Recent Highs In Flour and Wood

I made this bread….

Hand carved wooden spoon.

And sold this spoon!

I’m leaning into a season of making. I have a lot of spoon work coming up and I’m trying my best to just enjoy the art of the practice. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to just sit with my crafts. I forget the luxury of what it means to “make time to take time.” But, with so many spoon carving classes on the horizon, I have nothing but gratitude for everything that’s in store. And when anxiety strikes and I’m feeling overwhelmed with sourcing knives, and cutting blanks, I switch to making breads where my hands can stay active but my mind can rest. So, basically, stay tuned for more post about both. Breads and spoons, breads and spoons…

You can click here if you want to get in on some spoon carving in Sebring, FL. Or if a quiet day at home is more your speed, please enjoy the bread recipe below:

Recipe

Soaker:

• 1 cup flour

• 1/2 cup water

• 1/2 cup milk

• 1 tbsp plain yogurt

Dough:

• 2 cups flour

• 1 1/4 tsp yeast

• 1 1/2 tsp salt

• 1/4 cup water

• 1 tbsp molasses

Process:

1. Combine the soaking ingredients in a large bowl and let rest for 2 to 8 hours.

2. After resting, add the additional ingredients to make the dough.

3. Mix it well so the dough starts to form and then knead it until it’s springy (10 minutes-ish? and you might use up to another cup of flour while kneading.)

4. Cover and rest for 1 hour in a clean bowl that’s been greased with oil.

5. After resting and the dough has doubled in size, punch it down and knead it again.

6. Shape the dough, and let rest another hour.

7. Preheat a dutch oven to 450F degrees.

8. Score the dough and carefully transfer it to the preheated dutch oven and bake for 25 minutes.

9. Remove the lid and reduce the temperature to 410F degrees and continue baking for 15 more minutes.

10. Carefully remove the bread from the oven and let cool before slicing.

11. Enjoy!

An Earth Day Miracle

In honor of Earth Day I thought I would share a quick story about my current love child… The Batten Spoon.

I found this piece of wood in a scrap pile aboard the SSV Robert C. Seamans. It’s a piece of teak but more importantly, it’s a piece of rat board. For those of you that aren’t sailors, a rat board is a piece of wood attached to a matrix of rope that allows you to climb aloft on rigged vessels. Thanks to some routine maintenance in Auckland, NZ I managed to reclaimed this scrap!

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Batten Spoon

$97.00

Hand carved, wooden tea spoon, crafted from reclaimed Teak wood and turned into functional kitchen art.

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The real story though is how this piece of wood has traveled all around the world, enduring weather to its breaking point, got discarded, and still survived. It’s kind-of a miracle. But really it’s just recycling. Happy Earth Day!

A Twig's Life

I have a pretty big stick pile.

Leaf litter is slowly starting to accumulate around the house because I have "ideas".  I have lots of ideas...  Like any good hoarder, I see potential in scraps and find myself defending their storage.  As long as I do something with them, then they amount to more than trash matter, right? Or that's what I tell myself.  The truth is, I have a vision and that vision is generously being fostered by the fine folks at Knoll Farm where I am proud to announce I've been awarded a Better Selves Fellowship spot this August!  I am beyond excited!!!!!

My fingers are crossed that I make it to this Vermont refuge.  You never know the challenges when it comes to dementia caregiving, and deciding now that I will attend, will ultimately be determined in the hours, maybe even in the minutes before my departure.  But for fun, lets just go with it and assume I am going.  I am going!!! 

The fellowship is a nurtured self study of sorts.  Everyone attending will be on their own journey yet together, as a community, we will help each other achieve our goals.  My goal will be spoon related but more specifically I want to focus on carving.  And I don't just mean technique, although, I do hope to acquire new skills.  I want dive deeper into the other aspects of carving like knife care and sharpening but also the spiritual side.  I want to explore the intention, the meditation... 

“There is something healing in the process of making a tool with your own hands.”

I've long thought carving was meditative.  There is something healing in the process of making a tool with your own hands.  It's a placeholder for empowerment, slowly revealing that applied effort produces results and that ultimately, you can in fact do whatever you set your mind to.  It's so easy to surrender to hopelessness but the act of carving always provides a renewed perspective.  With each shaving you are reminded that you're closer than you think, a small echo in your head, akin to a mantra, tells you "keep going".  

As the shape begins to reveal itself, so do all the metaphors.  The "handle" usually appears first.  It's the comfort zone in skill development but then you get to the "neck" and the "bowl".  As with any neck, it's fragile.  You must maneuver delicately or risk breaking it, and I'm reminded of the similarities between these moments and life.  You go on thinking you have a "handle" on things only to realize at some point, your burdens are nearing a breaking point.  It (or you) might snap under the stress without care.  It's a reminder to nurture sensitive areas, a case not to neglect self-care... Then you get to the "bowl".  Perhaps you jump around while carving the spoon but I find the bowl to be one of that last areas of attack.  My students often avoid it till the end.  There is a different technique involved and it requires a different knife but non-the-less it's a critical component to making a spoon a spoon.  It's actually the single most identifiable trait of the spoon yet on the carver's journey, it's often left to the end.  

It's always an interesting pause at this point.  Questions arise as to what things we are avoiding in life?  What single task, if just accomplished, would make a considerable impact in how our days are lived?  What techniques or tools are missing so you can move beyond this block? Wait. Are we talking mental block or block of wood?  It's hard to keep up with the narratives...

I wish I could explain better the thoughts I have on this whole topic.  It's hard to write about carving and a general summery feels impossible.  I have so much to say but can't seem to organized the words for a reader and partly I think the words escape me because so much feeling is at play.  So much is left unsaid here and it's a huge part of why I will do whatever it takes to get to the Knoll Farm refuge and participate in the Better Selves Fellowship.  I know something there is waiting for me.  The mantra keeps telling me "just come"...