I was looking at a friends recent blog post from a remote island in Indonesia. I was a little bit jealous, we met while teaching English in the same town in S. Korea about 5 years or so ago and now he is sailing around the world. I also saw another friend from my experiences in Korea who was featured in Business Insider magazine, who has made a lifestyle out of travelling. He has a website and blog that supports the whole endeavor and an apartment in London and Bangkok. His advice was that most everyone who does something unique should have a blog. It was at this time that I realized that I had been neglecting my blog and my 8 readers. While I may not be jet setting or sailing around the world, I am still enjoying myself, and am doing something unique.
Where did we leave off? It was winter time, and I don't really miss February. Lets fast forward to summer I turned 34 on the same day the Magna Charta turned 800 and floated down the James River and caught a couple of small bass. My buddy came up with his girlfriend from NC for a little surpise birthday dinner. Later in June Becca and I went up to Connecticut for my cousins wedding. Along the trip we went the John Sullivan museum (his house) for a visit and to deliver a decoy. Met a couple of customers along the way for a visit and to drop off a few decoys. We rounded the trip of back on the Eastern Shore with the whole family. My sister came back stateside from the UK where she lives with her family, and Colin came down as well. My buddy Scott took us Cobia fishing, Colin got a nice, but slightly undersized, Cobia among all of the sharks and rays.
After that trip it was time to get started for the summer sale up in Plymouth (see upcoming events page). I had to get started because I had another trip coming up back to the Eastern Shore for the 4th and then down to the Carolinas to see Becca's family and some good family friends in the mountains of NC. There is really too much for one blog post. I got my first Cobia with Scott, we actually got several, but a pair of keepers for our limit of one a piece made it a very successful trip.
Right now. I'm working on a really cool pair of sleeping mergansers. The heads are completely connected to the body which is more like sculpting, but I don't have the option to add anything back on as if it were clay. They have been pretty challenging, if you change the angle of the bill to the body, you change how that affects the back all the way to the tail. I am also making a group of golden plover in 3 differnent poses. They are primed and will be painted this week, I am pretty excited to see how they turn out, they are my first ones. In the area of new ideas, I have some anhingas. To this you might say, "A what?" Well, since you read my blog, maybe you know what one is. If you don't, it looks like a cormorant and a snake had a love child. They live in the southeast and are awesome. Typically when you see them in the water all you see is the neck and head. Since anything that resembles a cormorant is not fit to eat there are no decoys of anhingas that I know of. I'm completely ok with this because I can make them however I want, which means I get to go sculptural with them. I am still working on the mounting, but I have a couple of ideas. I also must give credit to my brother, Colin, who gave me the idea. Thanks Colin.
I have actually finished a nice group of ruddy turnstone and have a pair of black bellied plover in the works. That sounds like a lot of stuff, and it is not done yet. This means that it is time for the blog posting to end and time for some rest and another day tomorrow.
Thanks to anyone who reads the blog. Feel free to send me a note, any input is always appreciated. Hope to see you all in Plymouth next weekend! We will be featured on Friday afternoon before the show (July 24th) and will be doing a carving demo. I will be working the phones for Copley on the day of the sale!