Dani and Lisas Stories: Stubby’s Wood World Two

Tags -- Stubby

Stay with me here.

Every one is probably expecting a story about Stubby and his wood.

Well this IS a story about Stubby and his wood – but you folks are all thinking of the wrong wood.

Yes, he has a very nice chunk of wood. Lisa says she has never been so satisfied by one piece of wood.

But enough of THAT piece of wood. This is the start of a series about Stubby’s carvings.

The first time I saw his ‘village’ – that’s what he calls his room in his house where he has created a miniature village – all out of wood – I was speechless.

All types of wood, Pops says he is sure he has used every variety in the woods around the cabin and a few more he has picked up along the way.

When you first walk into the room you are forced to duck under what appears to be a tree branch. Appears my ass – it IS a tree branch. It is the remaining unused branch from the trees that built most of his current log cabin.

You might be picturing a ‘real’ log cabin but this cabin was built by a guy that specializes in ‘kits’ except in this case, the guy and his crew used Stubby’s trees to get most of the logs for this ‘kit’. Captain helped Stubby cut and dry them.

The builder asked them to join him and cut all the logs and wood for his kits but he was disappointed. Stubby and Captain never wanted to do it again.

It is a modern log cabin with running water, flushing toilets and electricity. It has wood paneling in some rooms and drywall in others.

A wall in his bedroom is carved – many different scenes from different parts of his life are depicted. It is beautiful.

There is a massive fireplace about half the size of our great room fireplace. Stubby’s can take several four foot logs and has burned for 29 hours with out attention.

He told us the first day we ‘discovered’ his skills, that one winter after it dropped to twenty-five below and the next spring his old cabin (a REAL log cabin) flooded, he had his current home built – about 14 years ago. He got tired of being wet and cold.

The catch with his current cabin – it straddles a creek – a very wide creek and his front and side porch ‘float’ on the creek.

Attached to the side porch is a gang plank to his boat dock. He has several fishing boats and john boats and flat bottom boats. He also has a small tug and a fifteen foot sailboat.

He loves the water. He said he used to pilot tugboats for a competitor of Cheese’s but quit when Liz’s Mom changed his life.

We don’t know how she changed his life and Lisa tells us to ask him. We are afraid to pry.

So I step up onto his floating porch early that morning and almost screamed – the damn thing sank with my weight but it eventually leveled and the slope to the front door was very slight.

Lisa waved me in and led me to a softly lit room. I was not expecting what I saw.

I saw our valley and the two rivers and the island where they meet. I saw the nearest town with its several church steeples and many tall trees.

I saw the same village across the river from us – the one that takes over an hour to drive to but we can yell across to its dwellers. We can take a boat to it and Stubby’s miniature has a boat doing exactly that.

And in the distance ‘behind’ the little village I could see the skyline of the big city painted on the wall that served as the backdrop to the village and valley.

I could see all of the landmarks – I could see the candy and popcorn shop run by a local lady - looking in the window I found the marble slab she uses for fudge and candy canes (the best).

The car dealer had several cars in a row – I could pick up the entire row because Stubby had not separated them from the slab he had carved them from.

Somehow he has carved the windows visible from this side to look like they were reflecting the sunlight.

Lisa hit a switch and the room turned to moonlight – the car windows changed to reflect moon light. It was amazing because it was not just the car windows – it was the entire room.

The valley was the center point – our cabin a focal point and the lock and damn another distance focal point.

The rivers looked like they were flowing and on closer look – they were – it was actual water with sparkles and other ‘junk’ in it plus either real dirt or food coloring.

I asked Stubby if I could show Pops. When he agreed I went out and called Pops telling him to bring his best camera and to get ready to be blown away. He didn’t understand until he got here.

This is the first of many articles – it might take years to document all of it but I will hit the high points.