This is the original DVD case cover art. I’m leaving the front pretty much alone but reworking the back extensively.
One of the ongoing headaches(?) has been the inability to resupply my inventory for the historic woodfinishing video F&W Media (PopWood) produced several years ago, which I had available on the donsbarn.com website store. The new company that now owns PopWood discontinued the hard copies of the DVD and no longer even had “new old stock” copies in the warehouse. After some back-and-forth the new company released the video to me gratis, for which I am most appreciative. At Handworks 2023 the editor-in-chief made a point of confirming our earlier correspondence; my F&W videos were now my intellectual property to use as I saw fit.
The urgency of me acting on this came to a head a few months ago when my final copy was sold. Since then I have been noodling the revisions of the original DVD cover and am now ready to send it off for reproduction after I let it ruminate for a couple days. While the DVD content was now my property I had no desire to disavow F&W from the picture as they truly deserve all the credit for producing it in the first place. Thus I am keeping the bones of the original packaging, crediting F&W, but revising the content a fair bit to re-brand it as a Barn on White Run product.
As soon as I get copies into my hands I will be fulfilling the two dozen orders that have been sitting in my “Pending” folder.
It’s been something of a perfect storm with a very wet late winter culminating in two substantial snowfalls a couple weeks ago followed by warming weather and more rain, and the switch was thrown for everything to get going (we had the wood stove cranking out heat a mere seven days ago but were heating up to the mid-70s and sun yesterday). As a result we are in the midst of mowing, bush hogging, weeding, planting, burning, etc. with not a minute spent in the shop this week. If this perfect cycle of rain and sun continues, we will have to mow at least a part of every day for the foreseeable future. The grass I mowed on Monday is almost three inches higher today.
On top of that the rapid onset of spring/summer means that everything is producing pollen all at once. Combined with a stubborn sinus infection, it feels like I am breathing through jello much of the time.
Last summer we had the great good fortune of finding a college kid home for the summer to hire for the yard work. It was grand. We’re still looking for someone to help this year but so far no luck so it’s up to the old folks to get it done. As I’ve said many times, we work just as hard and just as long as ever but don’t seem to be getting nearly as much done.
As soon as I get this round of yard housekeeping done I will turn my attention to checking the penstock for the hydro system and making the requisite annual repairs, and moving forward on next year’s firewood.
… and here’s why. L’il T now has a brand new baby brother!
We just back to Shangri-la after a month in New Jersey helping with preparations, pitching in whenever and wherever needed, and doing grandpa and grandma stuff. L’il T and I spent untold hours playing with his cars, chasing balls in the yard, swinging and sliding at the park, reading books. Mrs. Barn got a full dose of medicine to respond to the demands of the grandma gene.
Amusingly (?) when I go to visit I always travel with a bin or two of projects to work on during the “down times.” When packing to return home, I realized I had not opened up those bins this trip except to complete some gold leafing (more about that later).
We also celebrated L’il T’s 2nd birthday, and I made him his first toolbox, complete with 23K gold leaf trim and his name. This picture is just before I started the gold leaf trim.
Again, one of the beauties of youtubeworld is the sheer quantity of vintage video on almost any topic you want. Finding it can be a challenge, especially when the titles are in other languages and “alphabets” but lately I’ve ben coming across some jewels from 40, 50, or even 60 years ago.
Here’s a glimpse of the modern master of lacquerwork, Gonroku Matsuda. Enjoy.
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