second thoughts about stirring sticks

As I was looking at pictures of interesting wooden utensils a while ago, I happened upon this picture of a stirring stick from Ghana.

Now, you may recall that I posted about stirring sticks a while ago, saying that they aren't all that useful, so you probably shouldn't make them unless you have scrap wood that is too skinny to make anything else.  But I saw this stick and I loved it.  I mean, look at that interesting shape.  Look at the knife marks still on it.  Look at the simplicity of it.  So I decided to make some of my own.

I made this first one from a branch of cypress that I pruned off of a tree in our front yard.  When I asked my 6-year-old girl what improvements I could make on it, she told me to get rid of the warts.  So I told her that those are little knots, not warts, and they won't come off.  Besides, I kind of like them.

This second stick is made from maple.  I tried hard to make it look like it did not come from a flat boring piece of wood.