A few of us got together for the second annual Iowa jam and Shawn welcomed us to his house and workshop. John and I drove up with a camper in tow and plenty of projects to work on. We both had plenty of things we wanted to do, but in the end only a few things actually got done. What we did do a lot of was just relaxing and having a good time.
When we arrived, Shawn and Harold were already busy beating on rocks. So as soon as we could drag our buckets in and pull up our stools we got busy making flakes.
Harold was holding his own with a bopper or a story and I felt pressured to show what I could do, since he didn't know me. I proceeded to break everything I put my hands on an quickly decided it wasn't my night! So I changed gears and started eyeballing a big Osage quarter that needed split up. Harold left for the night and I finished splitting the osage then Shawn invited us in for deer roast and taters (which was delicious!!) After supper we hit the workshop again and went to work on one of the many other projects on our checklist.
Shawn making a string for John's latest lever bow.
Shoots good!!
Fletching an atlatl dart of John's
We all took a turn throwing it and we decided the 2 fletch method works fine!
The next morning Shawn cooked breakfast for us and the pancakes and wild pig sausage really hit the spot! I couldn't help but be a bit jealous of Bud having that fireplace to curl up beside on the long winter nights. Shawn has a beautiful house!
On Saturday, several more people showed up and we all sat around throwing flakes at one another again and I did much better. Unfortunately, I didn't get a group shot of everyone, but we all threw our finished points on a pad to represent our days work.
In the top left is Shawn's first points ever knapped, then Iowabow's (abo) points in the middle. Top right is what I was able to complete on Saturday, then on the bottom is a guy named Tad on the left and Harold on the right. It would have been nice to have more people show up, but in the end what I enjoyed most was just being able to relax and work in the shop (and oh what a shop it was!!) Shawn was super nice to let us use his facilities and he even helped me get my BBO back on track. ( hopefully I will be able to post pics of it in the near future also.
Before we left everyone was handing a point or two to Shawn to show him our thanks and then we were on the road. It was a great way to spend a couple days and I had a blast! Now, who's gonna host it next year...
Scott
