How to Build a Chick Perch in About 15 Minutes (Part 2 of 3)

If you’ve been following the series, then you know WHY you need a chick perch. If not, you’d better read this first. I’ll wait.

What you’ll need:

• Scrap dimensional lumber
• Sticks and/or twigs
• Chisel (you only need this if you plan to follow all of the steps below, which I really don’t recommend)
• Mallet (ditto)
• Saw (also completely optional and probably useless)
• Hot glue gun
• Electrical outlet with electricity actually available for your use (very important)
• Miter saw (unless you follow my steps exactly, which I highly recommend. Or not.)

Step One:
Search through your garage and/or workshop for exactly the right pieces of pre-cut dimensional lumber. This is really really super fun if you look at it through the right lens. The one you use for those iPhone I-Spy games. Click on the image to make it larger.

Do you see it?

Need a hint? Here is what you’re looking for:

Still not finding them? One more clue… A close-up of them in location:

If you STILL can’t find them in the picture, you should probably get more practice. I recommend the Haunted Mansion series. Very fun. When you’ve mastered the technique, then you will be qualified to go look through your own garage for just the right pieces. Unless, of course, you are one of those who think it saves time and frustration to keep your garage nice and tidy, in which case I just have one thing to say to you. Did you ever think about how much money you’d save on hidden object games if you only had a real-life 3D I-Spy game in your garage? Think about it.

If, despite all your best efforts, you still can’t find anything like these two perfect blocks of wood, you’ll probably have to dust off the miter saw and use it to cut 45 degree angles into some larger scraps of lumber. If so, you’re on your own. Sorry.

Step Two:
Another fun search & find! Yay! Now you’re going to head for the woods, get halfway there, and realize you could just pull what you need from the fire pit and save yourself some potential tick infestation.

This one is tricky, but I believe in you. You can do it. Here is what you’re looking for:

Tough, right? But you got it, right? Great! You’re ready for step 3.

Step Three:
Round up your tools. You’re looking for a chisel, a mallet, and a small hand saw. These will prove completely useless in the long run, but finding them is so much fun you’ll want to do this step anyway. Unless you don’t. Whatever. First, locate the chisel:

Next, locate the mallet:

If you’re finding this one frustrating, it’s because you can’t actually see the mallet in this picture. It’s behind the grey box with all the drawers. All you can see is a tiny bit of handle sticking up. That’s to make it more challenging. Challenges are fun.

Finally, go back to the locations above and see if you can identify the little hand saw you won’t need. Got it? No, of course you don’t. Because it was last used by someone who does not ascribe to the Head Family creed that it saves time and money to leave things lying exactly where you last used them instead of putting them away. The hand saw, for some inscrutable reason, is hanging exactly where it belongs:

Step Four:
Lay your tools out and spend about five or ten minutes attempting to make notches in your lumber to rest the perches in.

This is the most time-consuming step of all, so don’t begin until you’re sure you can dedicate yourself to it fully. It’s also the most pointless step, even more pointless and considerably more tiring than searching for the tools you needed in order to complete this step. Also not as much fun.

But, after about ten minutes you will have a shallow and uneven but definitely noticeable indentation in the top of one of the blocks of wood. You will also have about two minutes of quiet time in which you simply stare at your handiwork and wonder why the heck you’re bothering and think that it’s really way too much trouble.

And of course, those quiet in-between times when we feel most frustrated and lost are really the best times of all. So feel free to draw this out as long as you like, provided you have the time to devote to it.

Step Five:
Have a sudden and inexplicable but totally delightful insight that seems incredibly profound to you even though everyone else in the world is thinking, “Well, duh, why didn’t you just do that to begin with??”

Run inside with your sticks and blocks of wood. Be sure to leave the chisel and mallet and saw lying around the yard so you can find them next time. It’s also a good idea not to wipe the dust and dirt off your materials because then there would be less to clean up off your kitchen floor later.

Dump the materials on the kitchen bench and run to the sun room for your glue gun. It will be exactly where it is supposed to be because, well, you don’t exactly just leave a glue gun lying around, right? It’s a gun, guys. Stay safe.

Steps Six through Ten are going to tell you all the important, useful bits (especially step ten. It’s amazing). But you’ll have to wait for them until Friday for the same reason you had to wait for this one until today. Waiting is good for you. You’re welcome.

P.S. If you’d like to be notified when the next part in the series appears, please subscribe to the blog using the button at the top right of the menu. This will also subscribe you to absolutely everything else I ever post here, but you can always unsubscribe if you get sick of me. But I hope you won’t. Unsubscribe, that is. I hope you will subscribe. Because the next bit is really funny and one step is actually somewhat useful (spoiler alert: It’s step 10!). Plus, every time someone subscribes to my blog, a writer’s angel gets her wings. Or it makes me dance a little jig. One or the other.

P.P.S. Yes, that shameless plug for the subscribe function is almost EXACTLY what I said earlier this week. But it’s still true and way easier to just copy and paste rather than try to be funny AGAIN. Really, folks, isn’t once a week enough?

P.P.P.S. It’s now WAY past Friday and part 3 has been up long enough for me to finally remember that I need to post a link to it here. Here you go: Part 3