This is not a tiger. Trust me.

Just recently my wise and beautiful fiancé bought me a camera.  She may ultimately regret this.  Having only used an iPhone camera before, I was, quite frankly, stunned at the results.  Even without any discernible aptitude I was able to take some pretty great photos with it.  I'm currently learning how to work the multitude of buttons.  It's a Canon T3i with a couple of lenses.  I'm taking RAW images and messing about with them in Adobe Lightroom.  Meet Alley, one of our two cats.  She's my test subject.

I was hiding around the corner taking pictures of her as she stalked some dandelions.  The weather is just becoming very pleasant here and the cats (and the people) are thrilled to be outside again.  They think they're tigers in the tall grass (the cats, not the people).  My fiancé is poking and prodding the plants and murdering the weeds with bloodthirsty zeal.  I'm wandering around the yard enjoying life through a viewfinder.  This camera is very complex.  Or, at least, it can be.  It is also user-friendly and rather automatic, when you let it.  Until I acquire the skills to use it effectively I will just use the automatic setting.  It's fascinating to me how the autofocus works.  I know it's old hat to most people these days, but it still seems so amazing to me.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."  -Arthur C. Clarke

Having this camera has caused an irrepressible urge to photo document  everything in my life.  It's going to be difficult to limit myself.  The initial idea behind this blog was to create a forum for sharing my process of creating a workshop here at home and then to move on into my woodworking projects.  But as I start to actually do it I see that this is going to be about creating a life.  A life here in Lunenburg, a life with my fiancé, who will be my wife in a month's time, and a household.  A homestead. The clinical process of work becomes the organic process of existence.  It's a fallacy to think I could separate the two.  Or that I would want to.

So I'm just going to write.  About anything at all, since I believe I'll find my focus as I go.  I'll take some pictures.  Cut some dovetails.  Enjoy this town.  You know, stuff.  We'll see how it goes.  Good night.

In the Beginning there was the word. The word 'Shed'.

In the beginning there was a shed.  It had a dirt floor and no insulation.  There was a rather flimsy garage door that had to be raised by hand.  It had much random stuff in it.  Stuff like a backseat for a Jeep, some old lawn furniture, a cheap reproduction of a Chinese foo dog.  (I know it's not called a foo dog, but I like the name, so there.)  There were many, many pots of plastic and more than a few of clay.  There were some rusty garden tools and some cheap power tools.  Perhaps some spiders.  And it was all mine!

It should probably be noted that the scary, pale things in the lower right corner are actually chives that haven't seen the light of day.  So, ghost chives. The marketing possibilities occupied my mind for a good 30 seconds.  

The foo dog may stay.  I like him.  Everything else must go.  This shed is to become my workshop.  My sanctuary.  Where I retreat from modern life into the realm of wood and hand tools.  (I wonder if the wifi reaches out here?)  First I am putting down a concrete floor.  Then I'll run some wires of manly voltage out to power some lights, some music, possibly a power tool or two.  (Okay, I'll hire someone to run the 220 to the box, I don't know a darn thing about the housing code.)  Next comes the workbench, of a Roubo vintage.  But first I have to get rid of all this junk.  [Sigh]