Lots of community ‘buzz’ about the woodworking shop.  It’s kinda fun.  Ol’ geezers phoning up and suggesting different types of toys they want to make.  Women talking about learning how to use new and different tools. Even the old ‘cynical’ types are playing with the toys and goofing around.  It’s good to see.

These are all skilled and competent people, too.  They have been living and building and maintaining and creating for years in many cases.  They are handy already.  They know how to work.  And they know what ‘good work’ is and, to a person, they are impressed with the skills of the guy who made the toys.  But the good thing is – they are not in the least intimidated.  They think they can do this!

And, of course, they can.  Having the ability and skill (once they get into it) is not the question.  Will the ‘magic’ of getting together and building stuff in a semi-cooperative way happen?  That is the real question.

Our community is really pretty great but it is not what you might call tight and cohesive in a ‘clubby’ kind of way.  Despite the location, we are not a country club.  In fact, being honest requires acknowledging at the very least the fierce level of independence of everyone – fierce to the point of being somewhat extreme at times.  Most are at least bloody minded.  Many are just plain stubborn.  Some are ‘right out there’.  And some are so far out there, we are not sure that they were ever included.  In anything.

But, mostly, the ‘separation’ manifested is in a good way.  It is just independence.  Character.  Local colour. It is all good.

And so is the ‘getting together-ness’ at a good level.  Our gatherings are generally infrequent but somewhat ‘to be expected’ with one or two scheduled events every year.  Every few months or so something spontaneous happens as a rule.  That fills in the gaps.  And usually these events are for a real purpose, not just getting together.  We are all generally too busy for socializing for no other reason.

There is a limit to our getting together and we just don’t know what that is.  Not yet.

Clearly, joining hands and singing Kumbaya is not everyone’s cup of tea.  Some people just prefer to be more alone than that.  Me, for instance.  In fact, even a cup of tea is not everyone’s cup of tea.  One poor fellow expired out here last year and when we heard, both Sally and I realized that we had not only never met the guy, we didn’t even know he was here.  We had never even heard his name prior to his final departure.

Anyway – you get the point: community is alive and well here but it doesn’t look like a church group or Rotary.  Is it ‘soft and fuzzy’ enough to come together to make stuff on a regular basis?  We’ll see.

Lots of encouraging signs, tho.  A neighbour dropped in today to ‘discuss matters’.  The primary ‘matter’ was winches and skidders and logging and highlines.  And that went well.  But secondary matters included this woodworking shop idea……………….and that went well, too.  And so did the community building ideas.  He was ‘into it’.   This is definitely generating a little ‘buzz’.