After a rather frustrating 'down time' due to a computer virus, I've got my photo file back and can resume spoon blog entries!

I've now glued a photocopy of the spoon design to the wood and have roughed out the overall shape of the spoon with a scroll saw. Unfortunately, you can't see much yet as all the good stuff is hidden under a layer of paper. But for me, I can see the wood left behind and I have a good idea of what awaits me when I start carving! When I flip the piece over, the proportions seem right and I am confident that the various vagaries of the wood grain will line up where I want them.

The second picture is a close-up showing an old dowel which must have linked the panel this spoon was cut from to another in bygone days. The dowel won't be seen when viewing the final product from straight-on but it will be visible on the side view. I have decided not to bother trying to remove it and repatching it with a walnut plug though. This old dowel's inclusion in the spoon won't do any harm structurally or visually, but it will lend some quirky charm and will be a good talking point! After all, how many people have a dowel which is potentially a hundred and fifty years old in their lovespoon!!

Ceri and I read and liked John Humphries, "Man From the Alamo," about John Rees and the Chartist rebellion.

The Chartists were a political and social reform movement in the UK. Chartism was a movement for political and social reform in the United Kingdom during the mid-19th century between 1838 and 1848. It takes its name from the People's Charter of 1838, which, among other things, called for equal voting rights for men and election reforms. A major Chartist uprising occured in Newport, Wales, on 4 November 1839, following a huge march and protest. John Rees, a former soldier who served at the Alamo before returning home to Wales, led an armed group and had to flee the country after the incident. Returning to the US, Rees had been given a Texas land grant for his service in the Mexican-American war which he then sold several times before traveling west to join the Gold Rush in northern California.

Humphries wrote that he believed that John Rees had died in Hornbrook, California of TB in 1893. Homewood isn't too far a drive for us, just across the border into California on interstate 5, and we've often fantasized going camping in the Siskyous nearby and seeing what else we could find out about this John Rees, whether it really was Humphries' John Rees and whether we could find his grave. I've spent a lot of time online looking for any mention of it and cemetery records from that area and tonight I found a directory for the Henley and Hornbrook Cemetery, which lists what we think is him:

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~casiskiy/Cemeteries/Hornbrook/Part1/hornbrook1.htm
"Rees, John Mar 4, 1815 Nov 13, 1893 Native of Wales"

There is no other "Rees" listed and no other listing that mentions Wales, although, there are plenty of Welsh names.

Hopefully, sometime soon, we really can go and find some more information about this John Rees and whether it really is the same.

We're a team of cyclists from the United Kingdom who will be cycling across the United States in March 2009, from the Pacific coast at Santa Monica, California, to the eastern Florida coast at St Augustine, to raise money for the Children's Children's Hospital of Wales , in March 2009.

This is the first and currently only children's hospital in Wales. All funds raised through this cross-continental challenge will be donated to the Noah's Ark Appeal , which was created to raise funds to make the Children's Hospital a reality, to provide a hospital dedicated to the care of children and the support of their families.

The members of our team are fathers, brothers, uncles and friends of the children in our lives and we're looking to raise 50,000 on our two-week ride across the southern US. We need help. We need people to pledge donations on our web site and we need people along our route to hold fundraising events to help us make this trip a success. We're also looking for a caravan or RV to use on the trip, to house the team and double as our medical station and places to sleep along the way.

Team members will track our adventure on this blog.

If you can, please make a donation, help us raise money along the way or at least follow along with us here and tell other people about us.