I'm making you a spoon and I want you to make one too.

There is this guy named Barn and he is a spoon maker who travels around Britain making spoons in exchange for room and board or he will sell you one for about $11 US (7 British Pounds).  He doesn't do mail order, but will come to you and make you a spoon if you want one.  He has his peddler's license which gives him permission to sell his wares on street corners and such.  He's a regular guy, with a passion for the woodlands and for making spoons.

He has a blog and a facebook account that he updates on a pretty regular basis.  He seems like a really interesting man and I would love to meet him one day, but in the meantime, I have been thinking about the last sentence in his most recent post.

"Imagine if everyone had a spoon carved for them by someone that cared about them, I really like that idea."

I can't get that line out of my head.  Seriously, it has been rattling around for 24 hours or so.  I think I would like to give this a try and see what happens.

I'm going to make a few spoons and send them out to some folks that I care about.  (Yes Jim, you are first on the list).  I am going to include a brief note about why I made this spoon for them, and a request.  The request will be simple, nothing major, but I would like those people to make at least one spoon for someone else and send it to them with the same note and request attached.

"Imagine if everyone had a spoon carved for them by someone that cared about them, I really like that idea."

I really like that idea too Barn.  A lot.

A Wonderful World

It continually amazes me when I think of this world that I have found.  I didn't create it, it has been here all the time.  I just found it though, a few months ago.  I needed something to occupy my time, something to keep my hands busy.  I remember that night, sitting down in front of my PC, browsing the internet and somehow I found a video from a guy named Carl in Minnesota.  In his video he showed how to carve a spoon.  How to cut the blank, how to carve the handle and the bowl.  As he talked over the screech of his bandsaw, I sat with my mouth hanging open in wonder.  I was hooked.  I mean right that second I went from not even knowing about spoon carving to being obsessed.  It was that night that I had my first glimpse into this wonderful world.  It wasn't too long before my first spoon was carved.

Days have changed to weeks and weeks to months since that night.  There are wood shavings in the garage, random spoons laying around the house.  I have a few nicks and cuts on my hands that are healing, and still, I am hooked.  There is something magical about taking a log from a tree and making a spoon.  It is a simple thing really, these spoons.  Just pieces of wood that have been shaped and carved and sanded.  The world needs more simple things I think.  More things made by the sweat of your brow and the strength of your hands.  I know that, for me at least, each time I sit and carve, I come away feeling like I have accomplished more by making that spoon then by working a full week at my "real" job.