First thing in the morning, I had a meeting with a local winery to do some custom essential oil distillation. Farming has to come first. I am very happy with the opportunity. I had met the owners of a local winery that grows quite a bit of rosemary. They are interested in distilling essential oil for products, and I am interested in expanding my distillation operation to include other aromatic herbs. So it is a match made in heaven. I had an excellent meeting with the wine maker, we looked over the rosemary and agreed on a plan to move forward. I am looking forward to sharing my rosemary distillation days with you in the future!
Busness in hand, I did manage to get back in the late morning and continue some on the "surprise" project. At three I had a brief meeting with my partner on the Carmel Valley Coop (see weblink at http://www.carmelvalleycoop.org) in the late afternoon, so I had to work fast.I managed to build the shelves, trim , and crown. Most of the time was spent searching the farm for adequate pieces of lumber from which to fashion the shelves. I also started running out of "choice" lumber scraps. Which means milling pieces from larger scraps of wood. This of course also take time and slows down progress.
As my partner showed up for our afternoon meeting, I had just finished the shelves, and milled the pieces I would use to construct the cabinet doors. And that was a day. So I collected my tools, and put things away.
Yesterday was a busy day indeed. My day was still not over. In the evening, I needed to make a meeting with the local Sustainable Carmel Valley group. Deborah Lindsay, council member for Pacific Grove, local radio host of an environmental show called Tomorrow Matters, and personal friend was going to be presenting at the monthly meeting. She is a true visionary. (You can read about Deborah on her website at http://www.deborahlindsay.com) This was a must go! So I fixed some fast food (a very nice omelet), and headed off. The meeting was very interesting. So much so, I would like to dedicate an entire post to my experience. I won't say too much about it today, except to encourage you to visit again tomorrow where I will share details about the meeting which included global warming, peak oil, re-localization of our economy, and psychology of our interpretation of these literally Earth shattering events. And they do relate to my philosophy on farming. So I want to spend some time with this.
But for now, back to the surprise... :)Today I went back to work, and started working on the cabinet doors. This took most of the day. First I had to rout out the rabbets for the paneling on some of the cross members.
Next I had to drill the peg holes that would be used to join the pieces together. I cut pegs from a piece of 3/8" wooden dowel I happened to have lying around, and securely glued them into the holes. Then I joined the pieces together, and started inserting the panel slats into the slots. Of course this sounds easier than it was. I also had to cut a 45 degree angle as a simple ship-lap in each of the panel slats so that the pieces would join better.
By the end of the day I had finished the two lower doors of the main armoire, and the two upper cabinet doors as well. All that remained was to fasten the doors to the cabinet. But alas, I didn't seem to have any appropriate hinges lying around. After much deliberation, I decided I would take a trip into town and pick up some hinges and fasten the doors on tomorrow.I seriously contemplated springing the surprise with the doors not yet mounted. But I think I will wait. The impact should be bigger if the armoire is good to go when I spring it on my daughter. I will be patient, and pick up the hinges early in the morning. I am really anxious to see if she likes it, but I try to keep myself restrained. Tomorrow is good.
Tomorrow will be the day. Stay tuned!
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