an age for wood...

I am in Indiana and today I begin my class in making tiny boxes. I have 17 students signed up and great assistants to help. It should be a fun weekend. Many of my students will be my age or older, and in Norway, according to Norwegian Wood there is a particular interest  in wood among men of a certain age.

Elderly Scandinavian men with a passion for firewood are often told that they have entered something called "the wood age," or that they have been bitten by something called "the wood bug."

It's not a bad bug. Compare it with chiggers. In contrast the wood bug is only the itch to do something creative and to feel a greater degree of satisfaction and fulfillment in your own life. Mosquitos carry all kinds of dangerous diseases. Ticks, too, can be a pain. They can leave an itchy welt and sometimes mouth parts are left the skin. Rocky mountain spotted fever and Lymes disease are associated with tick bites. And spiders can be even worse.

The real challenge is to give children the woodbug at an early enough age that they may make something more of it. But even at a later onset of the bug bite, it can work wonders for the spirit.

Make, fix, create, and extend to others the love of learning likewise.