Keep Off the Dirigible Plums

A quick report on what I've been up to lately:

  This is the starter piece for our coming Gnome Garden (see Gnomeo and Juliet). It was not as easy as it looks, however. Drawing on my experience in woods class senior year (another great story, to be sure) I visited my former woods teacher, who readily consented to help. The stencilling and wood-burning was slow work, but passed without mishap until I reached that final "S." You know, the one that pluralized "plum." In short, at that point, the nib came off of the wood burner. So, I hea ded out onto my high school campus in search of another wood burner, surprising many of the current students. To the "Hey, Lucy, didn't you graduate?" I responded with a sophistocated,  "Oh yes, I'm home for the summer...BYU doesn't have a spring break...I'm just here working on a project."
   When I finally finished the lettering and sanding of the hardy oak sign, I moved to the table saw--where I almost cut off one or more fingers because I forgot to check the height of the blade. My longsuffering teacher came over to ask patiently, "What are you doing now?"
   I sorted out that with all my fingers on, cut a nice crooked arrow onto the bottom post (wizards are kind of a scruffy lot---they do their shopping covered in soot, right?) and prepared to finish things up. Having located the nail gun and lined everything up without mishap, I quickly shot three nails into the back of the sign to hold the post in place. In short, everything was going well--until I tried to pick up my finished project. It wouldn't budge. I had nailed it neatly to the table.
   With the aid of a hammer, mallet, pliers, the janitor, a random woods student, my former teacher, the curious stares of high school freshmen, and some back-country elbow grease, the sign was removed from the table. My teacher sent me for some screws (now why didn't I think of that?) and quickly attached the post. I plan to send him a plate of chocolate chips cookies tomorrow.
    The moral to this story? Keep off the dirigible plums.