Rocket

Rocket is our one-of-a-kind rocking horse that we carved about 4 years ago. We didn't make him totally from scratch; we took a class at the North House Folk School. The Folk School, located in Grand Marais, Minnesota, has all sorts of really interesting classes you can take. They have everything from knitting to bread baking to making your own skis and poles to building canoes. It's really pretty neat.

Anyway, in December of 2007, my husband and I decided to attend the "Build your own Heirloom Rocking Horse" class. I'm not really sure why, except for that rocking horses are adorable and I've always loved them, and maybe one day our own child(ren) would use the horse (Hahahahahaha HA. What a joke THAT turned out to be. Alas, that is a story that does not need to be told here.) The class was a three-day long class, and we assembled the horse from rough, semi-formed pieces of wood, carved each piece to make the correct shape, assembled the pieces into a horse, and carved and painted all the details on the horse. It was hard work doing all that carving and we both got really sore from working muscles that we normally don't. One thing I always remember about that weekend, too, was how pretty it was in Grand Marais in the winter. There was a lot of snow already in early December - it was gorgeous. Those of you (all three of you) who've read my personal blog may recognize that I wrote about all of this in my entry titled "My Trip Home." That's actually one of my favorite things I've ever written, because it painted the picture of the three homes I was describing so well to me, and it just reminds me of that perfect winter weekend we spent in a small town.

At first I thought I would want to paint Rocket traditionally - make him brown with a red saddle or something. But when the time came for painting, we went with green and blue on a whim. I carved one side of Rocket's face and my husband carved the other, so he has two different looks to him, depending on which side you're looking at.

My side of Rocket's head - you can see a lot of the carving close up.

Rocket is a very sturdy and wonderful rocking horse, who now resides in our living room. He's mostly there for looks, and for when the nieces come over. They have always loved Rocket, using him as not only a toy, but also a chair. Until very recently, they could both sit on Rocket together, and they are 10 and 5 years old, respectively, so you can believe that Rocket is both a sizeable and sturdy horse. Love him.

My older niece and Rocket.

Watching Hannah Montana.