Okay, Enough Sleeping, Time To Make

Sunset over the lake at 10:00 pm!

After bouncing out of bed this morning... Oh I can't lie, there was less bounce and more stumble. But I thought about bouncing because today was our first day of the summer going to the Polson Farmer's Market! This early in the season there is less farmer and more crafter/baker, but it is always fun to peruse the all the wares from bullet keychains to cheese curds to fresh apple pie, scones and jam. There was even a guy selling Lichtenberg burned wood objects. He made his Lichtenberg machine from a microwave transformer. It's clearly more powerful than the Calistoga one I purchased (deeper longer burns), but I'm betting less safe.

moving slabs of blue pine

After we got home (Dave, Gallifrey, and I all went in the Mini Cooper--Gallifrey was the hit of the market), I started spinning the fiber for my combination/mash-up sweater coat. That is going to be one fun project--though I'm still unsure about using merino in a coat. A little spinning, a little reading, and it was time to head out to the Dupuis lumber mill for my first foray buying raw wood for furniture building. I have my heart set on a blue pine desk and bed frame/headboard for Austin. Blue pine is so named because it is pine that was killed by mountain pine beetles and then infected with a fungus that caused dark staining in the sapwood. I have been wanting to make this bed for three years, and this summer I finally hit the tipping point for seeing what wood is available and what the cost is.

The first slabs I picked out for a desk and
maybe a dining table...

Out at Dupuis, the owner, Daylen, took me to the back metal shed and we went through the dried cut slabs they already have. They have logs too, but those take a long time to dry after they're cut into slabs--even with a kiln. Picking out this wood is not like picking through a bin of fiber or a case of glass. The slabs were stacked with little spacers in between, and they were 3-4 inches thick, 20-27 inches wide and 10-12 feet long. Of course the ones that initially caught my eye were on the bottom of the pile so Daylen went out and got the biggest forklift I have ever seen and moved everything around so I could get all the way to the bottom ones. I fell in love with four 3-inch thick 12-foot long pieces of varying widths and headed home after purchasing them. Dupuis is going to plane them for me and there's no way I could have carried them in the Mini Cooper anyway. As it is, I'm going to have to figure out how to get them back to Texas... But, as Dave likes to say, that's a problem for future Brenda.

Rough sketch of bed--headboard detail not started

mortise and tenon joints

Back at the homestead I watched a bunch of YouTube videos by the Wood Whisperer, downloaded a copy of Google Sketch-up and started designing. Here is what I have come up with so far. It took quite a bit of time to get proficient enough with Sketch-up to be able to get the detail I wanted in the mortise and tenon joints for the frame pieces and the footboard so I haven't even started on the headboard part. I also didn't even try to show the natural edges that the footboard will have (I'm using a 20 inch wide, 3 inch thick slab for it).

Tomorrow we go to Missoula to pick up Jessie and Kyla at the airport (after a day roaming the Missoula Farmer's Market, taking in an afternoon movie and an early dinner) so I won't get to work on my designs again till then. Oh it's hard to wait!