Sunday, May 02, 2010

Sting

"Sting saved my life," he tells people earnestly. And although this boy likes to spin a good tall tale, this one is closer to true than not. His precious wooden sword Sting was by his side when Zach and I were sharing this moment last summer at my dad's cottage on Lake Michigan.
A lazy afternoon in the hammock, happy filthy toes, not a worry in the world. Except that tree you see behind his head. Ya see, that tree is dead. And dead trees don't make good hammock stands. A few enthusiatic swings and all of the sudden that tree came down. Inward. Towards us. It landed inches from Zach's head, right on Sting. So Sting got some very authentic looking battle scars, which didn't much bother the boy. That is, until over time the cool looking crack turned into a very real break. Cue the tears.
I had one of those dads who believed everything could be fixed with duct tape. Now we're the parents, and my husband's cure all for broken toys and broken anything is fiberglass and epoxy.
The alchemy of nautical toxins brewing, Zach looks on as if watching a loved one in surgery while daddy works his magic. Sting is now in "recovery", drying and getting sanded. But it seems as though he'll be just fine, and back at home slipped into my boy's belt loop in no time. Stronger than ever, looking even more battle worn. Which of course, makes him cooler.

(Sting came from the amazing Friendly Fairies shop on etsy - go check them out!)

6 comments:

Joy said...

What a cute story. Glad that Sting took the brunt of the tree falling. Sting is absolutely beautiful. Thanks for the link. Philip might like one of those. ;) What happened to etsydotmom? A holiday thing?

angelina said...

thanks for the link: i love sting!

Anonymous said...

good point.....our hammock is hugging a few questionable pines. Glad to hear Sting will live on...it would have been met with tears here are well.

gardenmama said...

what a gorgeous sword and a very sweet story : )

Unknown said...

wow, sting looks great! what a lucky little hobbit

jeff said...

First of all, I love your blog. We're currently building a sailing catamaran that we'll be living on in the next couple years and are homeschooling our 8 y.o. boy in a nature based/waldorfy (yes I made up that word) way, so I guess we have some things in common.

Ethan loves his wooden swords and is constantly breaking them. The first time there were many many tears, but when I showed him the magic of epoxy, he never fears. He just drops them off in the boat shop for the next time I have a bit of left over mixed epoxy...and they've never broken in the same place again. Go epoxy :)

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