Originally Posted by
DougRNS
The awesome shovel in all its glory. (Also pictured, the Group W bench.)
As awesome as that shovel might be, it is the bench that caught my eye. A boyhood friend, a man I've now known for about 70 years, revived his early artistic talents that had been dormant during early child rearing years. His daughters got into horses and so the family traveled frequently to dressage events. As as a sideline he began making similar benches from black walnut trees he felled and milled himself. On the backrest, he carved a horse's head in perfect detail. As the family traveled to horse shows, he would take his benches to sell for $1500 each and he was selling everything he could produce to those horsey people. A fine way to offset the cost of owning horses.