Ye Olde State Bank Treasures & Antiques Preview

I've got a busy weekend with family ahead, but I wanted to give you a little taste of what I have in store for my next featured Kansas talent. This is a wonderful little store that's fairly new to Norwich, KS.
It's an antique/consignment store with lots of items both old and new to keep you browsing for quite some time.
Everything is laid out in a way that is pleasing to the eye and gives a comfortable homey feeling.
On Saturdays they have fresh donuts and beverages. There's catered luncheons that can be scheduled. I'll report on this in more detail in my next post.
The store's address is 207 N. Main, Norwich KS if you just can't wait till my next post to see more. They are open Friday 10am-7:30pm, Saturday 6am-7:30pm & Sunday 1pm-4pm. More photos and detailed information to come!

Graphic Flux – A Collective Graphic Design Blogging Project

Psiplex is hosting the June Design Blogging Project. The challenge was...

The group's name is Xerces. They are your countrymen and need to make a global impact with this release. Groundbreaking artwork for their CD will be used to carry over to their other media to create a strong connection to the group. Xerces' main focus is music for rain forests. They are all about letting the world know about this incredible but shrinking resource. They would like the CD artwork to reflect their passion for rain forests. Xerces wants to keep the artwork 4-color and their only other requirement is to use the font face 'Petie Boy'.

Here is my entry:

Rowan's Honey Shop & Apiary

Today I'm featuring a local business because I believe it takes talent to open and run a small town business, especially in today's economic environment. Rowan's story is taken from the forward of their book...
The beginning of Rowan Apiary was June 3, 1967 when I married Jim. Jim had started keeping bees when he was ten years old and had become a passionate beekeeper. I gained a husband and several hives of bees - it was a "package deal.Jim was real good about letting me ease into the business - I started out helping extract. That was a good experience until a bee flew into my hair, got mad, and let me have it. Jim also let me be the "marketing agent." I really liked taking the money after each honey sale.

As time went on, we bought the home built by Jim's great grandfather and increased the number of our hives and the size of our family. We added Jeffrey Dean in 1975, Jason David in 1976, and Jaclyn Marie in 1982. All three children grew up around the bees and have been a wonderful help when the work needed done. They are all very knowledgeable about the bees and quite proud of their beekeeping background.
As of today, all three children have left the home hive, but keep in close touch and help when they can. Although Jim and I still identify beekeeping as our "hobby," we run around a hundred hives and have opened Rowan's Honey Shop in Norwich, Kansas. I am still teaching school and Jim is still working in insurance and banking, there fore our hobby sometimes makes for a full schedule.
If you are traveling through Norwich, stop by the shop and visit. If you have comments or questions you may contact us at honeybee67106@hotmail.com (I was informed that they were having problems with their email, so you might want to call them instead. The number's on their flier below)
Rowan's honey has been a local product for a long time, when we had a grocery store they stocked it along with the national brands. I've read that eating honey from local bees was suppose to help against hay fever and allergies, that may only be an old wives tale, but sounds good to me! : )

Boys Toys

My son finally got the shop/shed that he's been wanting. He's gotten all his tools out of the house and out from under his wife's feet and he finally has someplace to do what he does best, create. Well, to create things you first have to create stuff to make your tools function to your liking. Here's two creations that he showed me when I was there the other day. First he built wheels for his Circular saw stand...

Then he turned a drill press into a disk sander.

I probably be posting more creations from my son's shop as that he's always creating something.

Carving Covered Bridges

My dad wasn't born in Kansas, but he's lived most of his life here. He was born in the flatlands of Colorado, right across the line from Kansas in the Joes/Kirk area. He didn't see the mountains till he joined the military so he might as well have been born in Kansas. I'm not sure when dad started carving, but I remember him carving chains and balls in boxes when he helped with the Boyscouts. Later he started doing bas relief carvings of covered bridges. The one below is dated 1988.
I wish you could see the detail, but I wasn't able to get any pictures that really do his work justice. The tree in front of the bridge below actually has open space in the area that the river runs under the bridge. There is depth going into the bridge and depth going under the bridge. I believe that dad said this one was from a postcard.
Again, all these bridges have depth in the actual carving, usually going into the bridge and under the bridge.

The following two pictures are of two of the offices that Evans Steel Building Co. built and occupied.
There is an open space in the area of the flagpole in front of the building.
The eagle below has lacquer filling in the depth around the head and the beak protrudes slightly from the surface.
The horses seem to show their bas relief better than the bridges do.

This picture of the rose didn't turn out as well as I would have liked. It wasn't in a well lit area and came out blurry. I attempted to sharpen it up in PhotoShop but it does not do the carving justice.
These are just miscellaneous carvings that dad has done over the years.
He said that every carver has to carve a boot, so the bas relief on the right is his boot.
The lions head didn't focus well either. The lion has a ball carved out inside it's mouth, the ball rolls free but cannot be removed. This is how the balls in boxes or cages were done.