About Us



The Dream

We moved to New Brunswick six years ago to a piece of property we purchased with the intention of building a woodworking business and a proper home. We we're willing to sacrifice and work hard. Our plans got seriously derailled, though. The building we life in right now was supposed to be the workshop. It is at best a rough hunt camp. We have an indoor hand pump for water, a composting toilet system, we are on the electrical grid - barely and are able to get wireless Internet through a company called Xplornet. The walls are unfinished and the floor is rough and not very pretty. Our road is rough and unserviced. We have to hike the last half kilometer during the winter. My shop is an eight by eight leaky shanty hanging off the back of the building. Some of my machines have died and some we're stolen. I do have the capability of making things though. We are not looking for sympathy. We just want everyone to know we haven't given up yet.

Back in Ontario I started producing candle holders and bowls on my cheap wood lathe and turning tools I purchased at Canadian Tire. I started selling them to friends at work and then through a beauty salon that sold them on consignment. It wasn't much but I was turning a profit. From there I showed my work to the self-employment assistance program people in Ontario. They were quite impressed with my work. Insurance concerns and an appropriate work space problem ended up shutting us down instead of moving us forward. That is one of the driving reasons for moving to where we are now.

I am still able to produce the bowl and candle holders. To increase their value we are going to combine that with our other artistic talent. Both my wife and I are able to paint and draw quite well. To see examples of what we can do visit Francine's Brushes & Pencils and Pico's Paintings Drawings and More. We will be selling some of our surviving stock as well as proto-types on Ebay in an effort to raise capital for materials at least. I am missing a few needed items although there are quite a few products I can make immediately. We will be posting things as they come available. Long term we will be expanding our products to include our own design of funeral urns for people and pets.

I have no doubt that if I can get started and established, I can make a living doing this work. We are a long way from that goal.

These are the things we are hoping to work toward.

1) A proper building to house our workshop. It doesn't have to be huge but needs to be a significant upgrade from the shanty I'm working in.
2) Replace our missing or broken machinery.
3) Upgrade to a quality lathe and turning tools. That would allow us to do so much more than what we can do right now.
4) Improve our housing situation.

A lot of my designs and techniques will be published for the general public. I will try to create how-to videos and articles to help other wood turners. If you benefit from the material published here and have the means donations are greatly appreciated. That is why we have a donate button on the site. This does NOT give permission to anyone to make commerical use of my designs. If you think you can make money with my designs, I would be happy to discuss licensing terms.

We will be offering a five percent discount off all our products to anyone who follows My Family Country Products by email. We also intend to offer incentives to people who buy regularly or refer others to our products. Details of these incentives will forthcoming.

Thank you for visiting our site. We hope that if nothing else our products will inspire you.

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