This little piggy went to St. John's...mostly

How could I leave this face behind?

It seems like a lot of things are shifting around this week. After a month or more of travelling, workshops and demos, I'm done with that side of the business for the time being and beginning next week I'll be back in the studio filling spring orders.  And by studio, I mean shed.  The day before I left St. John's for the flintknapping workshops in Calgary and Edmonton, I found out that the farm had sold and that this would be my last chance to go through my belongings and collect what I wanted to keep.  I had to make some hard choices.

I took a picture of my pallet in Calgary before it shipped.  The big green trunk was my mom's hope chest. My dad was a farmer and both my mom and stepmom worked in hospitals, so even the herbicide and adult diaper boxes that my stuff is packed in are oddly nostalgic.  The box monogramed with my intials "TR" is just a coincidence.

Grandma Rast's sewing machine

The week that I spent on the farm was a busy one, sorting and packing boxes and then shipping a pallet of keepsakes back to Newfoundland.  This morning, Lori's dad was in town with his truck so we darted out to the freight depot and I brought home my boxes.  I've started sorting through them, and so far I've only spotted a single cracked plate, so I'm counting the shipping as a success.  Its mostly photos and papers and books.  I've been bringing back stuff a suitcase at a time for the past few years, but this time I shipped out a big trunk that my mom always had filled with linens and keepsakes at the foot of her bed and an old Singer sewing machine that belonged to my dad's mother.  I'm not sure exactly how old the sewing machine is, but I believe this model started production in the 1890s.

He was too good of a friend to abandon, so I gutted him and kept his skin.  I might leave him as a throw rug in front of the fireplace or taxidermy him back together again.  I do have a sewing machine now.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast