Canada Day and other things

A belated but still celebrated Happy Canada Day. I am always amazed at the blessing of being able to live in this great country. We did not get to see the fireworks this year, however. Our town decided to change the location for setting off the fireworks from an open field (where we had a front row seat from our house) to the roof of the local library. (I'm not entirely sure how that got past the local fire chief). Anyway, we missed them and I'm pretty upset about it too.

On to happier things. This year so far we have had visits from about 175 people. It is always a pleasure to meet new folks and see old friends too. People have been great about coming on the weekends if they can and when they can't we've tried to make the time to show them around anyway. We are just cluing up the last of the first part of our clients new vessel that we're building. We will continue that in the winter when work on Lena Blanche is no longer practical because of the cold. This week we should be getting back to work on our beloved schooner in earnest.  It has been too long.
We were visited by the 4H group again from this area. About 20 kids, leaders  and moms/dad's came to see the progress in both shops. We spent 1 1/2 to 2 hours talking about tools, woodworking and interests that the kids had. A couple of the kids were pretty interested in the little skiff boat (a type of row boat) that we were building so maybe in the future they'll try that for a project . Before they left they presented us with a beautiful cutting board. It is truly a work of art.

They also gave a beeswax polish that they made. Oh my, does it smell good. Much thanks to all of you for coming and for the lovely gift.

We also received something very special. A friend of ours called us up one evening and said he had work for us the next day.  I was a little confused at first and asked what we could do for him. "I'm sending your masts tomorrow morning ". Wow. Late last fall we went on a hike with Brian Fields and his wife Sandy and we found a couple of black spruce trees that we thought would be perfect for the masts  for the boat. Brian cored them and they looked pretty good. Later in the winter he fell them but didn't like the look of one of them. A long story short he found another very tall black spruce on his father in law's  property and fell that too. On Sunday morning were saw our masts come rolling down the street atop a load of other (very small by comparison ) logs. It was a sight to see.

A big thanks to Ron Slocum of Great Village who trucked and unloaded this rather unusual load with excellence.  We have been de barking them for the last few days so that they get a chance to dry a little and to keep the bugs out of them. They look fantastic and we can't wait to see them bedecked with sails. Words can't say how thankful we are.

I guess that's about all for now. Smooth sailing.