mark” to fade completely. But it did fade completely.

Shovel-Ready?
About 18 months ago I was asked to teach a lesson on Scrimshaw Art at the Senior Center in our little town. I got paid $10 bucks and got a great fried chicken lunch to boot. As I was sitting at the table eating with the new acquaintances sitting across from me, I heard about the “Highway 150” project. I live close to a highway that was first built in the WPA Project years. And I listened intently as one of the Seniors told me about his work on that road. He said in those days, they didn’t want any power equipment, only wheel barrows and shovels.

The management of the project was told to make the road project last as long as possible and use as many folks as possible. If you wanted to work that day on the road, you just carried your Shovel on your wagon, or saddle, and headed to work that day. If you had a family, you got paid more than a single guy. If you had a team of horses that could plow road bed that day, you could get a little more pay for bringing them along.

Those hard working folks picked and shoveled their way for 17 miles over some pretty good sized hills to place Highway 150 on it’s foundation. I don’t know how many folks worked on the project, but it was locally seen in those days as a real boost for people needing work.

A few years ago, the State tore out Highway 150, to replace it with a wider road with shoulders and bigger ditches, and lower hills, and higher valleys. I watched that work for two years, each day commuting to a Corporate job in the Big City. I would usually count about 6 Men working, including the Supervisor that always had an angry look on his face, especially at me, as I drove too fast, with an 87 mile commute to make.

One day I counted enough road graders, paddle scrapers, tractors pulling discs, dump trucks, and other power equipment that each guy could have three or four of his own to drive that day, and that didn’t count the pickup trucks.

The Highway 150 Project went from a Shovel Ready Project, to a major equipment parking lot.

That small group of guys almost finished the new highway before their company went bankrupt. A few months passed waiting on what the State would do to finish up the roadway. Another company came in and finished it up, only hiring the Supervisor from the old crew. Seemed sort of funny to me, the guy that managed the project into bankruptcy, was the only one suitable to hire to finish it. And, he was more angry than he had been before, to the point that I sort of started to feel sorry for him as he flipped me off some days as I Flew by.

One day, I drove by as he was hugging a mailbox, trying to pull it out of the ground. He pulled it up and threw it down in the ditch and reached for his post hole digger, the hand one. The next morning, I noticed the mailbox had been reset about 8-10 inches farther off the road, and a couple of inches lower. I could see why he was angry that day.

But are WE Shovel ready?

Back to the Pledge:
So, if you would like to take the Pledge to buy handmade items as gifts for yourself and friends and family over the years, you will be doing a great thing in the life of the artist that benefits from your exchange of money for art. And, the person that gets your handmade gift may actually not “regift” it.

I for one turned a corner a couple of years ago, trying to find smaller, simpler, easier, less costly, products that I could build. I saw the end of the “Build it fancy custom furniture” business in 2007, and so I tried hard to make a shift into things people could buy with a smaller amount of cash. It was sort of painful to be honest. I prided myself in furniture, the ultimate challenge of a woodworker.

The Lumberjocks noticed the change in my work also, many emailing to find out what I was up to. I even had one “friendly chap” take time to send me a note that I was nothing but an “artsy fartsy whittler.”

That zinger hurt me at the time, and I realized it was only Pride that was hurting, but I remember thinking at the time that I’d rather “whittle” than get excited about “Jean-Casual Day” at the Office again. A very wise guy said once, “Pride comes before a Fall.” So, when I started to write him back and defend myself with multiple links to bigger projects, I was reminded to swallow my pride and work to fight another day.

I do still miss those “Treats in the Break Room Days” though.

I just hope it was enough. If not, maybe I can carry my shovel to the big road project and see if it is really “shovel-ready.”

I enjoy Philosophy, and sharing my opinions. After all, it cost you just what you paid for it, and probably the same as you got out of it. I just hope that you’ll take the Pledge, and support your local crazy “artsy-fartsy” person that lives for, and by, their art.

A lot of my thoughts, financial goals, and ideas are shaped from an organization called Crown Financial Ministries, a non-profit bunch of folks that work to try and teach the rest of us some sense about money.

Thanks for reading, I’m off the SoapBox and back to the shop while I still have work to do.
Mark DeCou
www.decoustudio.com

(This writing today is protected by copyright 2009 by the Author, M.A. DeCou. No unauthorized use of this material is allowed without written permission. Weblinks back to this page are permitted without permission.)

I define “professional” as someone that makes all, or most of their income from their woodworking and craft work. Selling something once in a while from your hobby work really has nothing in common with “having” to sell something every day to buy food and shelter. So, it’s not an indicator of quality, per se, but whether you have to peddle the stuff to survive, or whether it just mostly for enjoyment. Sometimes, it’s the same, as it is most of the time for me.

So, if you are offended by a lumberjock using this forum for profit, then I’d suggest you read another blog before you get upset and send me another email, of which I won’t pay much attention to, just trying to be honest.

I’ve got Martin’s blessing, and that’s enough for me.

Ok, now that the disclaimers are over:
I’ve been using Lumberjocks to great success this past year (2008) to sell my work on the internet. I’ve had a website for many years, back when it was still cool and unique to have one. Never did sell much on it, maybe a handful of orders over 5-6 years, seriously less than five times.

Then, along comes ”Martin” with a new website called lumberjocks.

I was smitten from the start. He’s sort of like our Lumberjock “Jack”, or “Ben” on the TV show “Lost”, or maybe even “Jacob”, but I haven’t yet figured out who “Jacob” is in the show. Has anyone?

But, just like High School, and those confounding school girls, a guy being “smitten” doesn’t always lead to a successful relationship.

In this case it has.

Martin has done everything he could do to make this forum website the finest on the internet, and the membership growth has resulted from it. Honestly, I just really can’t stand using the other forums that I’m a member of, as they are all so archaic in design and navigating. Nice people in the forum, but the system is so poor, after being treated to the LJ formatting. It’s sort of like having to use Punch Cards after other people show you that you can just type programs directly into the computer screen. (For all of you young folks, that’s a reference to the old days, when using a computer wasn’t so easy to do as it is now.)

Ok, so it’s fun, easy, and its quick to load projects, and it’s great to get encouraging news from other woodworkers, BUT when a guy/gal only eats if they sell something they make, the process is a little stressful at times.

Substituting computer keyboard hours for shop time is a big risk for me, and for about two years, it didn’t pay off, not at all. Lots of new “friends”, but in case you haven’t noticed, us LJ’ers don’t buy much from each other.

Martin kept encouraging me that it would “happen”, just keep posting relevant and fresh content. Okay.

Then, along comes 2008, March to be exact, and things finally started to “pop”, or “snap”, whichever description you prefer.

I don’t really know what happend, other than maybe God and Google got their wires tied together, and the internet crowd started to find, and buy my work. Wahoo!

The Key is to “Find” my work. It’s been on the internet for years, just without any “finders.” I think that most of us have the same struggle. It’s not your work, or your quality, or you website name, it’s the lack of traffic that’s the problem.

Sure, we all get SPAMMED every week from a dozen companies trying to give us “huge traffic by optimizing your website, that only They know how to do.” Between those and the Viagra Spam and the Fake Watches, I’d have a fairly clean mailbox every day.

Give this method a try, and see if it works for you.

Ok, You Want Facts?
In 2008, 51% of my revenue came from internet orders, all resulting from lumberjock’s postings. Really, I know that because none of the work has been posted on my website, a problem I can’t seem to overcome at this point, until I get my website update guy to help me out. I know that, as I’ve spent a lot of this week trying to put my tax materials together for my accountant. I want my refund before the Treasury spends all of their borrowed money.

I started about a year ago by marking my LJ postings with ”For Sale” pretty hot-and-heavy, and cross-linking them so that folks finding my work on google searches could see other similar items I’ve made before they headed back to google to try another person’s website.

It was Martin’s idea, and quite frankly, it works.

Ok, so for about a year now I’ve been getting up to about a dozen inquiries a day from folks asking me about prices on things for sale, and about custom orders for things similar to what they’ve seen in my LJ postings.

Since the lumberjock website isn’t selling our work directly, I haven’t listed the prices on my postings, only an “email me for more information” type of comment.

And, for about 10 months, it has been fun to be encouraged and excited every day to get up and read the emails, and send prices, and get to know folks that want to buy, and those that just came to kick tires.

But, after all of these months, I’m tired.

I just can’t keep up with this anymore, answering everyone with the prices individually. And, to make it better/worse, I hope there are more of them in the future…..

So, I’ve been looking for another solution.

I did set myself up on Paypal in 2008 at the request of folks trying pass me money. I can’t stand paying their fees, but it is quick and easy, and folks can use their credit card if they have a paypal account.

But there is the real situation of all those emails every day, that have been hard to keep up with.

Not to mention all the folks that want me to tell them my craft secrets, and help them find special materials I use, and advice on starting up a business of their own, and other questions I get each week. Don’t get me wrong, for the most part I enjoy the emails, I just can’t keep up with them all. I need to work.

So, for all of this time, I’ve been begging Martin to put a “Buy Now” button on the postings.

He told me this week that he just doesn’t have the time to keep up with the maintenance of what that requires, and so he has been unable to take the forum that direction, and it may just be a direction he didn’t want to go, bluntly.

But, I want to eat, and I need to spend more time in the shop, so I gotta do something.

Over in another forum in yahoo where Scrimshaw Artists congregate in a horribly archaic format (great folks – bad forum format), I heard about a website called www.etsy.com this week.

One of the members of the yahoo group sells her jewelry work at Etsy ( http://jaijohnson.etsy.com ), and she has spent quite a bit of time this week helping answer all my questions about this website.

Etsy is designed for handmade work that the artists actually makes themselves.

It is not designed to be a resale place for things you buy at garage sales, or warehouse closeouts, or from Asian Importers, or estate sales, or find’s from your granddad’s attic, all sold to the highest bidder.

There’s another place for that, actually several places.

I tried that Big Place one time to sell my work, and the high bid was 1/3 of what I routinely get for my work in galleries and online directly, so no more auctions for me.

There is no auction at Etsy.

There is just a stated price, and a ”Buy Now” button.

Planning Ahead:
And, I bought one of Jai’s jewelry pieces today, actually getting my wife’s birthday gift three weeks early, so she’s in shock.

So, a double bonus day for me. The Wife is tired of getting lousy woodworking things I throw together in the last week before “her big day”. And, she is equally tired of watching me leave the afternoon before “her big day” to get a gift certificate from somewhere to stick in her birthday card the next morning.

I always get accused of buying her gifts at the corner gas station. Which technically is not accurate at all. I go to Walmart, and eventhough it is the same imported junk, it is cheaper at Walmart. But, because of my foresight in gift buying today, I feel pretty good about myself, in that regard.

And, also because I took the first step of setting up an Etsy account, starting up a “Store”, and listing my first item.

My plan is to cross link the Lumberjock Postings to the Etsy sales page.

But why Cross-Link?

Well, there is a lot of stuff on the internet for sale, in case you haven’t noticed.

Getting folks to find the cool stuff you make is the challenge. Especially if what you make isn’t all that much of a niche. Good quality it might be, but getting people to find it is the key to success. Don’t believe me? Try peddling walking canes on the internet. Oh my gosh, everyone sells canes on there. But, not like mine.

Using lumberjocks as part of that process is my goal…..and it works folks.

How does it work?
So, okay, if a person finds my LJ posting by google, they can go with one “click” to Etsy, and hit the coveted ”Buy Now” button.

The money is transferred into my paypal account, and whizz bang, I box it and ship it, and pay the propane and electricity bills, or at least a portion of them.

It’s Gotta Cost Something?
Sure, there are fees to using Etsy. A $0.20 Fee per item, and a little under 4% commission, which sure beats the 30%-50% commissions I’m used to paying at consignment galleries. Those high commissions either raise the prices so high that the items don’t sell, or I take it in the shorts just to sell an item.

If you’d like to see how this is all set up in my new internet marketing strategy, go to this project by clicking the Widget picture of the Lumberjocks’ project

In the project posting, right at the top, there is a “weblink” to take you to the Etsy Page where the items is shown for sale with that big ”Buy Now” Button.

Wish me luck (whatever that is), Taking the internet world by storm, one binary digit at a time…..

Mark A. DeCou
www.decoustudio.com
www.decoustudio.etsy.com
email: mark@decoustudio.com

In that Blog, I talked about two things:
1. My lack of communication technology to run my business
2. A visit from a commissioned customer

Well, I’m still working on the commissioned project. Might be able to finish it up next week. I’m a little behind on it, but the drop-dead deadline is the 13th, so I have a few more days.

And, I have made some monumental progress in technology since my last blog. Not the kind of progress that the rest of you techno-wizards are doing, but for a “hick” in the back-hills of the tall grass prairie, I’ve made some good long steps this past couple of weeks. I still can’t get cell phone coverage where I live, but that’s ok.

To start the transition into the year 2000, a couple of weeks back I bought a new telephone, with an answering machine that works well, and has a separate hands-free unit. I also hooked up a phone in the woodshop, so I can hear when someone is calling. That has helped quite a bit, as we haven’t missed a message since we did those things.

And, I’m pleased to say that the guy I wrote about in my last blog that tried to call me, did indeed call back, wanted a Rounding Jack, and so I have cashed his check and mailed him his walnut tool. So, that story had a happy ending.

Ok, now for the drum roll please…........I’m off of dial-up internet service. Hooray.

Yes, I’m now a Wildblue subscriber, the cheapest plan they offer for satelllite internet service.

We couldn’t get DSL where we live. There is no wi-fi system around here. There is no cable system. So, satellite is the only other option.

Trying to understand how my keyboard strokes can go up in the air into outerspace, and return to land in Martin’s lumberjocks computer system is way beyond my ability to comprehend. After all I’m a Mechanical Engineer. I never did understand electricity, or electronics. BUT, I like that it works. And, it works very well.

So, for the first time this week, I could scan through Lumberjocks and see projects at full clarity. To deal with dial-up, I had to use an accelerator program which made all the photos fuzzy, really fuzzy. It took me about 6 months to figure out that Thomas Angle’s projects were tooled leather, not carved wood. Can’t tell with fuzzy dial-up photos to look at. Now, with full clarity, I can see, I can see, I can seeeeeee.

Even with fuzzy photos, it still took so long to move between LJ screens on dial up, that I would just grow tired of sitting and thumping the desk with my fingers, and I would decide to go do something else productive. In the Summer I can pick ticks off of the dog while waiting for screen changes. In the Fall, I can pull cuckleburrs out of his hair. But, in the Winter, there isn’t anything to do while waiting on dial-up.

As a side note, my LJ time has been “productive” as almost all of the work I’ve been commissioned to do this year has come as a result of my LJ postings. So, that LJ time at the keyboard has been paying off. I can’t wait to see what happens in 2009. With the economic crisis, I’m prepared to do something else if the business all dries up for me, but I don’t yet know what that would be. I have 6 acres so I could put in a garden I guess. I’m hopeful that enough people will still buy from me to keep me going next year.

The new Lumberjocks “experience” with Wildblue satellite is so much better, that I actually sat up until a half hour after midnight on Tuesday night looking through the last 102 pages of projects. Wow, some great stuff has been posted. My wife woke up finding me out of bed, and came running to the computer, sure that I was watching porn. She had a hard time believing that I was sitting here looking at woodworking projects after midnight. Oh well, I am 44 now. She decided that she had better sit and make sure I was on the up-and-up, so she sat on a stool and watched me look through projects for about a half hour until I finally decided I had better get some sleep. Gotta love an accountability system like that.

That dial-up life is all behind me now. I can now imagine what it was like for the pioneers when they got running water in the house, or a toilet inside, or a telephone without a party line. Hey, wait a minute, I can still remember growing up with a party line-phone. Sorta got you off the phone faster knowing that “Marge” up the street was listening to your conversations. But, I digress. I was a kid then, without much to say on the phone anyway.

I am so pleased with the Wildblue, that I even watched some “Videos”, the first time that it has ever happened here at the DeCou Studio. I can’t really see what all the fuss is about with Youtube, seems like a lot of wasted time posted over there. Both doing the videos, and watching them. I’m sure there is some good stuff there somewhere. I was also able to listen to some music, another first. I added David Cook’s new CD to my Christmas wish list. I’m an old “rocker.” An overweight, bald rocker, but one nontheless.

I enjoyed going through some of the Lumberjocks Videos also. I hope to see that segment of our website community grow over time. I don’t have a camera for that, so it’ll be up to the rest of you LJ’ers to do the videos I guess, at least at this point.

Ok, so the Satellite installer was to be here on Tuesday morning this week. So, I spent most of Sunday afternoon, and Monday night cleaning my office. It was way over due, but I couldn’t imagine having someone else see it, so I had to clean it. I really like having a desk top again. I did have to haul 4 trash bags of stuff out of the office. I still need to spend a day filing all of the papers that are in “that” big pile over there on the other desk top, the one my dad made in walnut when he was in school. We are trying to make room for the Christmas tree this year in the living room, so I need to move the kid’s computer into my office, so I need to clean off “dad’s” desk for their computer to sit on through the Holiday season. Maybe later this week I can get that done. Having the kids constantly nagging about needing the “tree” put up keeps the pressure on me.

I also installed a new computer Monitor, that is 2” bigger than what I used to use. It was a gift from a friend when he upgraded his computer. I was also able to install a new keyboard, and mouse, and they are both cordless, which is also beyond my ability to comprehend how they work. But, I like it.

The old key board was so dirty, that really the only solution was to throw it away. My neighbor is a computer genius, and she stopped by here a few months back with a pickup load of computer parts headed to the recycling center. She picked through it and found a couple of good printers for me, and the cordless key board and mouse. I guess I’m sort of a computer recycling center myself.

I’m still using the old Computer, although I’ve added a couple of external hardrives to keep all of my data on, and provide a backup filing system.

So, in just a few weeks, things have morphed around here to where I feel like I maybe have stepped over into the new Millenium now, just 8 and 11/12ths years behind. I still don’t have a vehicle that was built in the new Millenium, but they all four run, and so there’s no need for a new car at this point.

So, hurray for me.

Now, back to work on the commission project. I won’t see daylight on my backlog until the end of January at this point, which is another big hurray.

I’ll be watching the CSPAN hearings of the big-three auto makers today as I work in the shop, should be interesting. I’m betting that a “bailout” happens. Too bad the “DeCou Studio” isn’t too big to fail. Well, it is to me, so I need to get back to work.

Thanks for reading along,
Mark DeCou
www.decoustudio.com

Ever since Google started to find my lumberjocks postings in the Spring of this year, I’ve been pretty busy.

Google had always fround my postings, and my website but the ratings were apparently so low on their list that nobody ever found the list. That started to change this year, and has so morphed my business that I am rarely doing, or looking for local work anymore.

There are upsides to that, and downsides to getting lots of new internet based business, but mainly I’m just very happy to have work to do right now.

The downside to internet based business is that for an extrovert like myself, I don’t get to talk with people in person as often as I would like.

Sure, they email all the time, and I like to talk through a keyboard. And there are folks that use the old style telephone to call me, although most of them use their cell phones now. I’ve gotten enough phone calls and messages this past few weeks to convince me that I needed to update the technology, which means to spend money. I have known this for a long while, but have been trying to get by with what we have.

Then this past week a guy left a message on my cheap digital answering machine,

“This is Paul (garbled last name) from (garbled city name) Oklahoma, and I want (BEEP)!

Ugh, I’ve listened to that message about twenty times and can’t get anything from that stupid answering machine that gives me anything to try and find the guy. I’m sure he wanted something, but was it a cane, a knife, a hat tool, a piece of furniture, some scrimshaw art, or what? Unless he calls back, I’ll never know.

So, I have to just hope he tries calling me back.

After that mess with the answering machine this week, I headed to the store to get a new phone and answering machine. The new machine has caller ID, and a better recording system, and so I hope that it works better.

I was able to get the old land-line phone hooked up in the shop, so now I can answer the phone out in the shop when my wife is gone. She normally answers the phone. Now the next big hurdle is how to get phone calls to ring when I’m on the internet. The only other option for internet service in our remote area is with satellite, and I just can’t afford that right now.

So, we have one phone line for our house, our business, for the kids to use, and the internet use.

Ok, ok, I know what you are thinking.

This has got to be the worst possible method of conducting a business. How unprofessional. How silly it is to not have better technology, and present a better image to the customers. I hear you.

However, to keep our overheads low, so that I can keep my prices down, we have been getting by with one phone line. We have an old trac-phone cell phone, but we don’t get reception where we live (“Can you hear me now?”) Yea, right.

One guy tried to get me through Skype, which I had never heard about before he wanted to call me in that system. I can’t do that with dial up well, so I had to drive 12 miles south to my Pastor’s house and use his Skype system. We never did get it to work. So, back to land-lines.

I’m just rambling, but it is a situation around here that I’m thinking through. If you have ideas, let me know. Can’t promise that I’ll do any of them, after all I’ve got a 10 year old computer and it can’t do all of the new fancy things that are available.

Visit From Father Hein:
One of the local projects I was awarded this year is a set of fancy frames for a Catholic Church near where I live. The Church is remodeling and wanted to make their Stations of the Cross pictures bigger, by building custom frames around them and painting them to match. The church wanted bigger Stations on the Wall, but didn’t want to buy new pictures. So, we are building bigger frames for the old ones. A good idea to spread the money that folks donate farther, and still get the visual effect the leadership wants. And, it provides needed income for my family.

I first met Father Hein when he asked me for a bid for a new Front Altar, and a New Lectern. He has been to see the church work I did last year at the St. Anthony church, and he wanted something similar, but a little different.

He even asked about carving the Last Supper on the front of the Altar. Now, that’s my kind of project commission!

As it worked out, a local carpenter offered to build the lectern and altar as a donation to the church. That sort of killed the project for me.

Father Hein was in a Pickle. so to speak, since he had already told me that he wanted me to do the project. I had been turning work away to make room for the schedule of the church remodel, when he called one day and told me about his “Pickle.”

If he took the donated lectern and altar from the carpenter, then he would have money to buy some Pews that he really needed also. I listened, and could sense that I needed to release him from his verbal committment to me, and so I told him that God was big enough to work this out for all of us, and that I was fine with the other guy doing the work.

I didn’t know what I would find to replace the work in my schedule since I had been turning away work for a couple of months, but I have the Faith that God had another plan.

A few days later, Father Hein called for a meeting to discuss the Fancy Frames he wanted for the Stations at the Cross. He awarded me that work, and I’m making good progress on them now.

He called this week and wanted to come by and visit the shop and see the work in progress.

When Father Hein arrived, he had “Rose” his helper in the office with him, and the three of us spent quite awhile working through the details of the Frames.

During one of my trips into the house to get a sample, apparently my daughter Rachel slipped into the shop to talk with my guests.

Rachel loves to have people visit, and when I know folks are coming, I have a little “talk” with Rachel. Usually the talk involves instructions about who is coming, why they are coming, and to ask her to come in and say hello, introduce herself, and then go on outside so that we can conduct the business. For the most part, she and her brother are doing that. Normally, she breaks the rules, and brings in things like cats, and drawings, and dolls, and other treasures to show. Conducting business at home with a family, you get what you get I guess, but I do try to instruct the kids not to interrupt.

This time, Rachel waited until I was running to the house for a sample of Gold Gilding I’ve done in the past, and she snuck into the shop.

By the time I came back to the Shop, apparently Rachel had already slipped back out.

After about an hour of meeting and discussing paint colors, and carvings, and options, Rachel showed back up in the shop.

She looked at Father Hein and said, “Are you ready to kick the ball now?”

Father Hein, said, “Almost, just wait a little bit.”

I looked at Father Hein and Rachel. “What?”

I didn’t get much of an explaination from either one, and Rachel slipped back outside.

Going into the second hour of our meeting, Rachel showed back up and looked at Father Hein, “Ready?” she said.

It was already dark outside, and pretty cold. We have a big Yard Light, so the driveway had some light.

Father Hein said, “Yes, let’s go kick.”

So, the two of them kicked a soccer ball back and forth for a few minutes while Rose and I continued to discuss the fancy paint scheme of the frames.

After a few minutes Father Hein showed back up from the kick game.

We finished up our meeting about a half hour later.

During our time together, I had talked Rose into taking a couple of our farm cats with her. We have too many, and she agreed to take a couple of them home.

So, I went to find a box to transport the cats in, and Father Hein said to Rachel, “Ready to kick some more?”

So, they had another game of kick-the-ball.

As I was walking through the dark with a flashlight looking for a cat box, I was overwhelmed at how much God cares for, and loves us. About 18 months ago, Rachel was unable to kick the ball, or even to walk without the risk of falling down and hitting her head. It was at that time that a neurologist diagnoses her rare, incurable disease. She’s been getting better every week, despite the grim diagnosis, and we are thankful that she is able to kick the ball now.

As she was kicking the ball back and forth with Father Hein, I was overwhelmed again with God’s love and care for us. Not only had God sent this humble Father Hein to me, but also to Rachel.

You can see why I like having personal visits to the shop, and not all internet-based email business.

Can’t you?

Here’s a webpage with Father Hein’s photo shown”
Rev. Hein P. Nguyen of the Holy Family Parish, Marion County

Thanks for reading,
Mark DeCou
www.decoustudio.com

After all, using the thorough 2-Step plans she provided, how hard could it be?

Well, just count all of the Steps I used, and add up the dollar amount of all of the tools I used in the process, and it’s a pretty daunting little project, for a fact. Sure, buying a plastic ring at the big department store would be cheaper, but this project isn’t about “easy”, or “cheaper.” It’s about a daughter.

I must first confess though, that I had no intentions of actually building a wooden hoop for Rachel, until all of the comments and encouragement came in from the LJ Community.

I learned my lesson (keep my mouth shut).

But, really, thanks folks, you’ve pushed me into being my daughter’s hero today.

And, also to be honest, I spent more time trying to talk her out of the project, and then getting the photos and writing up this response blog, than I did actually making the silly toy hoop.

Of course, all of this whizz-bang picture posting would all go faster if I had a computer that had been built in the new millenium, and didn’t have phone line dial-up internet. Maybe someday I can upgrade.

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Back to the Story:
So, the Wife kindly offered to do some of the mowing this week to free me up to work on the Woodie Hoop. Actually, from all the rain we’ve had, much of the mowing looked more like “haying” this time.

One of the advantages of living in the country, is that there aren’t any neighbors to impress with a manicured lawn with perfect cross hatched wheel marks in our yard. So, we do it when we need to, or have time, and not before.

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So, with the help with the yard this week, I submitted to making a wooden hoola hoop.

Quixote showed his progress on a hoola hoop with his daughter, and commented that the kids at his daughter’s daycare called it a “woody hoop.”

I like that name, so I named my project “Rachel’s Woodie Hoop”

The process to build a wooden hoop light enough for the intended purpose caused me to scratch my head some. I didn’t want to spend a lot of time on it, of course, but still wanted a satisfactory final product, one worthy of a daughter’s possessions.

Cutting The Wood Strips:
I chose to use Poplar. Why Poplar?

I had it on hand, and it didn’t have any knots in it. Bending strips with a knot just breaks. I had some Pine, but it was buried under a bunch of other wood. So, the Poplar would work.

The board was 96” long, and 3/4” thick. If I would have had 1” thick material, I think it would have worked better, giving me room to clean up the edges after the glue up.

So the first step was to joint the edge carefully, and set the table saw fence at 1/8”. I know, I know. All of those magazine articles show cutting the narrow strips from the off-side of the blade. But, if I do that, I never get two strips that are exactly the same thickness. Do those guys actually make things, or just write articles?

I could run all of the strips through my surface planer to get a consistent thickness, but when I’ve tried that in the past on thin strips, invariably, they “blow-apart”. Using a small drum sander would work great, but hey, I don’t have one.

Since I decided to do the bending with dry strips, I cut them thin. I could have used thicker pieces if I had soaked them in water, or steam, but that takes more time. I simply thought that the dry strips would work, and be quick, and I was mostly right.

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The Bending Form:
When I took the Sculpted Rocking Chair class at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking back 8 years ago, Marc taught us to build bending forms that worked with the natural flex of the wood. I have used that information many times, on way more projects than just Maloof-Inspired rocking chair runners, and so I decided to make an outside gluing frame, where the narrow straps would naturally hold themselves in place. Seemed much easier than it was, but you get the point.

Ok, so settling on a diameter for the hoop depended strictly on the size of particle board scraps I had to make it from. Using this scrap, I was able to get a 27” diameter ring made while leaving enough of a band around the outside to clamp with, and to leave the ring strong enough not to break if it were to get dropped on the floor, or knocked off the bench.

And as a fact, the whole glue-up eventually did fall on the floor, tipping off the work table, with about a dozen clamps on it. So, I was glad that it wasn’t too fragile.

I had been in such a hurry, that I had overloaded one side of the balance, and so when my back was turned running for more clamps, the whole system ended up on the floor, just missing Rachel’s toes in a pair of flip flops. That could have ruined the whole game, but it all missed her toes thank God.

I used a circle cutting jig I made about a dozen years ago. And like things go, it was built for a different router than I am using this time. So, add another 15 minutes, making the old jig fit the new router.

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Cutting the Circle:
Using the circle jig, and a 1/2” shank router bit with a 3/8” down cutting spiral cutter, I made several light passes of about 1/8” deep, going around and around until the particle board was cut clear through. Since my centering point was in the piece I was removing, I made extra careful movements on the last pass around the circle. I put plywood scraps under the sheet so that the circle would not drop when it was cut.

I had a helper, Riley, that liked to clean the dust out of the cut groove.

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Looking back on this step, I should have cut the outside of the circle form first. The reason is that later, I will need a ring to place the clamps around. I didn’t figure that out until the first glued strips were in place, and I had to take them back out and quickly cut the outside circle on the bandsaw.

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Trimming the Relief Gap:
The method of strip gluing that I’m going to use is the one that Quixote showed in his tutorial, only I’m going on the inside of a circle, instead of the outside of the circle like he did. I liked the continuous strip method, with overlapping splices he showed, and so that is the method I used.

To make the starting point, I marked a cut line for the jig saw, so that I had a starting place for the first strip. After the glued assembly is dry, I will sand off this starting point to make the circle round, which I’ll show below.

Sorry I don’t have any fancy tools for this step, just an old Jig Saw that my grandfather let me have when he moved into town from the Farm. You have to use what you have. My moto is to “make do” with the budget and tools you have. I don’t use this tool often, but when I do, I’m glad I have it, and it makes me think of Granddad again, which is always nice.

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Getting Ready for Glue:
I decided to use some normal PVA style wood glue for this project. For other bending projects I use a two-part Urea Formaldhyde glue that I learned about watching the old re-runs of David Mark’s television show. It works great for bending, but at this point, I just want to get this project finished quickly, and the PVA should work fine.

Another thing I learned from Marc Adams was to use paste furniture wax to cover my gluing forms, so that the glue doesn’t stick. I’ve had this can about a dozen years, and it still works great for such things. If the manufacturer wants to send me a commission check, I’ll repost the photo with the brand name shown.

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Gluing the Strips:
Now, I must tell you that I didn’t spend the normal amount of time planning this glue up. I put the first strip in dry, and then spread glue on it, and then did the next strip, and so on. I had plenty of help, and it was still a chore. Three of the wood strips broke suddenly, and had to be tossed, as I did the bending dry.

If I am to make any more of these Woodie Hoops, I will presoak the strips in water and pre-bend them. My plan then is to use the plugged-up rain gutter on the edge of my house roof (good reason not to clean them out – you can use that excuse if it will help you.)

After the strips are wet, then I would prebend them on the bending jig, clamping them in place WITHOUT any glue, and then let them dry. That should give them a predetermined bend, and relax them some when the gluing is actually done. Next time it will work better.

I am hesitant to use wet wood with PVA glue. I have soaked strips before and used PVA glue, and always worried about the wood being so wet that the glue would be too diluted.

Of course, I could use a polyurethane style glue, but Man, what a mess that stuff would make on this project. I try not to use it unless I have just have to for the application.

The kids enjoyed helping with the gluing. Spending as much time running for a rag to wipe their finger off than actually spreading glue, so my fingers made most of the mess.

Another thing I did not plan well enough for was the limited work space I tried to use, and the messy situation this project caused.

I should have set up some sawhorses outside in the drive way to do this gluing process on. To be honest, I did actually think about the sawhorses before hand, but they were already covered up with other projects-in-process, and I didn’t want to spend the time cleaning them off.

Now with hindsight, I should have used the sawhorses outside.

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It’s the Process that’s Important, NOT the Product:

Having two kids help with a messy glue up while dealing with fast tack PVA glue was a pretty stressful scene. I had to keep reminding myself that we were making a memory here, not a Product.

To be honest, remembering that wasn’t easy, as anyone knows who has done stressful glue-ups with lots of extra “help.”

Still, I kept my attitude in check, and we all had a fun time together. I had to focus on that during the process, though, working to make it a reality.

I’m sorry I don’t have more photos of the gluing process. My hands were so covered in glue, and things were so hectic, that I couldn’t take any photos for about 15 minutes of the process.

AND the Wife couldn’t take any photos either, she was mowing, remember?

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The Clamping Process:
Ok, so we’ve made about four rings of wood around the circumference, getting glue everywhere. I quickly wiped up some excess, and started running for clamps.

I thought I had enough, but by the time it was all over in 15 minutes, I really could have used some more.

Another thing Marc Adams taught me is that you can never have too many clamps. He said to buy more every year. I try to do that as I can afford to. “Clamps” appear every year on my Christmas-Want-List, and most of the time my family comes through with some.

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Is This All Just An Advertisement?
As a side note, I’ve mentioned Marc Adams several times during this blog. He pays me nothing for mentioning him, and in fact, he will probably never know about it.

I haven’t talked about him much over the years, but I can assure you that if you take the time and financial investment in training at a school such as his, it will not only help you with the class project, but for years later, you’ll still be using what you learned.

Before I had children, I learned how to do many of the steps in this Woodie Hoop Project from the Marc Adams class I attended in the year 2000, never realizing then how many times it would come into play in future projects, such as the Woodie Hoop.

End of Day 1
Now, the clamps are all tight, the extra glue wiped up, and everything is ready to wait. From the time I decided to do this project for real, and the time the clamps were all in place, about an hour and half has passed. It seemed like a full day’s work, but it really didn’t take that long.

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Start of Day 2:
Ok, it’s now morning (Thursday) and I take off all of the clamps and hang them back up, which takes a while. It was at this point that I made the decision that we were making just one Woodie Hoop.

Originally, I made enough strips for three or four, or five, thinking they would make great gifts for the extended family this Christmas. But, they may not get a Woodie Hoop, time will tell.

Since I pre-waxed the gluing form, once the clamps were removed the glued ring just sort of released itself nicely.

Photo 13:

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OK, Now What? Think, Think, Think.
I now have a ring of wood, with dried glue stuck all over it. Now, What?

The first step is to flatten one side, then flatten the other, then shape the outside, and then shape the inside, and then router the edges, and then paint it. Easy enough huh?

Here are the steps I used this morning, taking about an hour to finish up the Woodie Hoop.

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Flattening the Bottom:
I used my jointer to carefully run the hoop around the cutter, carefully keeping my hands on the outfeed table, and keeping the pressure on the outfeed side. This works really well. Still, it is pretty scarry.

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Making the Top Parallel:
I used the table saw to gently nibble away the uneven top side of the hoop. I carefully held the hoop tight against the fence, while feeding the hoop into the blade just fast enough to avoid a lot of burn marks. I’ve learned the key to making cuts like this with a dull blade like I normally have, is to take small bites, and easing the fence in closer with each pass.

When I finished cutting, I had a hoop that was flat, with a parallel face, a little more than 5/8” thick. Seemed good enough for this project with such easy provided “Plans”.

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Just a small amount of burning, easy enough to sand off. The hoop will be painted, so the biggest concern I have is to make a consistent surface on both faces so that I can later round it off with a router bit.

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Shaping the Outside of the Ring:
I’m a guy that doesn’t really have any fancy tools. I’d like to have them, but paying for them is a real chore. So, I have a lot of hobby style tools, like this small bench-top belt sander. I use it constantly, and really could justify a bigger and more powerful model. Maybe someday I can afford that.

My main goal in shaping the outside of the hoop is to remove the “Start Step” in the layers. I carefully sanded it flush, over a long strip, shaping it so that the outside of the curve was nice and smooth. This is critical, since the next step will require a smooth exterior, as you will see.

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Shaping the Inside of the Ring:
To do this job, I’m sure there are other ways, but this was quick and worked well. I took my bench-top spindle sander and clamped a curved scrap of plywood to the top of it. I set the spacing at the narrowest spot on the ring. After running the hoop around the sanding spindle a couple of times, the circle was smooth, and the hoop was the same thickness all the way around.

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Rounding the Edges:
Under this pile of stuff is my router table.

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I decided it would take too long to uncover it, so I decided to round the edges over with a small hand held router. The router table mounted bit would be the safest and most accurate method, but I’ve become proficient in the free hand use of a router, and so my method was just as good, and faster than uncovering the router table.

I don’t really know which round over bit I used. I just grabbed one, and ran it around the inside and outside, the top and the bottom. I suppose it was about a 3/8” radius bit.

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When the routering was finished, I had a smooth and nicely shaped hoop.

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Sanding and Painting:
I didn’t take time to photograph the sanding process. I just grabbed a used 120 grit piece from the orbital sander, and ran it around the circle several times holding the paper in my hand. This isn’t a job for the-piece-of-junk wobbly orbital sander that I have, but that’s another story for another day.

I primed the hoop with some white exterior primer, using a cheap acid brush for the job. I followed the priming job with some quick smoothing with #0000 steel wool, and two quick coats of exterior off-white paint.

After the top coat dried, I smoothed it with #0000 steel wool again, and it is now ready for Rachel to “paint” and decorate.

Off the topic a little, I noticed posting this photo that my $12,000 Drinking Glass from the Emporia Surgical Hospital is sitting there in plain view. It is my favorite shop glass, but that’s a different story for another time on health insurance for the self-employed.

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The next steps are for Rachel and Momma to decorate the “Woodie Hoop”. Rachel said this morning before school that she wanted me to put “lights” on it. There’s just no end!

I suggested that we paint it with pretty colors and put glitter paint on it, and she liked that idea. So, that’s the plan.

Momma and Rachel started the painting tonight, after supper, and after homework.

I’ll post the final photos as a “project posting” when they are finished with the decorations in a couple of days.

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When Rachel got home from the school bus tonight, I told her that I had a secret for her.

That always excites her.

”A secret? What is it?” she whispered back.

”I have your Woodie Hoop ready for you to paint,” I proudly replied.

”Hooray, Hooray, oh thank you, thank you, thank you Daddy!” she responded.

Next I got a great big tight neck hug and a kiss on the cheek.

Right after that, she called to her brother, ”Hey Riley, Daddy has both of our hoola hoops finished.”

Skreeeeech! What?

Now I’m committed to making another one?

Maybe I can talk him into something else, like a toy truck, or a wood knife, or a wood tomahawk, something like my dad made me when I was a kid, all of which I still have.

A great end to a silliy little toy project.

A hero today, at least to one girl and a boy.

Thanks for reading along, now what do you need to go build?
Mark DeCou
www.decoustudio.com

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UPDATE FOR 9-19-2008:
Rachel has her Woodie Hoop Painted three different colors with lots of sparkles on it. She took it to school today for Show-and-Tell, and demonstrated it’s use. She came home this evening after school, and did a bunch of “circus tricks” swinging it around her waist, around her neck, around one leg, around her arms, rolling it in the grass to her brother, and using it like a jump rope. It has been fun to watch her excitement this evening. She’s actually pretty good with the Woodie Hoop, surprised me how quickly she has learned to use it.

From what I can tell, the extra weight of using a wood hoola hoop, verses the plastic ones, is that it actually makes the hoola-ing easier to do. The weight seems to help keep the momentum going around the hip swinging. I can’t do it of course.

good night,
M

(All Text, photos, and project design is a copyrighted 2008 by the author, M.A.DeCou. All rights reserved.)

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This tool is a Rounding Jack used to trim the brims of hats, and will be used by a discerning hat maker. In this exciting development, I have completed two different designs for the blade holder, using thick brass as the material as an alternate to the wood I’ve previously used.

There is quite a price jump to go with the brass blade holder, but some hatters don’t seem to mind. I like the look of the brass with the walnut, lots of “bling.”

The blade guard on the left side in the photos is a brass holder, that cuts the brims in a clockwise fashion. To go the other direction, I would need to make a mirror image of this one.

Rhe brass blade holder on the right however, “The Tombstone” model, stands the blade upright, but allows the blade to be flipped, making it able to cut in either direction.

I’ll post better photos in a full project posting in a few days, but I was so excited, I decided to document the day with a blog about it.

that’s it, told you it would be short,

Mark DeCou
www.decoustudio.com

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Here is a Slideshow with more of my Rounding Jacks Shown
Click the “Speaker” icon for music

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Artisan Hat Tools by Mark DeCou Studio
(Do you want to see More? Just follow these links):

NOTE:
ALL HAT MAKING ITEMS THAT I HAVE IN STOCK
ARE LISTED IN MY ETSY.COM ONLINE SHOP, click here to check inventory

1. Ebonized Walnut with Laser Engraving
2. Collector Model w/ a Brass Blade Holder

1. Maple Deluxe Model, Counter Clockwise Cutter
2. Maple Deluxe Model, Clockwise Cutter

1. Walnut Hobbyist-Hatter Model, Counter Clockwise Cutter
2. Walnut Hobbyist-Hatter Model, Clockwise Cutter

1. Spradley Hats in Apline, TX
2. Rachel Pollock of La Bricoleuse
3. Brainpan Hat Shop in Sumner, WA
4. Steve Delk's Adventurebilt Hat Co.
5. Marc Kitter's Adventurebilt Hat Co.
6. Pyrate Trading Co.
7. Hatman Jack at Wichita Hat Works
8. Inaaya Hat Co.
9. Penman Hat Co.

1. Complete Restoration of a Maillard Conformateur and Formillon
2. New DeCou Formillion & Conformer, Prototypes #1 & #2
3. Custom Designed Conformateur Carrying & Storage Case
4. New Plot Base Board for the Maillard Allie Formillon
5. Maple Wrench for Tightening Formillon Thumbnuts

1. Left-Handed & Right-Handed Foot Tolliker
2. Foot Tolliker: Elk Antler & Birch Wood, on a Display Stand
3. Foot Tolliker: Walnut Wood, on a Display Stand
4. Foot Tollikers: Three in White Birch Wood
5. Foot Tollikers: Walnut Wood Set of Four
6. Foot Tollikers, Birch Wood Double Set, on Display Stand

1. Hinge-Shackle Curling Tool for the Homburg Hat
2. Full Circle Shackle Curling Tool
3. Half Circle Shacking Curling Tool
4. Groove Tolliker Curing Tool

1. Hard Rock Maple and Walnut Ornamentally Turned Hat Block Spinners

1. Puller Downers, made in Birch & Maple

1. Pusher Downers, made in Walnut, Hard Rock Maple, & Poplar

1. “Coming Soon”, please check back.

My Website with other woodworking, including furniture, walking canes, scrimshaw artwork, custom knives, and other misc. items

Mark DeCou Studio Website

(Note:This project story, project design, and photos are protected by copyright in 2008-2009 by the Author, M.A.DeCou., all rights reserved, no use allowed without expressed written permission.)

This blog entry is for showing a new concept sketch of a carved walking cane design that I am working on so that the prospective customer can view the concept drawings and provide his input, or approval.

thanks for reading, hope to hear from you.
Mark DeCou
http://www.decoustudio.com
email: mark@decoustudio.com

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Cane Customer Story:

This walking cane design shows a couple of alternative ideas for a guy that has had two back surgeries in the past two years, with possibly another yet to come. He collects art with Native American themes, and has spent time living in a TeePee.

Osage Orange is his favorite wood, and he owns a bow made from it. He wants the cane to be very strong with a handle that he can lean on. So, knowing that, I designed this cane for him to consider.

If you would like to see the 1st Design Idea with Crazy Horse, click here

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1. Height: 38” Tall.
2. Handle Details: Option 1: Laminated/Glued Osage Orange Crook Top handle. Option 2: Kansas Whitetail Deer Shed Antler with an inlayed piece of synthetic ivory on the Rosette End, with a synthetic ivory cap on the back end of the handle.
3. Scrimshaw: On Handle Option 2:, the Front of the handle, a Native American TeePee scene with the words “Sioux Tribe” will be scratched with a knife and darkened with black India Ink. The Back of the Handle will have “A III G” monogram scratched with a knife and darkened with black India Ink.
4. Carving: The main feature in this design is a set of large Carved Eagle Feathers to give the cane a Native American-Style appeal. The feathers will wrap around the cane shaft.
5. Wood: The Shaft of this cane will be made from Osage Orange wood. The wood will be sun-tanned to a dark orange color.
6. Coloring: To accent the carving, the carving will be painted with thinned acrylic paints, and air-brushed with tinted lacquer.
7. Tip: A brass Ferrel and a replaceable rubber tip will be put on the bottom of the cane.
8. Wood Finish: The final wood finish will be nitrocellulose lacquer.

If you’d like to see some actual canes I’ve done instead of just sketches, you can click here

If you would like to seem more on Scrimshaw, click here

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(Note: This blog, project design, and images are copyrighted in 2008 by the Author, M.A.DeCou. If you want to use any part of this posting or the photos, for any Feeds, or a book, or another website, or for any reason whatsoever, even ones that I could not have dreamed about you doing before you did it, you must ask for permission first. Please. Weblinks back to this page are permitted without my prior permission.)

1. Apache Geronimo Cane
2. Cherokee Chief & Blackfoot Chief Curly Bear Cane Set
3. Apache Cochise Cane
4. Apache Chief Cochise #2 Cane
5. Shoshone Chief Cane
6. Indian Guides Chief Big-Red-Cloud Hiking Stick

This blog entry is for showing a new concept sketch of a carved walking cane design that I am working on so that the prospective customer can view the concept drawings and provide his input, or approval.

thanks for reading,
Mark DeCou
http://www.decoustudio.com
email: mark@decoustudio.com

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Cane Customer Story:

This walking cane has been designed for a guy that has had two back surgeries in the past two years, with possibly another yet to come. He collects art with Native American themes, and has spent time living in a TeePee. Osage Orange is his favorite wood, and he owns a bow made from it. He wants the cane to be very strong with a handle that he can lean on. So, knowing that, I designed this cane for him to consider.

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1. Height: 38” Tall.
2. Handle Details: Kansas Whitetail Deer Shed Antler with an inlayed piece of synthetic ivory on the Rosette End, with a synthetic ivory cap on the back end of the handle.
3. Scrimshaw: On the Front of the handle, a Native American TeePee scene with the words “Sioux Tribe” will be scratched with a knife and darkened with black India Ink. The Back of the Handle will have “A III G” monogram scratched with a knife and darkened with black India Ink.
4. Carving: The main feature in this design is a carved face inspired by the Famous Tribal Chief Crazy Horse. His feathered Headress and Roach will trail into twisting feathers down the shaft of the cane. To see actual examples of cane shafts carved similar in style, click here
5. Wood: The Shaft of this cane will be made from Osage Orange wood. The wood will be sun-tanned to a dark orange color.
6. Coloring: To accent the carving, the carving will be painted with thinned acrylic paints, and air-brushed with tinted lacquer.
7. Tip: A brass Ferrel and a replaceable rubber tip will be put on the bottom of the cane.
8. Wood Finish: The final wood finish will be nitrocellulose lacquer.

Alternate: An alternate design would be to carve trailing feathers down the shaft of the cane, without the face of Crazy Horse. Another idea would be to cave the “Crazy Horse” in lettering down in conjunction with the feathers.

Other Alternates: We’ve tossed around a couple of other ideas to consider, you can see the click here to see the Carved Long Feather Cane

If you’d like to see some actual canes I’ve done instead of just sketches, you can click here

If you would like to seem more on Scrimshaw, click here

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(Note: This blog, project design, and images are copyrighted in 2008 by the Author, M.A.DeCou. If you want to use any part of this posting or the photos, for any Feeds, or a book, or another website, or for any reason whatsoever, even ones that I could not have dreamed about you doing before you did it, you must ask for permission first. Please. Weblinks back to this page are permitted without my prior permission.)

She’s been hanging out in the shop all afternoon since the grade school decided to call off school today because the Cottonwood River was up so high, cutting off roads around the County today. I’m enjoying her presence in the shop, but I hope the water is down tomorrow so she can learn something worthwhile at the school.

Rachel’s brother headed off with momma to the store, but Rachel decided she wanted to spend her afternoon in the wood shop with me. Riley did also, but he knows that he gets to eat out at Subway, or McDonald’s when he goes on a Store run. So, he opted for food rather than the wood shop, which I can understand.

Rachel’s favorite thing to do right now is to pack a sack lunch of bologna sandwiches and eat in the dusty woodshop with me. She prefers that over eating in the clean house. I know these days will pass quickly, and she will soon enough not want much to do with old balding daddy, so I cherish the bologna sandwich days.

And, something else you should know, is that Rachel is a pretty insistent girl.

By that I mean, that when she gets an idea in her head, it doesn’t leave easily. I’m the same way, so I understand her situation.

This afternoon, she decided that I should make her a Hoola Hoop. She had one from the store, but her brother broke it about a month after Christmas this year, so she’s Hoola Hoopless now.

I don’t know where the idea came from. She was sitting quietly watching “Greatest Hero’s of the Bible: Joseph,” a kid’s show on TBN that I recorded for the kids on the DVR (yes, I have satellite tv in the shop).

So, I’m sitting there a stool working at the workbench, Rachel is sitting on a stool watching the show, and suddenly she turns to me and says:

Rachel: ”Dad, make me a Hoola Hoop please.”

Me: ”I can’t do that, I only work in wood, and they are made of plastic.”

Rachel: ”You can make one, you can make anything”

(author’s note: Rachel is still only 7 years old, and if she wants to think that I can make anything, then why would I spoil that notion? On the other hand, I’m 44 and still think that my dad can make anything.)

Me: ”Rachel, I don’t have time, I need to make some money, and a lot of people have sent me their money, and are waiting on their things to be built.”

Rachel: ”You can make one with wood, I know you can.”

Me: ”Even if I could, I don’t have time right now.”

(Author’s note: as you can see when two hard-headed people collide, nobody moves an inch.)

Rachel: ”Ugh! Fine, just fine !”

Me: ”Sorry honey, I just can’t make a hoola hoop today. You should have gone to the store with Momma and you could have gotten a new Hoola Hoop.”

Rachel: ”I don’t want one from the store, I want you to make one.”

Me: ”I’m sorry, I can’t do it today, just quit arguing with me.”

Rachel: ”Fine! I’ll make you a list of how to do it.”

Me: ”You’re gonna make me a list of how to make a Hoola Hoop? I’d like to see that.”

Rachel: ”Where’s the paper….. I can’t find any paper anywhere in this mess.”

(Author’s note: yes, the shop is dirty and messy, but there is paper in there somewhere.)

Me: ”The paper is on the clipboard over there.”

Rachel: ”Ohhh, there’s a spider web on the clipboard.”

Me: ”Give it here, I’ll brush it off.”

Rachel: ”Thanks Dad, do you think I’ll always be scared of spiders?.”

Me: ”Probably.”

Rachel: ”Ok, now let me concentrate.”

(Author’s Note: Rachel here’s that last phrase from me quite often.)

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At this point, Rachel sits down and writes out the plans for making a hoola hoop.

When she handed me the paper, she says, ”Ok, here, now you can build me one.”

I was so tickled with her list, I decided to share it with the other tender hearts on LJ, as there will be other busy people that need a “plan” like this one.

So, I scanned it, and I hope you enjoy it half as much as I do.

How to Make A Wooden Hoola Hoop – By Rachel DeCou 9-15-2008

In case you couldn’t read the writing, it has just two Steps:

Step 1: Make a Circle of Wood.

Step 2: Next. Paint it. The whole thing.

thanks for reading along,
Mark DeCou
www.decoustudio.com

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Update for 9-18-2008
I was so thrilled to see a project posted this morning from Quixote with his daughter working on a Hoola Hoop with him. What an inspiration he is. Some of us “talk” about something, but it is people like Quixote that actually “do” something. Hurray for him.

I’ll start a list here of “Hoola Hoop Builders”, and hope to add a bunch more project postings from the readers who are trying to make a special moment with their own children, grandchildren, nieces, etc.:

1. Quixote's Hoola Hoop
2. Mark DeCou's version of the Woodie Hoop
3. “Who’s gonna be next?”
11. 
    
    
    
    
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(This project posting, text, and story is protected by copyright 2008 by the author, M.A. DeCou. All rights reserved, no unauthorized use of this material is permitted. Weblinks to this page is permitted without permission. Thanks for your help.)

I don’t mind fog, my morning commute to work is only about 40 feet behind the house, and a little fog doesn’t slow me down much walking out there. Actually, it is mornings like this that I’m reminded how much I have to be thankful for. Back in the days when I had to commute by car 87 miles to Wichita, a foggy morning like this one was a real burden, even treacherous.

I always write on the calendar when we have a heavy fog morning. Why?

A lady told me one time that an old Indian method of predicting the weather was to count 90 days ahead from a heavy fog morning, and it would either rain heavy, or snow heavy, about that time. I’ve counted it many times since she told me that, and sure enough, it works. At least most of the time.

Pain in the Neck:
My neck has been stiff and sore today, a lingering result of a motorcycle accident injury back in my Harley Riding days about 15 years ago. I Didn’t feel it was a problem at the time of the accident, and so I didn’t file any lawsuits at that time. Mornings with a sore neck like this though, I wonder if I did the right thing.

I just hate lawsuits, but it was the other guy’s fault, and I was innocent. Still, he was 86 years old, and just misjudged the time he had to turn in front of me as I approached on my motorcycle with my wife riding behind me on the seat.

I felt sorry for him, he was really upset about what he had caused. I seemed to be alright except for scrapes, a sore neck, and a messed up Full Dresser Harley I’d only had for two weeks. The Wife had a scrape on her shin, but was ok. I never have been back to Springdale, AR after that “bad morning.” That was the last time the Wife rode behind me on a motorcycle, can’t blame her.

When I got my Harley back out of the shop 4 months later, I did enroll in a Motorcycle Safety Driving Course. I recommend them. The Wife also took the course, and like I said earlier, never rode behind me again. She picked out her new “wheels” before the ink was dry on her learner’s permit.

We later chose to sell the two Harleys, the Wife’s Yamaha Maxim, my old “72 Vette”, and my new 4×4 pickup to start a woodworking business. We felt that getting out of debt was a prerequisite to starting such a speculative business. I was right about that, and glad I don’t have the payments anymore. If I still had the debt, this business wouldn’t have lasted this long.

Sometimes I miss the old ‘74 FLH Shovel-Head I had restored, but not the “Vette.”

Back to Today:
But, other than the sore neck this morning, it all looked like a normal day today in paradise.

I went out to the shop after breakfast and a shower, turned on the lights, and prepared for another day of woodworking.

My plan today was to finish up a Hatmaker’s Tool for a guy in London similar to a Hinge-Shackle Curling Iron, that will be used to simulate the brim curl in a Homburg style Fedora Hat. Working away just minding my own business.

Then, about mid-morning, the sun came out, the fog left, and it is a beautiful day.

I was thinking how nice it is to be at home working in the shop, admiring the beautiful day in the Flint Hills of Kansas, and in walks the wife.

She usually doesn’t come out to the shop unless there’s bad news, or great news. For just “good news” she waits until I come to the house. Rarely does she call me to the phone, only if it is a paying customer that needs to speak with me.

This time, it was “Bad News.”

The Bad News:

The Wife told me that the art gallery in Wichita called to say that one of my custom Bowie Knives was stolen from the art gallery in Wichita, Gallery XII.

Seems it was the only thing in the gallery that was stolen, and that it probably happened during their “Final Friday” Open House where about 1000 people came through the gallery the last Friday night in August.

I decided not to drive down to Wichita for the Open House this past month, trying to cut back on the miles I drive to save some money. I guess I should have been there that night.

This is the 5th item I’ve had stolen from me in the years I’ve done craft work.

It doesn’t seem to get any easier each time.

Actually, it seems to be getting harder, from an emotional standpoint.

Two Walking Canes “walked” out of a store in Wichita last year, and before that it was two powder horns that a trader never would pay me for after he sold them at a Gun and Knife show.

Another art gallery in Texas finally sent me the money they owed me two years after selling one of my Ceremonial Pipes, so that “incident” I don’t consider “stealing” anymore.

I try to be careful with my stuff.

Sometimes I think I’m too careful. I just like to trust people, as they most often do the same with me.

The stores/galleries that I let show my stuff also try to be careful.

I guess in some way it is a compliment to have something I’ve made stolen.

But, then again, this craft work is how I put food on the table for a family of Four, and so it just hurts.

Bummed out in Kansas today, with a pain in the neck,
Mark DeCou
www.decoustudio.com

This blog entry is for showing a new concept sketch of a carved walking cane design that I am working on so that the prospective customer can view the concept drawings and provide his input, or approval.

thanks for reading,
Mark DeCou
http://www.decoustudio.com
email: mark@decoustudio.com

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Update 10-11-2008: This cane has now been completed. You can see the final photos here

Cane Customer Story:

This summer I met a nice lady that heard about my walking canes from another lady who I had carved the Lady's Carved Rose Cane for, earlier this year. She didn’t need a cane herself, but thought it would be an encouraging birthday gift to her sister who recently had to have one of her legs amputated below the knee. This sketch defines the custom Walking Cane for the sister that had the amputation surgery.

She also decided to also buy herself a walking stick to use when she is hiking and walking around the neighborhood. Click Here to go see the Concept Sketch for the Walking Stick

During the meeting to discuss the specifics of the desired custom walking cane, the 2nd sister decided to buy the 1st sister a return gift and is insisting on paying for the walking Thumb Stick for Christmas as a gift back to her sister. They were a lot of fun to work with.

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1. Height: exactly 35-3/8” Tall.
2. Handle Detail: The Kansas Elk Shed Antler handle has two end caps, made from legal pre-ban Elephant Ivory, held in place by Fine Silver Bezel End Caps. On the Front of the handle, I will inlay a small Gold Cross that the customer’s Mother wore before she passed away. On the Back of the handle I will inlay a Pewter Medallion of a Guardian Angle, which also belonged to her mother. To see the actual handle that will be used, click here
3. The Shaft of this cane will be made from Mexican Bocote Wood with a round section at the top transitioning to an octagonal shape. To see actual examples of cane shafts similar in style, click here
4. Mexican Bocote Wood: for a sample of what this wood looks like in a walking cane look at shaft “D” by clicking this link
5. The tip will be a brass ferrel with a replaceable rubber tip.

If you’d like to see some actual canes I’ve done instead of just sketches, you can click here

Sketch:

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(Note: This blog, project design, and images are copyrighted in 2008 by the Author, M.A.DeCou. If you want to use any part of this posting or the photos, for any Feeds, or a book, or another website, or for any reason whatsoever, even ones that I could not have dreamed about you doing before you did it, you must ask for permission first. Please. Weblinks back to this page are permitted without my prior permission.)

This blog entry is for showing a new concept sketch of a carved walking cane design that I am working on so that the prospective customer can view the concept drawings and provide his input, or approval.

thanks for reading,
Mark DeCou
http://www.decoustudio.com
email: mark@decoustudio.com

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Cane Customer Story:

This project is a Birch Sapling & Antler Walking Thumb Stick. This style of Walking Stick has historically been called a “Thumb Stick” since you can walk with your thumb hanging in the crotch of the antler top.

This summer I met two sisters that heard about my walking canes from another lady who I had carved the Lady's Carved Rose Cane for, earlier this year.

One sister wanted to buy her sister a nice walking cane for her birthday to help with getting around after an amputation surgery just below her knee. Here is the design sketch for her cane

During the meeting to discuss the specifics of the desired custom walking cane, the 2nd sister decided to buy the 1st sister a return gift of a walking Thumb Stick for Christmas, and so I’ll be making one for each of them. They were a lot of fun to work with.

This sketch represents the Concept Sketch for the 1st sister’s “Walking Thumb Stick”.

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1. Height: about 40” Tall.
2. Top Handle Detail: The antler top has two end caps, both in synthetic ivory. One cap will have an inlayed gold St. Christopher Medallion, the other cap with have the customer’s intials in scrimshaw art.
   Between the Antler and the Stick will be a set of three disc rings of Composite Turquoise and Black Vulcanized Rubber rings.
3. Shaft: The shaft will be a Red Birch Sapling that I will sand sand and buff down the limp protrusions leaving a “natural looking bump.”
4. Tip: The tip will be a brass ferrel with a replaceable rubber tip.

If you are unfamiliar with Scrimshaw click here
If you’d like to see some actual canes I’ve done instead of just sketches, you can click here

Sketch:

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(Note: This blog, project design, and images are copyrighted in 2008 by the Author, M.A.DeCou. If you want to use any part of this posting or the photos, for any Feeds, or a book, or another website, or for any reason whatsoever, even ones that I could not have dreamed about you doing before you did it, you must ask for permission first. Please. Weblinks back to this page are permitted without my prior permission.)