The first thing you have to know is the guy in the picture is holding a wooden toy.  It is a skidder, one of the many toys in the ‘workshop’ repertoire I have been describing as of late. We had this one piece (amongst others) with us on a ‘show and tell’ basis from the seller of the workshop.

“It’s not just any skidder, Dave.  This here is a John Deere.  See the way the arm moves and the seat spins around?  See the way the bucket sits?  This is just like the one I drove for years.  Man, oh man!  This is great!”

R is our first customer.  Love at first sight.  Well, to be more accurate, his wife R-lady was the first real customer.  She said, “I’ll take it!” as soon as she saw it.  Her decision was confirmed a few minutes later when her husband showed up, saw the ‘toy’ and immediately began to play with it.  He had a ‘gleam’ in his eyes that took him back years.

This little skidder doubled as a time machine.

Now, to be fair, it is not honest to claim this as our first sale.  It is.  But it isn’t.  The skidder is the work of J&G, the previous owners of the toyshop.  We are really ‘selling’ a toy from their inventory and kind of sliding along on their shirt-tails, so to speak.  Not the same thing as selling what we intend to and will eventually make ourselves.  All we did was carry the ‘sample’ from one place to the next.  Still, we checked with the lady with whom we are dealing and she was totally supportive.  She knows we are acting in good faith.  “Go ahead and sell it and put the money towards the funds you are raising.  I’m glad the guy appreciates it.”

And that, I think, is part of the theme of this blog.  In a way, it is about that kind of good faith.  I jokingly said in a blog or two earlier that, “If you spend it, it will come.”  That is not an especially prudent way to go through life.  Not really.  Just because governments do that doesn’t mean we peasants should.  But, in this case the situation simply demanded a kind of faith and already, within a day, it is starting to show up that way.

Last night a guy phoned up to pledge $100.00.  He lives in Victoria.  But it’s OK.  He’s old and he has a cabin here. He qualifies.  Another called to pledge his $100 and laughed, “Don’t forget, Dave, no good deed goes unpunished! You guys are in for a heap o’ trouble.  Hahahahah.”

Now please do not misunderstand me.  I am not asking for funds.  Honest.  If they come, good.  I’ll take ’em.  If it comes by way of orders – that is good too.  If they don’t come now, they will.  Eventually.  I just know it.  I have complete faith in that.  I am only writing about it because it is new.  It is fun.  And it is kind of neat in a community kind of way.

And I may have an ad on the side of my blog on the workshop’s behalf some day.

In fact, that might be the real reason for beating the drum a bit on this topic: community building. Faith in community building.  Building faith in community.  Whatever!

You see, that is the real basis for it all.  We have been talking about ‘community building’ for awhile and we have even manifested that spirit here and there.  Now and then.  Different things.  Lots of different people.  Different groups.  A bit more in the last few years than the previous few but less than in years gone by.  It feels like it is in a refreshed  ‘start-up’ mode.

‘Community’ ebbs and flows it seems.  Right now, anyway, it feels like it is flooding.  Our community is gelling…..ish.  Kind of.  In an independent, herding-cats, chaotic, nut-cases-by-the-dozen kind of way.  But, whatever we are doing it is working and it worked well enough to engender the kind of faith needed to make a bit of a larger leap of faith in making the workshop purchase.  We ‘stretched’ as a community and bought the workshop.   And bought into it!

And, as we were in mid-leap, half-way into this ‘faith’ thing, we looked around and we were seeing other leapers (and some lepers) all in the air with us.

It is enough to make H, one of the workshop guys, phone me in excitement at least twice a day.