If you have driven by the farm in the last couple months, there is a pretty good chance you might have noticed this summer project. In fact, having the passers by notice is largely the point of it, as it is the sign for our farm.
We talked for several months about what type of sign we wanted, and we got quotes from a few places. We looked at what it would cost to do a normal, alumalite sign that almost every business everywhere has (you really start to take note of such things when you think of purchasing one for yourself). We also checked in on what it would look like to do a large cedar plank as our sign. I will admit that we waffled on the decision for a while as none of the options really stood out to us as a clear cut winner.
But lo, as I worked on cutting all the boards for the new chicken coop, an idea began to form. I had a pile of wood scraps that was nearly tall enough to look me in the eyes. How difficult could it be to build our own sign? I shared this idea with everyone, and I had to use a silver tongue of persuasion to get them on the idea train. I reasoned with them that it would cost nothing, and with that, they agreed to let me try my hand at it.
I was fortunate that Rachel’s brother, Nathan, was staying with us for that particular week. I pitched my idea to him, and he immediately saw its potential. I gave him a rough design idea, and we brainstormed some of its finer points before going out to the scrap pile and setting up a working model.
With each step that we took towards completion, the reality of what the sign actually looked like outshone what it had looked like in my mind (This is quite rare for me, so I implore you to forgive me for, perhaps, enjoying the appearance of the sign more than is proper).
In my original zero cost budget, I had been planning on using the band saw to cut out letters from scraps of plywood. Once things started to come together, however, the other Hust roosters said it looked nice enough to warrant an investment in buying the letters. They would be more uniform, and I it would save me the time of handcrafting 26 letters from scratch. I was grateful.
As soon as the sign was up, we started hearing about it. The good people of Glen Aubrey had noticed. They told us that it looked great, and then they asked us when the store was going to be open… um… uh… let’s just enjoy the sign for a little while.
She’s a beaute! Nice job on the sign, Casey!