I'm not a woodworker, I'm a joola, but I live nextdoor to a woodworker of note, and my Dad was an amazing one.

He passed away some years ago, and my Mom last year, so in 2009 the family home had to be emptied of all it's contents. One of my brothers wanted to rent a big lorry and just cart all the crap away to the dump. Over my dead body I said. so it befell me to do the job, and what a priviledge that was.

Dad's workshop was the most amazing place. During the last few years of his active woodworking years he stopped bothering to clear away the sawdust. "The kids can do it one day" he said, sawing away at yet another piece of wood. When I walked into his workshop, there was this incredible sawdust wonderland, undulating hills and bumps of sawdust. You could not actually identify anything, everything was covered with at least 20cm of sawdust, and much deeper in the corners.

Well, was that an adventure. You never knew what you'd uncover next. There's just a bump of sawdust on the workbench, and in that pile you'd find... a tool? a jig of some sort? a piece of worked wood... a toothbrush; piece of sandpaper, some nails and nut or 2. Scribbled plans and notes. Gadgets of numerous sorts. It was an endless exploration of Dad's workshop life. A lifetimes worth of scrap collecting. It will stay with me always, the miracle of it.

Anyway, amongst other things there were boxes and boxes and boxes of scrap wood. And loose pieces of wood. Each of these had to be upended, the sawdust knocked off each piece of wood, then it could go into a new box of relatively sawdust-free wood. These were carted out and loaded onto the bakkie, driven to the farm and carried into our farmhouse lounge - the appointed temporary storeroom for all that stuff. The bakkie loads of loose wood went into a shed. Some ended up on an old table frame outside, covered with pieces of plastic and old carpets. All Dad's tools are also in trunks and boxes in the lounge, so is the radial arm saw, the wood lathe, plane, etc. Needless to say the lounge is a Gormenghast of boxes and stuff.

So the plan is to build a workshop on our farm, this year. The heart of it will be the woodworking shop, but we also need a place to do metal work, auto mechanics, even perhaps a smithy. (We're not masters of any of these, please note. We're just sort of handy [read: must mess with making things] folk, of the "boer maak 'n plan" ilk ["a farmer makes a plan"]; there's always a gizmo or a gadget of sorts that must be "worked" on.).

Part of this workshop will be storerooms, for all that handy stuff that one just cannot throw away. So, in time, al the precious boxes of scrap wood and other stuff will be carted out yet again, from our lounge to the new workshop. All that wonderful scrap!

I think my brother just mislaid the "s" that turns "crap" into "scrap", a most precious and valuable commodity.