Are you into handcarved wildlife and cabin type items? Then you'll want to visit this site. Trout River Studio is operated by Guy and Diana Leslie of Marblehead, Ohio. Guy learned to carve from the Native Americans in Michigan as a young boy. He now has a studio on the shores of Lake Erie, and what a studio it is. You can just picture the serenity of it all when you read this description,
"His studio is warmed with a woodstove, an antique 16ft. punt boat leans against a wall, and a birch tree stands inside to hold carvings of trout and pike. The shelves are filled with folk art carvings of shorebirds, duck decoys and ice fishing decoys. Two Labrador Retrievers beg for a scratch, as songbirds eat in the window feeder."
Wouldn't you like to just drop everything and join him for a few hours? The most interesting part of Guy's background, according to his bio, is that he "has been inducted into the Smithsonian archives as the last carver in America with the knowledge and expertise of traditional Native American woodcarvings."

Leslie's carvings are quite uniqe and life like. They seem to be very reasonable in price as well, ranging from $25.00 on up. The site is very clean and invites reading and further investigation. It is easy to navigate with a menu bar up top and a list of links to the left of each page, except for the home page and Guy's bio page.


You may not even catch it right away, but the list of links to the left of each page is cleverly situated so that it looks like a fish hanging from a line. That's just a small example of the details on this site.



The only drawback to the site is that some of the images are fairly large in file size and therefore are a bit slow in loading. However, they're well worth the wait. On the plus side, there's a shopping cart feature for hassle-free shopping while there. To add to the theme of the site, you'll find a descriptive little story or anecdote on each page that displays one of Guy's carvings.

Overall, Trout River Studio is well worth your visit. On a scale of 5 stars, 5 being the highest, we give it a 4 1/2. [LHNZ]

          


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