I first heard about the Steppingstone Farm Museum from Shannon Rogers (of The Renaissance Woodworker) on a Woodtalk Online podcast. I learned more when we worked at adjacent benches at the Woodwright’s School taking Elia Bizzarri’sContinuous Arm Rocker class. (I think I just set a new record for links per paragraph.)

A few weeks back, we were visiting some friends in Baltimore for a few days and were looking for a day trip to take with them and their kids and their kids. I suggested we visit the Steppingstone Farm Museum. It is located in Havre de Grace, MD, about an hour north of Baltimore on I-95. Much to my surprise, all agreed and we went.

To steal from their description:

Steppingstone museum is a private, not for profit museum which preserves and demonstrates the rural arts and crafts of the 1880-1920 period in Harford County. The…

Practical modern wanderer.

Great floor.

The overhang is an excellent way to save floor space without sacrificing the bed.

See the article on the Tiny House Blog by clicking an image.

I love this image from Life Magazine.  It has a real neighborhood feel.

Above: Practitioners of French Savate, 1857.

For many today, the term “gentleman” is apt to conjure up the ridiculous image of an affected, overdressed fop with a monocle, struggling to secure a place in high society. Yet, throughout past centuries, the character of the gentleman was regarded as synonymous with that of the true ideal man, embodying “heroic bodily strength and mental firmness” and including “whatever was valuable in the cavalier and the earlier knight,”—simply put, a man with the strength of manhood.

With that in mind, it is not surprising that numerous treatises on gentlemanly conduct published in the 19^th century emphasized the importance of physical fitness and self-defense training. For instance, Our Deportment (1879) states that

“Physical education is indispensable to every well-bred man and woman. A gentleman should not only know how to fence, to box, to ride, to shoot and to swim…

A great historic image of the long road ahead to start your weekend off right.

It’s always a good time to hit the road.

early retirement is, by definition, a very future-focused pursuit. most people saving for retirement aren’t saving enough to feel the pain of what they’re not able to spend, and retirement must feel like some far-off, abstract thing. but when you’re on the early retirement path, that means saving an amount that you feel subtracted from your cash flow. it requires a lot of planning, and thinking, and adjusting, and more planning and thinking, more readjusting, and on and on.

it’s natural to be future-focused, when you’re spending a lot of your mental energy planning for something in the future. and we think it’s okay to think a lot about the future.

the only problem: the future is never guaranteed.

we already know that we may not have a whole lot of good years left, at least for one of us, but we hope we still have more than a…

Anyone who has laid out an octagon on a long square blank using a set of dividers, knows that it would be a lot easier if humans had evolved with three hands.  And there are times, as in “posts in place”, shaving fifty leg blanks or an octagonal section placed between two square sections, where laying out on an end is next to impossible.  And, then again, you might never have the need for this old carpenters trick.  But, here it is, anyway.

On larger square stock, lay a 24″ framing square or rule diagonally from one edge to the other.  “Tick” mark at 7″ and 17″.  Hand hold a pencil and mark the lines.  (Most people are amazed at how accurately a “hand-held” line can be drawn.)

For smaller stock, you can use a 6″ or 12″ scale.  Lay the diagonal line from 0″ to 6″. Then “tick” at 1 3/4″ and…

“I was born lost and
take no pleasure
in being found.”

John Steinbeck

That quote resonates with me. What did John Steinbeck feel?

He was a celebrity when he wrote this in “Travels with Charley”, a travelogue about him crossing America in a camper with his poodle Charley in the 60s. John was depressed, in bad health, feeling he had lost his touch with America. In order to reconnect, some say because he had a contract to write another best-seller, he got into a camper and drove across America. As a fiction writer he may have embellished or invented some conversations that made it into the book. Nevertheless his perception about the death of localism, the growing homogeneity of America, and the trashing of the environment was authentic.

A few weeks ago I visited Chilkoot Lake for the first time, a remarkable serene, and peaceful place in Southeast Alaska. Spring…