Check out the picture on this coffee mug from Target. I was there today shopping with my daughter when I noticed the one that says, "Big Round Barn." I could be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure that is a classic Shaker barn design. I find it fascinating that Shaker architecture has made it to the Target style market. Does this say more about the artists branding for Target, or more about Shaker designers?

This afternoon I picked up my boy from his day of apprenticing with the carpenter. Truth be told, he has felt a tiny touch dispirited with the endless splitting of logs. That's hard work for a grown man and harder still for a 13 year old with skinny arms. But today he nearly crawled into the car, sweaty, exhausted, and happy. They only split logs for an hour and half. Otherwise, they made a butter knife, presumably to work on specific skills for my boy. And he helped make "one of those tools used for grabbing and prying logs." Neither of us can remember the name for the tool. The carpenter needs one, obviously, as he only uses windfall trees in his work. A blacksmith helped make the head of the tool, and my son helped make the handle today. And what it makes me deliciously happy to realize, is that I've only ever heard of such a tool from reading "Farmer Boy" by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Yeah, a tool that would be right at home and surely common in a true Shaker round barn.