I grew up in a house heated with wood. Usually, in the summer, my brother and I spent beaucoup time out at the wood pile, sweating away, cutting long logs into short sticks and then splitting those sticks and THEN stacking those split pieces. I don’t recall too many late nights during my teenage summers, we were too tired from the advance planning for wood … Continue reading Making a Paddle – Twice Warmed
The first few non-green maple leaves are showing up in my yard this week. Already? It seems like I barely paddled this summer. The usual suspects popped up and robbed me of my time. However, there was some paddling. Seems like most often the paddling I do tends to be with people that have never been on a paddle board before, or with people that … Continue reading Summer 2017 in the books
Twas the night before freezeup and all through the land not a paddler was stirring – not even a kayaker the paddles were stored in their cases with care in the hopes that open water soon would be there the children were nestled all snug behind the counter while visions of paddling danced in their heads with ma making dough and I behind the camera … Continue reading Holiday Classic revised
We decided to take advantage of the last night before Daylight Savings Time ends and it starts getting dark after lunch here in northern flyover country 🙂 We loaded and scurried and arrived at the newly redone haunted old Dyreson Bridge with the sun still in the sky. Just barely. For once, there were others on my favorite stretch of the Yahara, in fact there … Continue reading Sunset paddling in magic light
I enjoy, maybe even have some passion for, wood and paddle making. One of the many beauties of woodworking is the degree to which it absorbs all of your senses. It’s really cool. At least for me it is. The radio is on in the background, the cedar (or redwood and walnut in the picture above) smells awesome and the hand plane is making these … Continue reading Wood working. With Your Hands.
Out on the edge of the continent, in that tiny little 100 yard strip of water in the surf zone there’s usually plenty of action with paddles and sup, etc. It’s easy to assume that because we see so much of that little tiny 100 yard strip that everything in SUP must be like that. Young blond women in bikinis, paddling hard to catch the … Continue reading Taking Time to Enjoy the Water. Simple.
It’s gorgeous this time of year. At least to my eyes, the light is starting to seem a bit different as we approach the autumnal equinox (9/22 this year btw). Trivia question for the day – what is an equinox? Bonus point for difference between equinox and solstice. I offer no answer, save to write that relief for this burning unanswered trivia is but one … Continue reading Summer Day on Flyover Water
Just like so many of the other CC events, this year’s version of Canoecopia hummed with energy and good stuff. For me it’s fun just to see aisles packed with people all revolving around paddling – one way or another. After talking with so many other enthusiasts, now more than ever I really enjoy the neat place that paddlemaking occupies. The combination of making something … Continue reading Canoecopia in rear view mirror
A few years back I wrote a book about making bent shaft paddles. It was a version 1 book. A couple years later it is in dire need of refinement and updating. So don’t buy this current version. Wait for the update. It’ll be out shortly after Canoecopia. If you already purchased the book, I will give you a free copy of the updated book. … Continue reading Free copy of book **
It’s been awhile since I surveyed the “industry” that wavetrainSUP seems to be in. In this case, I searched Twitter for the keyword “paddleboard”. Wow. Either wavetrainSUP is an outlier or…I don’t know. I found nothing about the simple pleasure of paddleboarding. It’s not all surfing and racing after all. There’s plenty of space for getting out on a nice summer day. Of course it’s … Continue reading SUP in a lake, simple paddleboarding
