Antlers, A couch, and Culvers of Grand Haven

Well much has happened in the last several days, But I'm still confined to the library computer so I really can't add much in the way of visuals. To bring you up to speed, We had our sale on Saturday and did pretty well getting rid of almost all of our stuff and making a few bucks for travel expenses. However, we are still left with the antlers and a really nice love seat! Both items are too big to take with us and too valuable to leave on the street. Goodwill will most likely not know what to do with a set of antlers ( trophy antlers might I add!) So this week will be spent trying to find a good home for them so they can continue to wow and amaze people with their size and mystique. As for the couch... I'm not really sure. Good will might take it but there is no way to get it to them as it is too big for our car. I'm not renting a vehicle to give something away! There was an interested party in the couch before and we are still waiting for her call, but I'm not holding out much hope for it. And last but not least, Culvers came and picked up the carving. She looks nice in front of their store. Almost as if she was always meant to be there. I hope she is able to remain there for years to come. Once I get back online and away from these library computers, I'll be able to post a picture to show her in context. UPDATE PICS ADDED!

Antlers SOLD! But not quite...

Well, We were all excited about selling the antlers. They were not as much as we had hoped, but they did fetch a nice price and we were happy....until. When we took them to the UPS store, Cheryl has a ball park figure for size and weight that they would ship in the lower 48 states for $75. Then we took them to the store and that ball park figure got hit OUT OF THE BALL PARK AND OUT OF THE COUNTY! That is right...try $450.00! Well now we are faced with a really bad situation. We simply can't pay that much to ship them. Not only is it more than half of the total gain, but if there is even the slightest problem...we could lose all that shipping money at a time when we can least afford it ( and really, when is a GOOD time to lose $450.00?) and refund all the winners money. Now you might be saying that the chance of anything happening is very slim. Well we made our living on Ebay for 6 years and this is EXACTLY the time when things go wrong. So in the end, the headache is just too big and Cheryl is refunding the money as I'm writing this. ( we are once again at the library...) So now we are back at square one with the antlers back in our possession, instead of a nice chunk of traveling change. I was planning on this post being a "can you believe we shipped this?" post instead of a "Psyche!" one. Hopefully things will look rosy after this weekend.

Moose Antlers for Sale! Check them out!

I know what you are thinking, 'Why would anyone want to sell these things?' Well now is your once in a life time opportunity to purchase a matching set of moose antlers measuring 64 inches across at the widest part. 48 inch shovels, 39 inches straight measurement from bottom of the brow tine to the tip of the top. They weight 41 lbs! How would you like to have those things attached to your head? Now they might not be a record, but they are trophy sized even by Alaska standards! How did I come by these things you ask? Well here is the story, I might have mentioned it once before in a previous post but I love telling it because in this case, fact is stranger than fiction. I was assigned special duty in the Army at Bolio Lake, Alaska, just down the road from Ft Greely. The day before we arrived, two bull moose had a sparing match inside the fenced area! During the fight, they damaged one of the shuttle vans, a section of chain link fence, and broke off several brow tines. After we arrived, we could sometimes see the victor standing close to a couple of cows. I snapped a picture of him one Friday before we were sent back to Fairbanks for the weekend. ( you just didn't see many moose of that size very often) Upon our return on Monday, the bull had dropped one of his antlers! I was excited at this and after work, i put on my skis ( the snow was about 4 ft deep there, you really need skis to walk around in that stuff or else you get bogged down fast!) I skied up to the moose and found his trail and started backtracking him, but after a few hundred yards, it became too thick for skis to travel ( too much brush) My next thought was maybe I could get the moose to drop the one antler left on his head! I skied up to him as close as I dared. You see...Moose are VERY big and are not afraid to charge people. He stood up and towered over me! I thought, "if this guy charges, I'm done for! The snow is deep and I can't run fast enough in these skis." So I looked at the moose and told him flat out, "give me that antler and I'll leave you alone!" He looked at me, shook his head, and with a bone chilling snap, it popped off! I could not believe it! Now I'm sure he did not understand me or anything. It looked like it was difficult for him to keep that think on his head so I just thought I would ask. After he trotted off a bit, I picked up the antler and dragged it back to the barracks. The major told me I had to find the other half so that night I went out with snowshoes and looked for it. I found it, not far from where I turned back with my skis. So..without killing any animal, I was able to acquire a matching set of antlers. Now this is the true story....The story I tell my nephew and niece is a little more dramatic with me wrestling the moose to the ground and yanking the antlers off his head! That one is only slightly less believable, but much more dramatic ( and still lots of fun to tell!) You can find these antlers on Ebay for Auction.

Where did the week go?

For some reason, I'm missing a day. I was convinced that yesterday was Tuesday. Which doesn't make much sense. So I am missing a day but that puts the weekend that much closer. It's funny how a week full of carving flies by! Anyway, I carved up only 4 seats tonight because our stores have not replenished their supplies yet. We already have a rather large order starting for the weekend, so I'm hoping they get some seats back in soon. In the mean time, Cheryl found some old carving pictures that we took a while ago for our old website. They were with the old camera so they are not the highest quality. Anyway, enjoy! Someday, I'll have to post the story behind the moose antlers. A tease, I got them while on a super secret mission in the Army in Alaska. Super secret location. Are you impressed yet? Wanna know more?

Painted carving? or not... A case Study.

It has happened once or twice where people have asked me to carve but not paint a seat for them. At first, (in the old days when the customer was always right) I carved up what they asked and showed them the seat. Imagine my disappointment when they refused to pay for it because it did "not look the way they had thought" Well, this only has to happen once before you gain a little wisdom. Now I refuse to do requests that I know are going to look bad, even if the customer "thinks" they know it won't. A small study: I have carved up two panels in relief. One slightly deeper than the other. Both are carved in oak ( a very strong grain) Notice how the grain slightly interferes with the design on the non painted panel. To combat this, I carved the design slightly deeper and more undercut than normal. I could also have selected a finer grain wood to carve in ( like bass wood or maple) Without the strong shadows, the design could be lost in a strong grain wood. However, the painted panel is much more forgiving. It is carved only 1/8" deep and is completely painted ( an extreme example) The strong shadows are exchanged for colors to show off the design. I also wanted to show off a previous carving in an old cherry stump some years ago. It has been collecting dust for some time, but every now and then I like to dust it off and admire it. It is 100% carved of one piece! The antlers are attached! ( stupid me for making it so difficult) It checked quite badly, but now I just think it is part of the design. ( I didn't know about wood cracking back then.) Even with the years of dust, I thought it shined up pretty good. As for tonight. The sun once again graced us with a blue sky and a bright sunset at the beach. Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Sunday night carving.

5 seats carved up tonight. It was fairly easy and even though I was ahead of the curve, I was still unable to get the poly on before 2 am. Maybe because I take as much time as I can when I actually have the time to spend. Well, they are done now so I just have to wait another 4-5 hours till they get their second coat. The kitten seems to be adjusting fine. He's quite the talker! He was playing with Red on the cat pole this evening.
Cheryl's sales have been picking up! She is beginning to slack off on her "toilet seat" job for her sewing one. lol! ( not that she has too much to do for the seats, she finished listing them all last week.) I'm very happy that she is starting to get the sales I thought she should have got all summer long. On a different note. We just came back from the store tonight and found out they have gotten a resupply of toilet seats. The bad news is....they are not solid oak! They are instead wood pulp covered with veneer. They are thin and look like they would break in a heartbeat! I'm very bummed because I have made a commitment to get the finest constructed oak seats we have found that are still affordable. I now am faced with the problem of going back to a previous distributor that has proven rather unreliable. ( this is what had driven us to the higher quality seat before.) anyway, Lowes has gotten in a new shipment of seats and I'm thinking we should investigate them to see how they will match up. I'm not fond of Lowes, since they always seem to run out of seats when Christmas comes. And their stain is lighter and the seats are Birch or popular instead of oak. Ah well, There are other stores in the area that may not have sold out of the preferred seats yet. So Cheryl thinks we should stock up on what we can. The problem is we don't have a lot of investment capitol to put to buying 100 seats or more for the holidays. We'll have to see how it goes from here.