Skill or Luck? I Say Both.

My buck is now at the processor, and hubby has been proud as punch, showing off the pictures to envious co-workers non-stop. I'm starting to feel a little guilty that so many people have commented on their admiration of my "skill." I know the truth - it was nothing more than a case of knowing where the deer *might* be, stumbling blindly into that area, and getting very very very lucky. I assume hunting is like fishing - it took me quite a few years to feel I had a good handle on skill, and wasn't just catching only the idiot fish by sheer luck.

Still, it's been a big boost to my confidence. I've been hunting a few more times since Sunday, but with no results. I've seen deer every time I've been out, but now I don't feel quite so desperate to get meat in the freezer and am a little more patient. Still, we'd like to get at least one more to have a good meat supply.

Aside from harvesting big deer (and substitute teaching, which after this week has me wondering if I REALLY want kids), I've been working on my fiddle. I had a GREAT fiddle-day this week, making lots of progress and having loads of fun in the process.

Last week I cut and glued in the double lines, and left them clamped. This week, the glue is dry, and looks amazingly like all came out exactly right. Here is my fiddle so far, with a Violet stuck in the middle.

Next, I had to whittle down the double lines, leaving the outside edges to give me something to glue the front and back on, when the time eventually comes. But, I have to MAKE the front and back first, starting with the back.

I used the band saw to cut out my cherry wood back, and here it is. Now, all I have to do is to whittle it to look like a fiddle back...a task much harder than it sounds, I found out. The front and back both start out as a 3/4" slab, eventually whittled down to a uniformly curved 1/4". This is ESPECIALLY difficult when you've chosen the hardest cherry wood in the state to make it from. After watching me chip away at it like trying to carve concrete, Violet suggested her tried-and-true solution for dealing with hard wood. At first I thought she was joking.

She wasn't, and I reluctantly handed over my carefully sawed-out fiddle back. After a few expert whacks with the EXTREMELY sharp hatchet, she had significantly whittled down the back curves of the fiddle. Then she handed it over to me and instructed me to start whacking. After a few non-expert whacks from me, I was soon working on glueing and clamping a big chunk back onto the fiddle back. *SIGH* I got a bit overzealous with my whacking, and the wood is pretty brittle. I was assured that it was no biggie...seems you can make all kinds of little mistakes that are fixable. And I seem to be determined to make them ALL. I am, however, learning a lot from these mistakes.

As Violet says, "as long as you're learnin', that's all that matters. You're going to be a dandy fiddlin' fiddle-maker yet."

Maybe - like deer hunting - with a little skill, and a whole lotta luck.