TheBar1 Homestead- From a sword to a plowshare

I wish I could say my trip back to the states was uneventful and smooth.  Unfortunately I can not say that.  I will start this entry by giving you a little back ground on the Jordanian/US relationship.  The United States has long been one of Jordan's biggest supporters and for the most part with good reason.  Jordan is one of the most stable counties in the region despite a huge influx of refugees spanning back for over 50 years.  To give you an idea of the refugee situation a Jordan Times article from December of 2015 lists about 1/3 of Jordan's total population being refugees.  The United States has agreed to  help  support the Jordanian Government with about $1 Billion dollars a year in Aid for three years that was agreed to in a non-binding memorandum of understanding signed between the President Obama Administration and the Government of Jordan in 2015 and in fact Congress stipulated that Jordan receive no less then $1.275 Billion in aid in F...

Well quite a bit to post so will break it up into 3 or 4 posts over the next couple of days!  The first big event last week was my sale at the Embassy.  Of course like always for me it was a total rush before hand, spent the last day before trying to build up a little more inventory in the non-pen department so made some cigar punches and bottle stoppers and a shaving kit.  When it was all said and done had about 100 items for sale which was right on track for what my goal was.  This is what my table looked like for the sale! Sales Table at the US Embassy, Amman Jordan Over all over the two days I sold about 27 items and took orders for a few more for a total of about 750 Jordanian Dinars or close to $1300.  About half of that was material costs or sales cost so over all not bad.  The sale itself was great but was not the sole primary goal, the main idea was to get my name out there for making these products so that people would come to me later with...

Well this will be a busy week, I ended up taking today off on leave to pump out a few more items for my sale this week.  I will have over 100 items on sale from pens (a huge majority) to wooden handed shaving kits, bottle stoppers, cigar punches and coffee scoops.  Will have to wake up early tomorrow to try to get price tags on everything and pack it up. Below is a picture that I took of some of the items on sale that they are using for advertising. A good sale this week will give me a little more walking around money on leave so wish me well!! . After the sale I will be going back to work for two days before heading off on leave, flying out on Friday about two in the morning to get to Mn about 9 PM. Will spend the night in Fargo before heading out to the farm on Saturday.  From what Chris said my planting may get shoved back a few days due to cold weather, Chris says he thinks the ground is still frozen solid but we will see,  I did get an email back from o...

Well this week has been an adventure with alot of late nights!  We finally closed on selling the Texas house on Tuesday, it was supposed to have closed last week but the buyer did not have the money in yet.  So Wednesday called the father (only number we had) of the people who own the house next to our property in Minnesota to see if they were interested in selling. He was going to pass on the information to his daughter and soon in law but as of today we have not heard back so will probably give another call tomorrow to make sure they copied my number right but may hold off another week.   We heard rumors they were planning on selling this summer so we will keep the fingers crossed. Chris left to go back to Mn/ND this week, he got back just in time for a PT test!  I am looking forward to getting back there myself in a couple weeks.  Have so much to day when we get there!  Other then that been building inventory for my sale next week, up to about 60 items...

Well the last three weeks have been a roller coaster!  I had to make a no notice trip to Germany that took me out of town for a week, I had to  move my leave up a week and shorten for a week due to a some work requirements, I have been approved to host a booth for my wood working/pen making at the Embassy, we accepted a cash offer on the house in Texas and Chris has been here visiting! The leave change is one of the biggest frustrations because I had already purchased tickets to New Orleans and of course now I will miss that time frame and they are non-refundable tickets!  Not to mention with only three weeks in the states rather then four when it was already planned to be a working vacation will not leave much time to reschedule not to mention the price of the tickets have doubled! So does not look like I will be able to make it to Louisiana this trip.  On the flip side if any of the family or friends in Louisiana want to come up to Minnesota and see what we are u...

Well, we are getting closer and closer!  Today the house in Texas went back up for sale after a bunch of repairs.  My last property manager (Bill Dunker with Nita Selby Properties) really sucked, there was damage to the house from the last renters he did not tell me about or charge them for and when I sent him the pics he sent me showing the damage I was basically ignored so anyone in Corpus Christi selling or renting a house I would really recommend against using him!  After all is said and done cost me a few grand to get it properly ready to be sold.  So once that sells that is one step closer to retirement! Today I ordered about 150 trees and hedges for the retirement property, mostly different fruit and nut trees but also got some maple and willow trees.  About a three thousand dollar investment but it did make me pretty excited and just makes it all seem closer, we should be back in Mn in about 6 weeks to start the planting of them, have a pretty good ide...

Well, I have not been on here as much lately, this is in large part due to the arrival of my mini wood turning lathe.  Over the past two weeks I have been busy learning how and then turning pens on it.  So far I have produced about 30 pens which give me a pretty good starting stock in my new Etsy store.  This is a good spot for a plug for me shop!  https://www.etsy.com/shop/Thebar1Woodworking Right now it is pretty much only pens, however tomorrow my desk top band saw comes in that gives me a lot more options.  A couple weeks ago I came across two 3-4 foot long 4 inch wide olive wood logs.  Olive wood has such a beautiful heart wood grain.While I am in Jordan Olive wood from the Holy Land is what I want to work with most as I am pretty sure it will not be available in Minnesota!!  I am hoping to be able to turn a goblet or two and a couple bowls from these logs as well as a couple of handles for two of my carving tools. I am happy to have come up w...