March Update
#mood
What a crazy month.
A lot of my business involves face-to-face interactions with people. The craft fairs, farmers markets and workshops. All currently cancelled or on hold. Fun times. I’m actually quite proud of humanity for putting lives ahead of the economy. I’m certainly feeling the pinch, but I’m not sick and, at the time of writing, no-one I know has a confirmed case. So that’s good.
That said, I have spent most of this month mainly panicking. I really enjoy the face-to-face aspect of my business. It gets me out of the shed, I feel like a part of my local community. It’s fun, so I prioritised it. Fortunately, my business can certainly be made to pivot into a more online form. I have an online shop already set up with products ready for people to order. I’m lucky that through this blog, my Instagram, Facebook, Youtube and Pinterest I have a way of pointing people towards my work. But changing from mainly face-to-face to entirely online is a big task. I spent most of the winter figuring out a plan for 2020. That plan certainly didn’t account for a global pandemic. But here we are.
So, moving forward, I’ll be posting more of my finished work, letting people know that I have products for sale. I also want to continue to support folks interested in learning more about green woodworking. I’ve been getting lots of DMs, PMs, emails and comments about different parts of different processes. I’m either answering them directly, or creating videos and photo tutorials covering those request. All of those hints, tips and techniques are going out free on my social media channels and through the private messages you send me. If you’re in a position where you’d like to support the further creation of free content, I have set up a Patreon account.
You can support my work for less than a cup of coffee each month. Doing so will free up more of my time to create videos, do photo tutorials and write posts sharing my knowledge. If you enjoy the work I do and want to see more of it, please consider supporting me through Patreon.
I’m also trying to figure out the logistics, suitability and interest for online carving workshops. I’d really love to hear your thoughts on this. Is an online course of carving something you’d be interested in? Would you rather have one-on-one instruction, or prefer a less expensive one-to-many live workshop? Let me know in the comments, or ping me an email.
To help leaven the mundanity of your day, let me leave you with 15 reasons why spoon carving is the best hobby for surviving the Covid-19 pandemic
1 - Carrying an axe is the perfect way to encourage the recommended minimum 6 feet of social distancing
2 - Beards are proven to be as effective as face masks. Spoon carving inevitably involves growing a beard (that includes you ladies, I don’t make the rules).
3 - Spoon carvers regularly self-quarantine for 14 days at a time. If that green wood isn’t carved within two weeks, fuhgettaboutit
4 - Woodworkers already have a stockpile of face masks. To hide their shame as they sand #handtoolsonly
5 - With enough practice you’ll be creating wood shavings so long and fine that you’re no longer concerned about toilet paper shortages
6 - Worried about cutting yourself? According to this guy, bloodletting worked on treating the plague.
7 - Much of the spoon carving process can be done in your lap, out of sight of video conferencing you’re doing now you’re working from home.
8 - With your hands regularly full of knives, you already know touching your face isn’t recommended.
9 - There’s zero risk of catching COVID-19 through Instagram
10 - You’ll have plenty of goods to barter once the economy collapses
11 - The virus can only survive for three days on surfaces. It will take you that long to find the tool you just put down.
12 - Application of linseed oil makes surfaces too slippery for the virus to attach to [citation needed]
13 - Wooden spoons are easily disinfected. Fire cleanses all.
14 - With the right kind of spoon, you never need physically touch anything ever again
15 - Finally getting to the top of Nic Westermann’s waitlist means you’ve cashed out of the stock market already.
Stay safe, and keep washing those hands.
