The North Idaho Front Porch (Boise, Pocatello: phones, reputation, knives)

[joshnc]

Originally Posted by Reziac

Has anyone tried those solid bike tires? I was thinking about those when I fix up the old bike, cuz the goat heads can puncture anything.

I would try the get filled kind if you are worried about it. It would keep enough air to get you home.

[TerraDown]

I spent the last few days of my spare time reading this entire thread. Clark Fork Fantast(ic?), I can't wait to read about you moving into your lovely cabin in the North Idaho woods. You too Volo, hope you find what you are looking for. Nice bike!

I'm stuck in Florida for now, but 'maneuvering' wife best as I can for a move west again in about 3 years. We have relatives in Anchorage. I love it, but I don't think she'll go for anything outside the lower 48. So I've been snooping around at top of the country states that have promise/mountains/cold/seasons.

I'll keep reading on this thread. I've gotten to 'know' quite a few of you. Love the stories BanjoMike. Love the cars Elousv.
Misty, glad to hear you've returned and your Grand child is really lovely. I'm also wondering what happened to Trace_Rinaldi and also Sage.

Can't rep all the posts I wanted to just yet. But have them noted.

Hopefully they'll turn up. Meanwhile, keep the stories coming folks. I sure do miss the seasons and living vicariously through you isn't all that bad---for the time being

[banjomike]

Hi, Terra...
Trace was a custom knifemaker. it took about all he had to make the move to NID, but he was doing very well here for over a year after he got settled in.
And then his small workshop burned down to the ground in the winter. No one knows if the fire was somehow started from his forge or from one of the several gas jets he used, but the fire completely wiped out his equipment.

Just as the economy was taking a nose dive. There were a lot of individual craftsmen like him who made custom products, and a lot of them took a very hard hit. The last I heard, he had moved back to California and had quit the custom knife business completely. His knives are collectible, for sure and rarely come up for sale. But when they do, they're snapped up very quickly.

A custom banjo maker I knew suffered the same fate at the same time. He had left his former profession a few years before, and began to make custom-ordered banjos full time. It had been a hobby of his for years, and they were excellent banjos. The recession destroyed his biz too, and interestingly, he got into a profession no one ever thinks about much- transporting the dead back home to be buried among family.
He owns 2 modified ambulances, and is doing very well now in Texas, his home state. He said a lot of Texans moved from out in the country to Dallas/Ft. Worth and Austin, and the families (and the deceased, before they pass on) want to be buried back home. So he does the driving. There's very little competition.

Haven't heard from him in years, but Fitch banjos are like Rinaldi knives- when one comes up for sale, it's gone very quickly.

[TerraDown]

BanjoMike, the bench you made with the piano keys is really nice. I'm an artist, and appreciate all the work that went into that piece.
Thanks for the explanation of what happened to Trace. Sad to hear, I hope he makes his way back someday to the place he loved. Those knives were/are exquisite.

[banjomike]

Originally Posted by TerraDown

BanjoMike, the bench you made with the piano keys is really nice. I'm an artist, and appreciate all the work that went into that piece.
Thanks for the explanation of what happened to Trace. Sad to hear, I hope he makes his way back someday to the place he loved. Those knives were/are exquisite.

Thank, Terra.
Yup- Rinaldi made excellent knives. They were both elegant and highly functional.

You know how it is as an artist/artisan/craftsman... the living is never stable or very predictable. The Great Recession was brutal on all the arts, and many of the crafts that are as much art as craft haven't ever recovered to what they were in the early 2000's.

Given his skills, I'm sure Trace was highly qualified for a lot of different metal working jobs. industry in California, especially in the high skill areas, is booming, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Trace simply found a good paying steady job and gave up trying to be a small entrepreneur; it's much harder for any devoted craftsman to do all the related business that comes along with the high-design, intensive labor, small quantity work, and the better known one becomes, the more frequently the very craft that made a reputation takes a back seat to the promotion of the product.

I have a friend in Pocatello who's a stunning furniture maker. Like Trace, he was doing great before the recession, but he never recovered, either. These days, he's just doing repair work and making a few guitars.

He said that at one time, his work was featured in national craft magazines, Architectural Digest, and some other big publications, and he travelled around to exhibit in national trade shows a lot, but even then, it was always feast or famine. In the end, it all became a rat race for him that left him pretty bitter.

I've made some furniture now and then, but just for my own use. The bench was the only thing I ever got any money for, and for the time in, the return was only so-so.

I passed up a free trip to Mongolia after I won the contract, and after it was done, I wished I had taken the trip instead.

It was a cultural exchange thing. I was to play banjo to the Mongols, and they were going to play their horse skull fiddles to me. The guys who hooked me up had the time of their lives while I was covered in sawdust.

Cowboys and Mongols. I would have been the only real cowboy in the bunch. My bro went in my place and had a very swell time.

[Clark Fork Fantast]

Originally Posted by volosong

Just went through Clark Fork the other week. What a delightful place! It was very picturesque with grass growing 'everywhere'. I can see why you like it so much.

Hey Volo, congratulations on becoming our new moderator!

Yes, CF is beautiful whether you're going east or west. There is a new vista around every corner!

Originally Posted by TerraDown

I spent the last few days of my spare time reading this entire thread. Clark Fork Fantast(ic?), I can't wait to read about you moving into your lovely cabin in the North Idaho woods. You too Volo, hope you find what you are looking for. Nice bike!

...

Hopefully they'll turn up. Meanwhile, keep the stories coming folks. I sure do miss the seasons and living vicariously through you isn't all that bad---for the time being

Welcome to the forum and our collective dreams, fantasies, and fulfillments (and maybe also some disappointments and caveats along the way--that's life!). We just got back to SoCal after spending 6 weeks in heaven, the longest we've ever been able to spend at our property. Things are moving along nicely, we had a defensible space cleared around the cabin (for the fire danger), and we recreated the meadow that we had originally, before all the cute little trees grew up and stole our mountain view!

We left on the day the yellowjackets hatched (I think). All of a sudden there were hundreds of them, and they were all in a bad mood! After such a cool, brisk beginning of the summer they must have been ready for warm weather. So I think it will be one of those big yellowjacket years. Other than that, we've enjoyed the wildlife. Elk and deer have been coming through our new meadow, two elk were right outside our bedroom window the other morning, a buck and a cow. Man, they're huge up close!

Then we drove home through UT and NV, and the temperature rose to 113 degrees. And drivers were aggressive, and the landscape was drying out, and already NID seems terribly far away... And so is retirement

BTW, it is "Fantast": Fantast | Define Fantast at Dictionary.com, "a visionary or dreamer" . But Clark Fork is fantastic!

[Cnynrat]

I was debating whether we should be offering Volo our congratulations or our condolences!

[volosong]

You stinker! I think the latter. Little did I realize what I was getting myself into.



Hurry back, Sage.

[volosong]

Oh, before anyone reports me for a "personal attach" on Cnynrat, realize that it is meant as a 'term on endearment' for the unspoken bond of the regulars who contribute here and developed through the common goal appreciating the uniqueness of Idaho and keeping her special.

[Jimbo302]

Originally Posted by volosong

Oh, before anyone reports me for a "personal attach" on Cnynrat, realize that it is meant as a 'term on endearment' for the unspoken bond of the regulars who contribute here and developed through the common goal appreciating the uniqueness of Idaho and keeping her special.

Ha, good point. I have noticed some of the other forums have some seriously overbearing moderating.