Category: Q&A

Builder of Cool Stuff and Owner at Kilted Moose Outdoor Furniture (kiltedmoose.com)

Explain your job and what it entails.

I started by building, essentially, outdoor furniture, Adirondack chairs and coolers…. It kind of progressed from there to looking at something and then trying to figure out, ‘How do I make this and what’s the best way to make it?’ So I’ve done everything from the chairs, different style chairs to coffee tables, cutting boards, charcuterie boards from different materials just to see if I can work through how to do it and how to build something kind of different and maybe unique.

How long have you had this job?

I started doing this in 2017. It’s not my full-time position but it’s definitely something that helps fill the time and keep me active. You can’t really focus on anything other than what you’re doing when you start using table saws.

What led you to this career field and your current job?

I learned basic construction … from my dad. … I started getting interested in seeing the stuff people were making and wondering if I could make that and then I figured out that I could and then just trying to keep finding a way to challenge myself.

What kind of education or training did you need?

I haven’t had any formal education in making anything but I find that there’s a lot of really talented people out there, whether on YouTube or Instagram, who are really good at showing what they do. They kind of stress a woodworking community over competition, and helping each other get great ideas….

What is your typical at-work uniform or attire?

Depending on the weather, usually shorts and a T-shirt. Some type of … protection and I use a mask because a lot of the sawdust, particularly with exotic woods, is a bit toxic.

What is the most challenging thing about your work, and how do you deal with it?

My biggest challenge is I’m my own worst critic.

What do you wish you had known at the beginning of your career?

I wish I knew how to maximize what I am getting out of a piece of wood and to minimize waste. Particularly now when wood is so expensive. …. You want to be able to maximize every inch of that board considering the price of it these days.

What do you wish other people knew about your job?

I wish they understood what it costs to make something handmade.

What was your first job?

I worked at Burger King. I loaded hamburgers onto a conveyor belt,

What is the best piece of work-related advice you’ve ever received?

Don’t take things too seriously, you have to enjoy the moment. You have to enjoy the process of putting together and creating something and not let the stress of trying to make it perfect overwhelm you. – Zachary Lewis

Five favorites
Favorite book: The Stand by Stephen King
Favorite movie: Death to Smoochy
Favorite music: I like hard rock, metal
Favorite food: Pizza
Favorite thing about NH: I like that you can be in any environment within like 45 minutes depending on which direction you travel … the variety in New Hampshire is endless.

Featured photo: Chairs made by Joe Tuplin.

A talk with Henry Homeyer, the Gardening Guy

Henry Homeyer’s regular advice about all things gardening has appeared in newspapers, including the Hippo, around New England (currently, his pieces run about once a month, including this week on page 10). He is the author of several books, including The New Hampshire Gardener’s Companion.

What got you into gardening?

I started gardening as a young boy. I’m talking ages 2 or 3. My grandfather in Spencer, Massachusetts, he was an organic gardener starting back in the ’40s … I was born in ’46 — and he just made it fun. He was a fun guy. He taught me a lot but he didn’t tell me to do things. He didn’t give me chores I didn’t want to do, I didn’t have to pull weeds. I got to do things like stir a big wooden rain barrel full of chicken manure and water to … make a manure tea that we would then dip into and put on his tomato plants, and it was all fun. Gardening has been part of my life for 75 years.

What non-native plants do well in New Hampshire or are there any non-native New Hampshire plants you’d recommend?

Well, I recommend native plants whenever possible. If we can plant 90 percent native and 10 percent non-native, or 80-20, that’s a better mix. A lot of the non-natives are not useful to our pollinators and birds who didn’t evolve with them, so our natives are so much better. With that being said, there are certain trees and shrubs, particularly, that are so beautiful I have to have them. I have a Merel magnolia which is going to bloom … big white flowers, blooms in early April — fabulous plant. Not a native. Japanese red maple is another one that you see from time to time that has a deep, rich red leaf all summer long and brilliant in the fall.…. Go to the local nursery, don’t go to a big box store, go to your local nursery … They’re well-educated, generally, and can help you find just the right thing for you and for your part of the state.

Do you have a favorite plant that’s often overlooked?

I have over 100 different species of trees and shrubs. I have more than that in terms of perennial flowers. One that I really like is the candlestick primrose…. It’s a non-native but it grows in moist soil in partial shade or even full shade. It blooms in late May, early June, with a series of blossoms going up a stem. It comes in a variety of colors from magenta and pink to almost white. It’s not well-known but it does very well under old apple trees and that’s where I have a patch and they spread by root, which I like, they’re early, which I like, and they bloom for over a month, which is unusual for a perennial flower.

Besides garden beds, are there other structures you like to build or have in a garden?

Absolutely. I think that because we have such a long winter, and fall and spring don’t have much going on, we need to have things that are three-dimensional besides our flowers. At the entrance of my vegetable garden I built a cedar entrance arbor with cedar poles and a slanted, criss-cross roof, kind of hard to describe…. It is a good structure for growing vines on. I have wisteria growing up that. I have also another vine structure that’s a 10-foot hexagon with a tall roof, again made out of cedar. … In addition to that I have benches, a marble bench, I have sculpture, iron sculpture, ceramic objects, bird baths…. If you have a big garden, if you have some Adirondack chairs at the far end of it, it draws people toward them as a place to sit down. It’s good to have something comfortable and probably in the shade.

What can gardeners do in New Hampshire in the next two weeks for their gardens?

It really depends on what our weather is, but you don’t want to compress your soil by walking in wet soil. You don’t want to rototill your vegetable garden right now. You don’t want to walk in your flower beds to clean them up right now because it’s going to compact the soil. Plants get their oxygen from air spaces in the soil, they don’t get it through their leaves, they get it through their roots. So if the soil is wet and we step on it, it’s compressing it. This is a good time to take inventory on what is growing, what made it through the winter, what’s coming up, and what didn’t. … This is a good time for looking and planning, maybe do a little raking, you can rake the lawn now if it’s dried out, those sorts of things. — Zachary Lewis

Featured image: Henry Homer

CO-Owner of The Rugged Axe

Charles Keith co-owns The Rugged Axe (377 S. Willow St. in Manchester) with his wife, Melinda Asprey.

Explain your job and what it entails.

I am the owner and operator of The Rugged Axe. We have private parties, scheduled parties, we do events here, so day-to-day operations. I also do the back-of-house inventory, accounting, scheduling, all that stuff.

How long have you had this job?

We opened almost three years ago. In June it will be three years. My wife and I built it ourselves. I have a daughter that works here full-time, another son that works here part-time, and I have my mother coming in, doing some of the artwork.

What led you to this career field and your current job?

I sold computers and software for 18 years for a local IT company, sitting in a cubicle, on the phone all day long. My son was in the Coast Guard at the time. We went down to Florida to visit him. He wanted to go ax throwing, I had never done it, he’d never done it. So we spent a couple hours throwing axes and as I’m doing that I’m quickly realizing, doing the math in my head, this is a pretty decent business to be in. On the flight home I wrote a business plan, told my wife all about it … I had to present that a hundred times to her. On the 101st time she said, “either do it or don’t,”… so we found a spot, we built it out and within about five months we were open and going.

What is your typical at-work uniform or attire?

Logo T-shirt and jeans. So pretty casual, comfortable.

What is the most challenging thing about your work, and how do you deal with it?

Probably coming up with innovative ideas to attract the customers in the door.

What do you wish you had known at the beginning of your career?

How many hours I was going to work. You always think, well, you know, I can get this done, we’re only open 40 hours a week, a few hours in the back of the house, rest of the time I’m on the floor working with customers. It slowly turns into all the time. You work all the time. I didn’t quite realize that at first. After three years you really get a handle on it, you can manage your time a little better.

What do you wish other people knew about your job?

Most of the time people just think you’re talking to customers, throwing axes and having a good time. I’m an accountant, I’m an advertiser, I’m a builder, I’m an artist. … I don’t think people realize going into business for yourself you’ve got to be a jack of all trades.

What was your first job?

I stocked beer and wine and bread and milk for my dad at a supermarket. Him and my grandfather owned a supermarket, a small one.

What is the best piece of work-related advice you’ve ever received?

Don’t give up and you are only as strong as your weakest link. — Zachary Lewis

Five favorites
Favorite book: Cujo from Stephen King
Favorite movie: Rocky
Favorite music: Led Zeppelin, all day long
Favorite food: Hamburgers
Favorite thing about NH: You get a little of everything in New Hampshire. I like that. You get the mountains, the ocean, the fall, good summers, the beaches. I think the diversity of things to do in New Hampshire, I like that, yeah….

Featured photo: Charles Keith and Melinda Asprey. Courtesy photo.

A NH Audubon biologist discusses the importance of our feathered residents

Rebecca Suomala is a Senior Biologist with the New Hampshire Audubon Society.

Why are birds important to New Hampshire?

Birds are such an important part of our state for many reasons. For personal enjoyment, for economic reasons. There are birds that eat insect pests, there are birds that excavate cavities that other birds and other creatures use in the woods, and they’re just a phenomenal presence. They’re the one form of wildlife in the state that anybody can see — I’m excluding insects in this statement. If you think about when you walk out your door, if you’d like to see wildlife, birds are everywhere. We’re fortunate in New Hampshire that we still have woods, we still have fields, we still have coastal areas, we still have habitat for a wide variety of birds and it’s just wonderful.

What are some birds you are likely to see migrating back to New Hampshire?

We’ve got migrants coming back that have spent the winter to our south. Some of the ones that people are starting to see are red-winged blackbirds, chipping sparrows, killdeer and broad-winged hawk. Those are a few that people might see right in their backyard or nearby. Killdeer won’t be in people’s backyards, but they come back to schoolyards and big open field areas.

What are things that people can put out for birds in spring to bring birds to their homes that will not attract bears?

Birdbaths are something that can be an attractant to birds. You can, also, scatter seed on the ground. Not concentrated like it would be at a feeder but scattered around in your yard on the ground, and some of the smaller birds will feed on the ground, like cardinals like to feed on the ground. Northern cardinals, those are the red birds with the red crests. People really love them and they will feed on the ground, so scattering some seed under some bushes might be a good way to still have some seed out for birds. When we get into May, hummingbirds start coming back, and so you can put out a hummingbird feeder, which has sugar water in it, or you can put out fruit like orange halves or grape jelly for Baltimore orioles — they are a very colorful orange and black bird.

Are there any plants people can use to attract birds?

There are, and at this time of year if you have berry bushes or trees that hold their fruit all winter then there will be birds which come feed on them this time of year. The ones that people see the most right now … maybe crabapples that have stayed on the tree long would [attract] either the robin or cedar waxwings.

How should Granite Staters deal with woodpecker noise and bird nests?

In the springtime, the woodpeckers are usually making noise because a woodpecker drumming, you know that tet tet tet tet tet tet tet tet tet, that’s the woodpecker’s song, that’s how the male proclaims his territory, so he wants to make noise. He’s not trying to get into whatever he’s pecking on, he’s trying to make nice big loud noise, which of course, wakes you up in the morning. The best thing to do in that case is put something over wherever he’s pecking so it doesn’t make any noise, some foam or something over it that won’t make noise when he taps on it. Birds that make nests, like in a mailbox or on a wreath hanging on your door, the one thing to remember about that is that [for] small birds, it’s roughly two weeks to incubation and two to three weeks until the young fledge, so if you can stand it for like four to five weeks, then they will be gone.

Talk about your work with the common nighthawk.

They’re a fantastic bird! They eat insects, which they catch on the wing. They fly around and catch their insects. They’re only here from about mid-May until the end of August and they are active at dawn and dusk, they’re a crepuscular species…. They’re vulnerable to predation because they nest on the ground. They’re also vulnerable to the use of pesticides. Pesticides … can be fatal to some birds and then pesticides that cause decrease in insects cause a decrease in the food supply for nighthawks, so they’re a very vulnerable species, and they migrate all the way down to South America…. We’re still learning where they winter. In New Hampshire they are only remaining in a few places. The Ossipee Pine Barrens is one of the remaining strongholds. There are also pairs that nest in the Concord area but they used to nest on stone rooftops but many of those rooftops have been converted to … PVC. With the declining nighthawk population the only town that still has nighthawks resting in it is Concord. They have a fantastic display, the males do. They display over a potential nest area and they circle around above it and make a noise like … peent peent peent and then they do a spectacular dive where they just dive straight down and all of a sudden they pull their wings forward and swoop out of the dive and make this little whoosh noise, then they do it all over again. – Zachary Lewis

Earth Day Celebration
The New Hampshire Audubon holds its annual Earth Day celebration on Saturday, April 20, with a variety of family-friendly activities. This year’s theme is “Planet vs. Plastics” according to the website. The day will feature animal ambassadors, games, crafts, seed giveaways, nest box building while supplies last, a food truck and more.
Where: NH Audubon Massabesic Center, 26 Audubon Way in Auburn
When: Saturday, April 20, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Admission: $15 for a family of four
More info: nhaudubon.org or 224-9909, ext. 400

Featured image: Becky Suomala birding at the southern tip of South America. Photo by Zeke Cornell.