Working with Jason

Another day in sunny South Dakota... ok at least the sun is out, but it is VERY windy so it makes it quite chilly. Waking up this morning I would never have guessed what treasures and adventures I would meet this day.

I decided to see what work is like for Jason. He was going to be working with some wood today and I thought, "Why not? I could do it too." And so I "helped" Jason today. He was working on the tops for some night stand.

We started all from planks of wood. We had to saw them to the designated length (and really whenever I say "we" I mean Jason... I was more an observer). I guess I did help hold the wood up while Jason cut it on the table saw... so I was A LOT of help.

But the next part. We had to piece the wood together so that the wood looked aesthetically pleasing once completed. I knew I was ready for this job. I never realized how careful you have to be when selecting wood.






The wood has so many colors that you can't just piece the wood together willy-nilly. There's some thought and consideration to put into this. I'd have to say we did a good job (and this time I do mean we) arranging the wood so that the white colors would flow just right with the red colors all mixed with the grey colors.

*disclaimer- not actual wood we were working with...just a picture I found on the internet.




But then I went back to being the observer because of the use of big fancy tools that I don't want to break. We planed the wood so they'd all be the same depth. And it was while planing a certain piece of wood that I noticed a little hole. I was worried that we wouldn't want a hole on the top of a night stand, but Jason said "No worries. It's just a worm hole." He's the boss so I just let it slide.

But when he was working on the next piece I was looking at this piece we had just worked on. And looking a bit closer at the little worm hole, I saw that it was not vacated... Yes, the worm was still in there. GROSS!

This is what it kind of looked like.















*disclaimer- yet again not the actual worm because I didn't have my camera on hand at the time.

I was just in shock that the worm was still there. I just never thought of that as a possibility. The little guy would just pop his head out of his hole every so often. This bothered me tremendously. I had to do something. So of course like any sane person I tried to yank it out with some needlenose pliers hanging around. It took me a couple of attempts, but I got the little sucker! And it was even more gross! It was maybe 3/4 of a inch long and stark white. It wriggled and was really squishy. He has little fangs, but Jason said that that's how he eats the wood.

Well after squirming and flailing about a little bit I finally went into action. I ran outside with the pliers in hand and flung the worm into the air and then ran. Yup, I'm pretty brave.

Now I know what its like for a day in the life a Jason. Its pretty intense!