Pioneer Days in the Park

This Sunday, some of our Senior Center carving group participated in Pioneer Days at our county park. This is a family event, where pioneer life is depicted and pioneer skills are demonstrated. This first photo (the one with no one in the photo) is my table. I demonstrated how to carve the 5 minute owl and wizard. Each kid got an owl or a wizard. I displayed a Noah's Ark with the hand carved animals, carved Gnomes, and some small carved Civil War Soldiers. And since it was a family event I had numerous old time wood toys for the kids to play with. You can click on the photos to see a larger photo. I had several "fliptoys", snake in the box, whammy diddles, spool tractors, and "snap" toys/puzzles. The kids really like the old time toys. I even tricked some into looking for the on-off switch.

Jean is a gifted doll carver and maker. She has a basket full of the popular Hitty Dolls that she carved. Little and adult girls found her work delightful.

Carl and his wife were demonstrating carving. Carl, as you can see, is an excellent carver of realistic animals. His wife is learning to carve wood, to keep up with the rest of the family.

Brian is part part of the rest of the family, and is an accomplished carver of Cottonwood bark. He even carves rocks, nuts, and just about anything else he can get his hands on. Brian is young, way to young to participate in our carving group at the Senior Center. The minimum age for the senior center is 55. So we made Brian our "instructor". Now he can participate in the Senior Center wood carving. I'll bet that's the only thing he's at the Senior Center for.
John, used to be our leader, but stepped aside so that Brian could participate. John is an excellent relief carver, as well as a carver of Cottonwood bark. I had to leave it up to John to demonstrate the whammy diddle. John fascinated the kids by making the propeller go one way then the other, on his command.

This years Pioneer Days was the forth and is continuing to grew each year. It's a great way to expose kids of all ages to some of the life and activities of yesteryear. Hopefully we planted the seeds of wood carving in some.