Yooper Calabash Bowls will be back in stock this summer

Special delivery of some yellow birch logs from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Enough for a few Yooper Calabash Bowls joining the oak and pine calabash bowls for the Norwegians and Swedes already in process. 

Supplies are limited so order soon. See Terms and Conditions above.  

Final product production to begin in April

The store of rough bowls is growing. More on the way. We ordered more yellow birch from the UP and more pine will be on the way from up the road. Stay tuned.

TWW Regrets to Inform You

After delivering the last bowls to the people who come in to help us and a nephew's wife TWW Enterprises regretfully announces we are out of inventory. While we have fulfilled all of the orders from last season we have a paucity of people who want to place orders but cannot since we are not accepting orders until we learn how much we will have for next year. The oak we are currently processing has a high failure (cracking) rate so we want to be sure we have inventory before we start taking any more orders. 

The oak mentioned above is for creating a series of pricey oak calabash bowls to sell to the rich Norwegian-American tourists from Edina,  MN who visit Hayward, WI. We need to get them to spend on our bowls before Elizabeth Warren makes it harder for them to be rich. Stay tuned.

What the competition charges

If one of TWWs customers ever gets curious about what the competition charges here is a sample of something from the competition.  Is Norfolk Island Pine really that much better than Northwest Wisconsin Red Pine?? 

From the competitor's web site: "Norfolk Island Pine Calabash 
                                1 Bowl 11.5"d x 5.5"h
                                $250.00"
See for yourself: https://www.etsy.com/listing/705800836/norfolk-island-pine-calabash-1-bowl-115d?gpla=1&gao=1&&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping_us_a-home_and_living-home_decor-baskets_and_bowls&utm_custom1=59c8e6c9-4d4b-4cbc-b5ea-d0e2402c22da&utm_content=bing_319895455_1309518497229981_81844932342591_pla-4585444526377732:pla-4585444526377732_c__705800836&msclkid=50ba354f249f1c6afc4568d5a54814b3

Calabash bowl run now completed

Bowls awaiting customers to stop by and pick them up next week

Another unsatisfied customer

The proud but unsatisfied recipient of the brabowlini. Note the cover is in her lap.

The problem with organic bowls

One of TWW's relatives reported seeing a sign beside the road on the way up to the family compound saying "organic firewood".  This awakened TWW to the obvious: He has been selling organic bowls for nothing rather than cashing in on the organic product scam.  

The problem with drying out wet organic wood instead of wood raised on corporate tree farms is organic wood contains blue bacteria so when they grow in the right conditions the wood turns blue. Wrapping up pine bowls in newspaper and drying them out like woodturners do sometimes provides just the right conditions. 

The question then is how to con the con-able consumer into thinking the blue bowls when finished (shown below in rough state) have more value than boring-looking factory tree farm pine bowls. Calling them organic should do the trick with all respects to PT Barnum.

These bowls were dried for a month in paper bags but were too full of sap so the conditions were great for the bacteris.

Bowl blues

TWW cut down the pine tree later than he wanted to due to too much snow. That meant the tree had lots of sap so when he wrapped the bowls up to dry they were ripe for lots of blue bacteria to grow. Only the future knows what the results will be. Maybe they could be pawned off as camouflaged bowls.

Labor shortage has closed TWW Enterprises for a few weeks

Production will begin in earnest when the pine calabash bowls have dried out in September. Until then there will be erratic outbursts of creative work depending on what junk is lying around but not until the firewood is stacked, lawn mower oil changed, van washed, and on and on.....

J/GD order almost ready to deliver

Most have passed TWW's low quality standards but one bowl is held together by SuperGlue on the bottom and future cracking cannot be ruled out. Generally they turned out. 

New custom product: The Brabowlini

A Brabowlilni  is a custom-built product designed to hold a woman's special bra (or anyone else who wears bras since TWW Enterprises strives for inclusion). It is a lidded bowl made from genuine 2" x 12" planks taken from coniferous trees and finished with walnut oil. It comes with a laminated product gift insert. It will be a one of a kind product until it is not.

Socialism

As some polls say about half of the youngsters in the country like socialism it is time for TWW Enterprises to clue them in. People who think socialism is good should like TWW's products since they are nearly free like everything is supposed to be under socialism but most of the youngsters do not want anything that they cannot put in a dishwasher so have no interest in TWW Enterprises product line. This is what happens with socialism. The government decides what gets produced and if you do no like it you do without or they send you to a reeducation camp like in Cambodia or mainland China. Under capitalism entrepreneurs decide what to produce and the market decides how much the products are worth. That is why TWW's genuine carbon-sequestrations are free and even then not many people want them at that price. The markets have spoken.

Milestone reached

43 Norway pine bowls drying out and growning blue bacteria and mold. The tree was wet so these bowls will be colorful but hopefully not too much.

Insights into TWW's Philosophy of Social Intercourse

Since TWW is in the business of undercutting the competition by giving away products for free (well maybe there will be an exorbitant delivery charge for some people) people sometimes get confused.

About a dozen years ago he attempted to start writing up his philosophy of  social intercourse by writing an article for Countryside magazine using The Warped Wood Turner as a pen name.  It was TWWT (pronounced "twit")  for short which sounded bad so he changed his pen name to The Warped Woodturner. 

Here is a link to the article. It is about principles he uses on people who come up to visit.  

See: https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Principles+of+successful+country+freeloading.-a0137921061

G/JD sample bowls

Use the USPS box for scale (It is about 12" by 12") or the electric outlet.

Two natural edge pine bowls

These two bowls complete the main portion of the J/TH order.  There are some small items that may be added to the order later if TWW can overcome some techniquel problems with making smaller enclosed items.  

J/TH order almost ready for signing (two bowls remain to complete

t

12 bowls on the left passed quality control. The 5 bowls stacked on the right flunked QC
 due to technical problems. These make fine gifts  to give to people you do not want
to visit you again. The two bowls remaining are natural edge bowls so cannot be rushed. 

30 or more pine bowls harvested.

Ms. Piggie at the end of the driveway supervising.

The tree fell down to TWW's surprise before he could get the wedges out to make it fall.
Fortunately Ms. Piggie's helper warned TWW in time so he could get out of the way.

Supervising is a hard job

no bluebirds yet

One anemic bird that may have been a bluebird was sitting atop a house yesterday. A day or so before a large owl was sitting on the house. There may be a connection. Time spent guarding the bluebird houses takes time away from completing bowl production.  

Beta of the Swedish Calabash Bowl story

Warning: If you have too many years of college majoring in subjects that make one look down on the uneducated

people who live in the country you will not enjoy reading this story. It may cause acute anxiety, anger or anorexia.

The Swedish Calabash Bowl Legend

(Antique painted birch bowls. Do not expect this quality from TWW Enterprises)

As the tale goes last century there were two former Swedish bachelor farmers named Gunner Bjorkquist and Torn Castner farming near Scandia, Minnesota who got married and had wives, Anna and Elsa, who both wanted to go to Hawaii together one Winter. Being good Swedish-descended husbands the guys relented and tried to make light of the situation saying they probably couldn't catch bullheads through the ice anyway.

While in Hawaii the wives dragged the guys to a souvenir shop. The guys soon tired of seeing things like signs saying “Hawaii you?” and other touristy slogans and wandered aimlessly in the store to see if they could find something that said “I'd rather be ice fishing”. After a while they came upon a display of native (well at least the sign said that) bowls called calabash bowls. The sign also said the wooden bowls were made from an erotic Pacific tree shaped to look like the top of a calabash gourd.

Gunner said to Torn “I'll bet I could make dose funny lookin wobbly bowls out of Swedish vude on my vude lade and ve could sell dem to da tourists who visit Scandia. Dey will buy anything”. So when they got back to Minnesota Gunner started turning out calabash bowls. He wanted to use wood from trees like those found in Sweden but had to settle for Red Pine (with a little oak thrown in to catch the rich tourists). Gunner hoped the tourists would not realize Red Pine was also called Norway Pine and start trouble. The rest is history.

The Warped Woodturner continues this tradition with his Wisconsin version of Swedish calabash bowls using Norway Pine made especially for the tourists since he knows they will buy anything grown or made in Wisconsin and his Norwegian relatives in Odin, MN told him the Swedes are easy to fool. He also rebranded the Swedish calabash bowls as Swedecalabash bowls to increase market share for the Millennials since they will buy or vote for anything that sequesters carbon.

Product Warning: It is OK to put lefsa in these bowls but putting lutefisk in these bowls could spoil the finish.

The Artist

The Warped Woodturner (TWW) is a local artist traveling his artist's journey in a suburb of Springbrook, WI (pop. 536). TWW's creative calling is to use a wood lathe to make useless objects from locally-sequestered carbon for tourists to bring back to the city to give to people they had to buy something for but do not like that much. His target market is the senior citizens since their vision is not as good as it used to be so cannot see the defects as well. His marketing jingle is: “Bowls as simple as their creator”. Visit him at http://warpedwoodturner.blogspot.com/

Copyright notice: None (who in their right mind would want to copyright something like this?)