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story and pictures shirley le guern
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oung entrepreneur Bruce Eales went from sound technician to toy maker during Covid. Somewhere in between building the eyecatching jungle gym at The Bakery at The Mushroom Farm and running a small home maintenance business, he also turns out everything from cupboards and shelving to wooden box planters, wooden crates and coffee tables. The colourful jungle gym is probably his largest project to date and began when he bumped into Maddison Bakery owner, Ryan Watt, at a local shop. He’d made wooden display cabinets for the company’s products at Spar stores and Ryan asked him if he’d like to take on a creative jungle gym project. “When I met with him, he showed me a picture and the plan for what he wanted. We had to jiggle it as we went along. We came across some water pipes in the ground and had to move things a bit. I concrete the gum poles into the ground and this couldn’t clash with the piping,” he says. It took a week for the basic skeleton of poles to take shape, followed by the wonky house and the castle which are joined by an arched bridge.
I can do customised and themed jungle gyms. I can tailor make whatever I do to suit people’s wants or needs Bruce says that, throughout the process, safety has been paramount. “It’s very secure. Because it is going to hold children, it has to be very solid.”
Customised
CREATIONS MEET THE MAN BEHIND THE NEW COLOURFUL JUNGLE GYM AT THE MUSHROOM FARM
him to find out if he could build smaller backyard versions. The answer is a definite yes and Bruce says this is an aspect of his business that he intends growing so that he can also produce play areas for homes and even schools. “I can do customised and themed jungle gyms. I can tailor make whatever I do to suit people’s wants or needs. I can add everything from rock climbing walls to cargo nets and slides,” he says. Over the past couple of years, he has
houses and miniature picnic furniture. Again, he can customise his creations and add things like curtains, cooking utensils, shelving and storage spaces. Bruce didn’t start out as a carpenter but as a sound technician for well-known Kingston Sound and worked at many large events across the province. “My boss at the time Brett Kingsland, his wife Marcelle and his brother Charles, taught me all my skills over the past 13 years. We built our own flight cases for
