You came in with the bree---eeze, on Sunday morning

Oh, Sundays... I have and will always love a Sunday in Summerland. Nowhere better to spend a Sunday; it's the God's honest truth.

So, what did I do this particular Sunday? Several things. Waking up to delicious coffee and a request from my mother, I went to help her with the sad veterinary task of putting a sweet old dog to sleep. Sounds like a bummer, but it all depends on how you look at those things. Anyway, this was followed by returning home to prepare several Bloody Maries (uncertain about the plural form here) and the bulk of a delicious Sunday lunch. After the meal, my parents and I piled into Daddy's red pick-up to take a field-trip to the chicken house. 

Built Ford tough (or something)

Now let me make it clear that this is no ordinary chicken house. Instead of poultry, it houses all of the accrued junk of years past from the Garrison household (and beyond) with hopes of putting things that have grown useless to use in one way or another. 

My goal in the chicken house this Sunday: to find wood for making frames. And my, did we. 

Motherload! Dad shows me the stack of old cedar/pine/?

Further plundering revealed other treasures:

Oh, the memories...

Old anesthesia machine?

After gathering the loot, we rode back to the house, where I convinced my father (with some difficulty) to help me figure out this whole frame-making situation. Dad, being a woodworking god (both in reality and most definitely in his own mind), was a/an *insert respectful yet wary adjective here* teacher, but, by the end of the freezing-cold endeavor, we managed to get a frame set into some semblance of the idea I had in my head.

Wood workin'

Since I'm trying to get to where I can do this on my own, Dad dumbed things down a bit in the way of power tools. He cut the starting pieces into 3.5 inch-wide strips with his hand-held power saw, but then I got to use the hand miter saw for the angles. Then we fit the pieces together as best we could, with the help of a few adjustments made by the master with the power saw. Finally, we used yet another power tool to make indentions into the angled sides, glued wedges into the indentions, and clamped the whole thing together.

Trying to show me what's up with clamps

Cutting it down to size

Tutelage from the gods

Beer was definitely necessary by the close of things...

Hopefully you will soon get to see the entire project come together, frame and all!

In the meantime, if anybody wants to get me something adorable and hand-crafted for Christmas, check this out:

Harold and Maude hand puppets

Au revoir!