Patience

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I've cheated, a little, let Grey go to work on this project. He did in two hours what would take me two weeks. But for the most part, the eight hundred hours of rasping and draw-knife work it takes to take an Osage Orange stave down to a bow have been mine. I exaggerate. Slightly.

I'm approaching the end, now--both of the bow, and of this class. At Skills Night on Thursday I spend most of two hours turning 15 pieces of Dacron into a bow string. I need to bend the bow, figure out where I have to reduce certain segments of it just a little bit. Scrape or sand those places. Negotiate with Grey about whether I need to do more rasping (Answer: No). Cut in an arrow rest, if I can, so I don't bleed all over the wood. But the bow looks done to my amateur eye; it looks like I could string it and fire it right now. The work that remains is subtle, particular, patient. Every part of the process of creation has taxed me, but this last bit looks like it will cost me the most. Patience isn't really my jam.

Photo taken by Cameron MacPhail at Eel Creek earlier this year.

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Come for the Skills, stay for the Ego Death

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My spindle goes flying out in a random direction and, in the resulting loss of leverage, I crack myself in the head with the stick I'm holding in my left hand. I sit down with a thump, eyes watering, glasses akimbo. Smoke pours off my spindle and board, sweat drips down the small of my back, but as of yet--no coal.

"It's just so easy, isn't it? Like all the skills we've learned this year." Cameron smirks a little at me, his own lack of success evident as he packs up his bow-drill kit, minus a coal. Cameron knows this magic, though. He earned himself a couple of coals the week before. Still, this work is humbling. He might have turned the trick once or twice, but he hasn't achieved consistency--yet.

Photo taken by See at Oaks Bottom.

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Bow Down

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Some weeks ago, our little group lined up at Trackers HQ, beanies pulled down over our faces. Grey is fond of blindfolds, and usually when we gamely agree to shut our eyes and be led around we're in for something...entertaining. This time, he led us by the elbow to a mixed selection of bow staves propped up against the wall near the archery range. Each of us individually selected our own stave--a six or seven foot tall, six inch thick rectangular cube sawed out of a larger tree trunk.

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