The Share Your Newfoundland form is now working. The submission comes through, and the attachment comes through too. It still lands in spam for now, but that is mailbox training, not a broken form. Big win.
Posted on Facebook to let a few Newfoundland friends know they can now go to puffincove2025.ca and click Share Your Newfoundland.
Created a strong Puffin image for the Share Your Newfoundland post. It has the right feeling: warm harbour light, parchment sign, Puffin guiding people in, and the words:
“Puffincove is only the spark. The memories come from you.”
Locked in that Puffin will be the first character to get a voice. Still image plus Puffin voiceover will be the first simple path for Instagram and TikTok. Seagull can come later with the noise and laughs.
Talked through how digital creators get paid. The answer for Puffincove is not chasing fame. It is building trust, stories, products, and a little Newfoundland world people can visit and take a piece of home from.
Thought about the future and my back. The path makes sense: less heavy building, more bench work, CNC, jigs, digital work, products, stories, and smarter systems.
New product lane locked in:
Saltbox Remnant Corner Set.
Built from old reclaimed clapboard, framed in clean cedar, clear coated, and made as a hinged corner windbreak/privacy screen. Modern build, old face. Old soul, new bones.
Possible size: 30 inch clapboard center 3 inch cedar frame each side 36 inch overall width 6 feet high Two panels hinged together as a corner
Build idea: 1×2 inner frame 3 uprights cross pieces glue plus fasteners keep it perfectly flat cedar trim for a clean modern contrast clear coat to preserve the old marks, nail holes, worn paint, weather, and memory
If there is enough good clapboard, make matching planters to go with the screens. The full set could be a one-of-a-kind heritage corner for a deck, porch, garden, or patio.
Small puffincove wood tag at the top as a maker’s mark.
Important thought: Not everyone will like this style, and that is fine. It is for a select few. The right people will not see old boards. They will see home.
Not making cookie cutters. No two pieces leave the cove the same.
Tomorrow: Check how much good clapboard is there. Sort it into: best long boards for windbreak faces good short boards for planter faces weathered feature pieces rough usable test/back pieces scrap that is too far gone
May 7 — Morning Weather Note Beautiful morning, but rain is coming this evening or tonight. The kind of system that feels like it’s crawling up the whole eastern seaboard — Newfoundland to Mexico, laughing. Good morning to get something done before the sky changes its mind.
CNC Plan One more X-axis motor to install, then the belt, then adjust the Z axis. That’s the CNC work for the day. A little online after that, and the day will be gone. Not wasted — used.
CNC and Birdhouse Note If there’s time, I may cut some laths for the birdhouses, but there’s no rush on that. The CNC comes first, and the birdhouse faces need to be digital before the rest of the batch makes sense. Get the machine listening first, then let it repeat the work.
Shop Direction Small wins lead to a smoother road for puffincove going forward. Today feels good because there’s a corner in the shed waiting for winter — a place where the work can stay set up and keep growing. The CNC can be improved over time: Y-axis rails, better Z-axis setup, maybe a bearing screw when time and money allow.
Shed Peace Things are going smooth today. No stress wondering if this shop idea has a home, because now I know it does. The shed gives the work a place to land, and that makes the whole Puffincove road feel clearer.
My buddy said it best:
“I had a bag of shit. She had a bag of shit. Together they stunk up the house.”
Rough way to say it, but there’s truth in it.
Everybody brings something into a home — old habits, stress, hurt, pride, fear, routines, and the way they were raised.
The trick isn’t pretending the bags aren’t there.
It’s learning how to live together without letting them take over the house.
Sometimes love needs space, patience, and a good place to put the mess.
I learned something the hard way.
Be the spark, not the fire.
A spark can bring light, warmth, and direction.
But if you become the fire, everybody gets burned.
Sometimes the best thing you can say is:
“I love you all, and I’m here for all of you.”
Don’t let someone else’s storm convince you your boat isn’t moving.
You can care about people.
You can stand by them.
You can keep the light on.
But their weather is not always your direction.
Spark, not the fire.
Rain moving in. Tomorrow is Puffincove online work: fix posts, clean up Share Your Newfoundland, and get the submission form ready for photos, drone views, stories, and old Newfoundland memories.
May 6 — Morning The day started with daylight at 5:30. Summer is showing itself now. Corner planters can wait until the 16th, but the work doesn’t stop. Pine birdhouses, photos, templates, CNC, and the website all still move the tide. This year isn’t about forcing money. It’s about getting the flow started.
May 6 — 6:43 AM I don’t find work. I create work. Pine for birdhouses. Photos for the site. Contributors starting to line up. Above The Rock from the air, photographers from the shore, puffincove in the middle keeping the light on. This year isn’t about forcing money. It’s about getting the tide moving.
The old shed is full of Dad’s years and some of mine too. Tools, Skidoo parts, motors, old snowshoes with the lacing chewed by a squirrel. It’s not all junk. Some of it is memory. Some of it is useful. Some of it is just time gone by. We won’t save everything, but we’ll save the story.
Some people look at an old shed and see junk. I look at it and see where I came from.
Old tools. Skidoo parts. Motors from the 70s. Snowshoes with the lacing chewed off by a squirrel.
It’s a gong show, yes. But it’s also memory.
Not everything can be saved. But the story can.
Not Pretty, But Real Things are shaping up for puffincove. Not in a showroom way. In a real way. A CNC needing a home, a family place full of old tools and memories, and enough room to start cutting. It may not be pretty yet, but it’s honest. And honest is where good things start.
The Place That Raised Me Before the garden became crowded with tools, tarps, parts, and years, it was the place that raised me.
The little mountain seemed bigger then. The river was only five minutes away, clear enough to see the bottom, with rainbow trout up to twelve pounds and salmon running through our swimming holes.
We swam there. We fished there. A few came home with us too. lol
Looking at it now, I don’t just see a mess to clean. I see the ground that made me who I am.
Talked to Dad about the garage. He said he’s going to sell things and next week he’ll start. That’s a big step. Mid-May brings warmer weather, and maybe that’s the time to begin — not by throwing everything away, but by finding the good stuff, sorting it proper, and making room for what comes next.
Fairytale Huts Someday Looking at the old boards and weathered clapboard, I can see where this could go. Maybe next year: little fairytale huts for grown-ups. Not fake, not plastic, not store-bought rustic. Real weathered wood, lantern glow, and the feeling of a place you’d want to disappear into for a while.
Material Language Vinegar and steel wool, old clapboard green, touches of red, weathered boards from wherever I can find them. Puffincove will have its own look — not painted new, but worn into character. Someday people might call before throwing old wood away, and that’s when the stories start coming to me.
Claiming Old Boards Went around the garden claiming old weathered boards. Not perfect boards — better than that. Knots, cracks, nail marks, grey grain, and damage with a story. Anybody can do straight. Puffincove starts where the wood has already lived.
First Jog Goal Going for the heart of the CNC today. If I can get it jogging, I’ll be happy. The first real cut can wait for a rainy day. Today is just about seeing the machine wake up and move because I told it to.
Break Time
Almost noon. Wind blowing, coffee on the CNC base, wires run, old boards claimed, and the machine getting close to waking up. Some days don’t look like progress from the outside, but deep down you can feel the tide starting to move.
I Needed This Maybe Puffincove isn’t just something I’m building. Maybe it’s something that helped rebuild me too. I needed something to wake up for again — stories, wood, ideas, memories, and a reason to keep moving forward. Turns out the light I was trying to keep on might have been my own too.
Calling It a Day Up since 3:30. Time to eat, tidy up a little, file some photos and stories from the phone, and call it a day. The CNC is getting close, the old wood found purpose, and Puffincove feels more real tonight than it did this morning. That’s enough for one tide.
May 6 — Evening Thought This is going to be a good year. There’s enough work to keep me busy, enough ideas to carry me forward, and enough old memories in the tools to remind me who I was before life slowed me down. Now the work is coming back, one piece at a time. — Evening Thought
May 6 — 7:15 PM All picked up for tonight. Once the small workshop is set up in the garage, I won’t have to break out and pick up tools every time. Just a little tidy, leave the work where it belongs, and come back to it the next day.
This is what goes through my mind daily: ideas, work, jigs, products, stories, and the path of least resistance. Not the lazy way — the smart way. The way experience finds after years of building, fixing, adjusting, and keeping the job moving.
I’m so happy my sister said I can use the shed. That one thing moved the plan 100 steps forward. It gives the work a place to live — tools, jigs, wood, half-finished pieces, winter projects, and the small Puffincove systems that will grow over time.
May 5 — End of day Called it at 11:30. Got the shop work moving, tested the birdhouse templates, caught a jig problem, made the daily log, and started the folder system for future Puffincove plans. The work has a place to land now. Steady as she goes.
Started the day working on the birdhouse templates.
Got the copying jig set up, but it was hard on my back getting everything in place. Good thing I had a backup jig, because the bearing fell off one of them. Better to find that out now than after ruining a template.
Got four different types of birdhouses started today. The goal is not perfection yet — just repeatable shapes that can be copied again and again.
Captured some 30-second video clips too, which will be good for the daily shop log later.
By 1pm I was on break, and by the end of the day I was tired and my back was sore, so I picked up instead of pushing too far.
A good day at the bench.
Small wins today:
Four birdhouse types started
Copying jig tested
Backup jig saved the day
Video clips captured
Setup figured out for next time
Note to self: Do a quick bearing/wiggle check before using the jig next time.
Closing thought: Repeatable is the goal. The light stayed on.
We worked through the 90-degree planter fence idea. The two planters form the corner and help brace the whole piece. The render showed the layout clearly: planter, fence, corner planter, 90-degree turn, side planter, and puffincove sign.
The sign idea was locked in:
puffincove Always — All roads lead to puffincove2025.ca
We also looked at the start of the wishing hut idea. It has a little storybook shape, with a long roof, round window, and a place for wishes. Rough sketch first, pretty later.
For the birdhouse templates, we decided the CNC only needs the face outline. The holes, fake windows, and doors can be done later by hand. The goal is not perfect. The goal is repeatable.
The first CNC test will be with a marker, not a router. If it can draw the same shape every time, that is the first real win.
We also talked through wiring:
Motor wires: 18/4 stranded is best. Limit switches: 22/2 or 20/2 stranded. Limit switches: can run as one normally-closed safety loop to start. Emergency stop: should be its own loop.
The clean wiring flow is:
Wall power → power supply → drivers → motors
And the safety/control flow is:
Limit switches → breakout board → Mach3 sees STOP
The big rule:
Power wires do the muscle work. Signal wires do the talking. Keep them tidy and separated when possible.
The biggest hands-on win today was finishing enough of the Y/Z axis carriage to see the plan coming alive. Motor mounted, belt path started, frame built, and the machine is one step closer to moving.
Tomorrow’s plan is simple:
mount motors → run wires → label both ends → hand-test movement → marker test when ready
No need to chase the whole mountain.
Today the plan came out of the notebook and started turning into a real machine.
Sketches on paper. Parts on the bench. Motors mounted. First marker line coming soon.
The old house down the cove was quiet that evening.
Not empty-quiet. Not lonely-quiet exactly.
Just the kind of quiet that comes after supper, when the dishes are done, the kettle is still warm, and the day has folded itself up gentle. The windows held the last of the light, pale and fading, and outside the sea moved like it always did—steady, dark, and too old to care much for the small worries of those on shore.
Puffin had brought her a meal earlier, same as he always did. A bit of stew, a slice of bread, and tea poured careful so it wouldn’t spill on the path down from the light. Now the bowl sat rinsed by the sink, and the lamp in the corner gave off its soft gold glow.
Miss Light Keeper sat with her notebook in her lap.
She had not meant to become a writer.
It had started with a line here and there, little things she didn’t want to lose. A phrase somebody once said. The sound of sleet against the south window. The memory of a face long gone from the cove. But a few lines became a page, and a page became many, and soon there were stories stacked in little piles by the chair, tied with ribbon or tucked inside biscuit tins and drawers.
Some evenings she wrote so she would remember.
Other evenings she wrote so she would not feel the house getting too quiet around her.
That night, she had just uncapped her pen when she heard them coming.
First the familiar sound of boots on the path.
Thump… thunk… thump…
She smiled before the knock even came.
Seagull.
No one else in all of Puffin Cove could sound like they were both arriving and nearly falling at the same time.
Puffin’s knock came after, polite and light.
“Come in,” Miss Light Keeper called.
The door opened with a little push against the wind, and in came Puffin first, calm as ever, carrying a small tin of biscuits under one wing. Behind him came Seagull, one boot rolled halfway down as usual, feathers ruffled by the evening air. Owl followed slower, tapping in with his stick and saying nothing at all. Squirrel came next with her arms full of things no one had asked her to bring but which somehow always turned out useful. Fox slipped in after with his quiet little grin, and Raven was last, black against the dusk, settling by the window where he could see out and still hear every word.
“You’re a full house tonight,” Miss Light Keeper said.
“Thought we’d come hear a story,” said Puffin.
Seagull nodded like this had been his idea all along.
“We brought biscuits too,” he said, pointing at Puffin’s tin.
Puffin glanced at him. “I brought biscuits.”
“That’s what I said,” Seagull replied.
Miss Light Keeper laughed softly and motioned them in. “Sit down then, all of you. If you’re here for stories, don’t stand there letting the heat out.”
They settled into their usual places.
Puffin on the small stool near the stove.
Owl in the chair by the wall, hands folded on the top of his stick.
Squirrel cross-legged on the braided rug.
Fox leaning by the doorway where he could listen without looking like he was listening.
Raven by the window, head slightly turned.
Seagull took the edge of a wooden crate and nearly missed it, catching himself at the last second with a flap and a muttered, “Meant to do that.”
Miss Light Keeper looked at them a moment before opening the notebook.
“What’ll it be tonight?” asked Puffin.
She looked toward the window, where the last of the daylight was thinning over the water.
“Tonight,” she said, “I’ll tell you about the Titanic.”
At that, even Seagull went still.
Not because he knew much about it.
But because he knew the tone.
There were funny stories, and there were store stories, and there were old cove stories that carried weather in them.
This was one of the weather stories.
Miss Light Keeper rested her hand on the open page.
“I was not there,” she said. “Not for the sinking itself, and not for the first hearing of the news. I’m not old enough for that, despite what Seagull here may think.”
Seagull raised a wing. “I never said—”
“You thought it loud enough,” said Fox.
A small smile passed around the room, then faded as Miss Light Keeper continued.
“But I grew up hearing it told by people who heard it from people closer to it. And around Newfoundland, some things are not told like history lessons. They’re told like warnings. Like prayers. Like the kind of truth that stays in a place long after the ones who first spoke it are gone.”
The house grew quieter still.
Outside, the sea rubbed itself against the shore.
“The Titanic went down out beyond us,” she said, “in the cold dark of the North Atlantic. Closer to Newfoundland than many people think. Cape Race heard the calls. The old wireless there caught the distress from out on that black water, and from then on, the story was not just a faraway thing in newspapers or cities. It belonged to this ocean too.”
Puffin lowered his head a little.
Owl closed his eyes, listening.
Miss Light Keeper turned one page, though she did not need to. The words were already in her.
“The way I heard it told,” she said, “was not with grand talk. Not with rich names or fine clothes or orchestras playing. Out here, people spoke of it quieter than that. They spoke of cold. Of distance. Of waiting. Of mothers and fathers and sons who never came ashore again. And of the terrible size of the sea when it decides to keep what it takes.”
No one moved.
Seagull’s boot, for once, made no sound.
“Folks in Newfoundland understood something then that maybe the rest of the world only learned later,” she said. “A ship can be called mighty. A ship can be called unsinkable. Men can brag. Builders can boast. But the sea has no ears for pride.”
Fox looked down.
Raven’s eyes stayed on the darkening glass.
“I remember an old woman telling it to me when I was young. She stood by her own window on a foggy evening, same as this one, and said, ‘Child, people think a light is just a lamp till they’re the ones lost in the dark.’ I never forgot that.”
Puffin looked toward the lamp in the corner.
Miss Light Keeper saw him look and smiled. “That’s why the light matters, you know. Not because it stops the storm. Not because it calms the sea. But because it says, to somebody out there, that shore exists. That home exists. That there is still something waiting that is warm and solid and kind.”
Owl opened his eyes.
“Tide’s turnin’,” he said softly.
She nodded. “Yes. And it always does.”
For a long while, nobody spoke.
The old house held them close, the way old houses do when the wind is up and the story has gone deep enough to reach things in you that do not always have words.
Then, in a voice much smaller than usual, Seagull asked, “Did people round here know folks on it?”
Miss Light Keeper looked at him gently. “Maybe some did, by name or by kinship or by a line of connection three harbours over. But even when they didn’t, they knew the sea. And that was enough. Once you know the sea proper, you don’t need a full list of names to feel sorrow.”
Seagull nodded once.
That answer seemed to settle somewhere in him.
Squirrel reached into her pocket and pulled out a little square of cloth, folding and unfolding it between her fingers.
Fox cleared his throat. “Funny how some stories don’t belong to just one place.”
“No,” said Miss Light Keeper. “They don’t. The Titanic was one of those. Big enough for the world to talk about. But close enough to Newfoundland for us to feel it in our bones.”
Raven finally spoke from the window.
“The sea remembers.”
Miss Light Keeper turned her head to him. “Yes,” she said. “It does.”
The last light outside had gone now, leaving only the lamp, the hush, and the shape of one another in the room.
Miss Light Keeper closed the notebook, though she had scarcely looked at it.
“When I was young,” she said, “I thought stories were for excitement. Then later I thought they were for memory. Now that I’m old, I think they may be for something else too.”
“What’s that?” Puffin asked.
She looked at each of them in turn.
“To keep the light on after the ones who first carried it are gone.”
That sat with them.
Puffin, with his quiet care.
Owl, with all the years in his eyes.
Squirrel, holding onto little things because she knows little things matter.
Fox, pretending not to care more than he does.
Raven, who sees far.
And Seagull, all noise and boots and foolishness, with a heart softer than most would ever guess.
Miss Light Keeper leaned back in her chair.
“Call your mothers,” she said softly. “Visit your grandmothers. Ask the old ones the questions while they’re still here to answer them. Stories disappear faster than people think. One day you mean to ask, and the next day the house is quiet.”
Seagull swallowed and stared at the floorboards.
Puffin gave a small nod.
No one joked.
No one needed to.
After a bit, Miss Light Keeper brightened her voice and said, “Now then. Who’s pouring tea?”
Seagull sprang up too fast, caught the toe of one boot on the leg of the crate, windmilled both wings, and somehow saved himself without falling.
Fox smirked.
Squirrel snorted.
Even Owl’s mouth twitched.
“There he is,” said Miss Light Keeper.
The room breathed again.
Puffin rose and took the kettle instead, pouring out cups while the others reached for biscuits. Outside, the sea went on in darkness, as it had before ships and after them, old and cold and full of more stories than anyone could ever tell.
But inside the little house down the cove, the lamp stayed warm.
The tea steamed.
The crew sat close.
And for one more evening, memory had company.
Miss Light Keeper looked around at them all and felt the old comfort settle in.
It’s a good thing, being remembered, she thought.
And a better thing still, remembering others.
She reached for her pen again once the cups were full and the biscuits passed.
