a walk in the woods

This has been a beautiful day in Northwest Arkansas, made more so by a couple walks in the woods with my first, second and third grade woodworking classes from Clear Spring School. As suggested by Otto Salomon, woodworking projects, by being useful in the home, build a strong relationship of support between school and home. Anna's mother suggested that something useful that she would like us to make is a dryer for plastic bags so they can be washed, dried and safely reused rather than being just thrown away. Of course not all parents are so diligent in their efforts to recycle and reuse, so in order to justify making them in school, we  needed to make them beautiful as well as useful, so they can serve as decoration, too. Then perhaps when they are tested and proved, more partents will begin reusing bags to save money and reduce the number of bags used. One count was that American throw away over a billion bags a year.

Our walk in the woods was to find branches to use in making the bag dryers as shown in the photo above. The only tools required are the brace and tenoner, and a 7/16" drill in the drill press. The kids loved operating the brace to form the tenons. We will finish this project next week.

In the meantime, more and more unemployed or under employed Americans are turning to etsy.com to supplement their incomes by selling things they have made themselves, and as described here. You can find my own etsy store Here.