Trade (Commerce): Giving something to get something, and it doesn't have to be money.

In the history of our nation there are countless stories of people who have lived richly, with very little cash. When we began to settle this great continent, especially the interior of it, many folks carried all their worldly possessions in a cart or a pack to scrape out a living out on the frontier. The "richest" people in those days were the ones with the most land, and they had a lot of it; but, even the common man could make it if he was hardy, industrious and tenacious enough.

In a time when available land far surpassed available labor, people in our neck of the woods built cabins and mills, clearing fields along the way. They grew wheat, barley and other grains, milled them at the closest stream powered mill (for a share of the flour) before floating their year's harvest down stream, or hauling it over the mountains to market. Did they sell it? Yes. Did they get lots of cash? No. They came back with salt, iron, and other necessities they could not provide for themselves on the frontier; allowing them to continue growing the farm by repeating the process again the next year.

Today, we live and die for cash; or more likely, the number attached to our bank account. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not some money burning anarchist, I'm just trying to make a point. We've drifted pretty far from our roots. Every once in a while, it's refreshing, even invigorating, to get back in touch with the old way of doing things.

A few cases in point:

A good ole truck. She hauled all our junk out from town.

I once traded the Green Machine, my old '90 F-150 for a set of mint condition leather sofas, a pistol and a detachable table router with a set of bits. I felt like I came out on top of that trade, but the other guy got something he really needed, without having to spend money he didn't have; so, he probably felt the same. That's the beauty of trading, when done properly, each party gets something worth more (at least by their own perception) than what they gave.

Remember Joel, my heavily pierced helper? One day he came up to me and said, "Dubs, remember how you were saying something about me being able to maybe make something out here that I could take home and work on?" ... "Yeah man"... "Well, I was wondering if I could maybe do that"... "Sure thing man, what did you have in a mind?" ... "A crossbow". Whoops, maybe I shouldn't have mentioned it, but a man's word is his bond and every 14 year-old needs a crossbow; so, we went for it. I traded some of Joel's hard work around here for some of my time, "expertise" and the necessary materials to build a totally awesome, totally homemade crossbow; which, to my regret, worked really, really well.

Someone snapped this shot at the tail end of Georgie's birthday party last weekend. I wish I had one showing the custom made stock. Joel's drawing it back to set the string in the jimmy-rigged trigger device we set up. It took some serious doing just to get the thing pulled back.

Everyone waiting with eager anticipation for the first shot. When he let the arrow fly, everyone erupted at once in joyous applause and raucous laughter. It was frighteningly fast, powerful and blasted right through the target. The look on Joel's face was absolutely priceless. It made me feel 14 again.

Coulter and I trade for stuff all the time, labor, ice shaving machines, all kinds of stuff. Sometimes Brinn will do a photo shoot for people who come out and work with me. Sometimes she trades straight up for other stuff, like custom sewing projects from our friend Holli, custom haircuts, custom dental care, custom furniture from our other friend Tatiana, even a box of that doTERRA magic oil stuff; but the trade I'm most excited about at the moment, is this one:

A perfect, hand painted replica of my new logo on a barnwood plaque. You can't see them in the photo, but the boards are fixed together with Chris Furr's hand forged nails.

Corey Egbert moved into our old house last week. It just so happens he is an amazingly talented artist. He is also a published children's book illustrator, accomplished designer and typographer (is that a thing? spellcheck didn't flag it... so, I guess so). I showed him my new cards, talked is ear off for 30 minutes, then left him a simple printout of the logo. He whipped this up like he was doodling on class notes, it just seemed so effortless. He will also be making a sign for Brinn this week, and I will probably beg him to make me another sign for the Farmer's Market shed. Please check out his blog. If you're going to be stubborn about it, I'm going to force you to look at this one thing, then you'll want to go if didn't already.

I totally swiped this from his blog, cool photo right? Except... it's a painting.

This is a Trompe L'oeil painting (meaning "to fool the eye"). 6" x 10", oil on panel. I did it for my oil painting class a couple semesters ago and kind of forgot about it.

Alright, hang tight. I'll be back.

-F.W.