The bear

I had planed to build this for our bedside table at the lake, but before I built it we sold our share of the cottage and I decided to build it and enjoy it at home. I built it from pieces of plywood that I glued together and threw some paint on it.

Who I Am

Hi I’m Phil Doerksen, an electrician currently living in Winnipeg. But I grew up on a family farm near Blumenort. I’ve often said that you can take a boy from the farm but you cannot take the farm out of a boy. You see, a farm boy is adventurous, daring, and needs activities to keep going; the adrenalin is flowing. Thus I need to always have numerous things on the go. I have a hard time just sitting still. On the farm after the work was done some of the community boys would get together and play follow the leader with our tractors. My 8N Ford could usually out perform the other tractors. One time when we were near a gravel pit and we were wondering if the embank was too steep to go down safely we decided that it might be wise to let the tractor go down first without a rider for a test run. If that would work then the next time we would ride the tractor down. It worked and we made numerous passes after that riding.

My first car was a 1948 Pontiac. I paid $22.50 for it and drove it for 3 years, after that I sold the tires off it for $15.00. The car was a bit of community vehicle that provided a lot of fun. I drove it with a fair bit of diesel so it would smoke more and be cheaper on fuel. This car was meant to have fun with, and it was. I would drive it hard through ditches and across fields. On one occasion when we were driving at a good speed across the train track and the wheels had a hard time touching the ground, the friend in the back seat said after we landed his head had hit ceiling quite hard. One Sunday afternoon after a sort ride my friend and me thought it would be a good idea to have a convertible. Out came the tools and in a short time we were driving this old car without a roof. That sure provided some more fun for us.

I am of the opinion that life is what you make it. We need to be creative, have fun and enjoy life. We are made with a vacuum and void that is yearning for something. And when we are creative that is when we are more like our maker. When He had made things from nothing and finished the work, He observed the created and said "it is very good". It was then that He enjoyed what He had created. And that is why I believe that we all enjoy seeing beautiful things and making things with our hands.

I have made various things. In my younger years I did some welding and I would build things for the farm, I even built a bicycle for two from some parts that I found at a garbage heap (that was my way of recycling). I rarely build the same thing twice. Currently I am mainly making things out of wood, and I will post some of my projects on here from time to time.