Friday's Hunt v 2.24

Today is Saturday, but I was visiting my parents yesterday, so I wasn't able to get to the blog post....as such, it's Friday's Hunt, a day late!  The prompts for this week are, Starts with X, Week's Favourite, and Lights.

Starts with X
This is a tricky letter, but I have a rather good solution for it!  This is my xylophone!

It is a very special xylophone, because it was made for me by my father.  I believe I was about 10 years old when he made it, although I could be wrong.  As you can see, it is made from two different woods.  The main body is pine (look at those lovely end joints!) and the keys are made from rosewood.  Each of the keys was carefully tuned by slowly carving wood out from the middle section on the underside of the key.  He had to test them frequently to be sure they were correctly tuned.

Then he made two sets of hammers for it - one set is solid wood and the set pictured is made from a long strip of tapered leather wrapped around the end of the dowel to make a softer-sounding hammer. When you run those hammers across the keys, it sounds like a babbling brook.  It is a really lovely instrument.  I played it for many years at home, and since then, other children have had the opportunity to play it when they visit my parents.  My Dad also made the table that the xylophone is sitting upon - he's a very talented woodworker!

Week's Favourite
I didn't take many pictures this week, so here's a favourite from a couple of weeks ago.  This is our adopted rabbit, Pippin, in one of his classic poses on the windowsill, where he likes to sit while I knit on the couch that backs onto this window.  He is very elegant bun!

Lights
I was able to help my parents decorate their (real) Christmas tree on my visit with them, which was a delight for me because I was able to look at all the ornaments that I know and love, some of which I made, and enjoy putting them up on the tree.  Most of the ornaments are handmade, or gifts, and some of them are from my parents' travels, or trips that I have been on.  Of course, the first stage of decorating the tree is adding the lights - which my Dad usually does with help from my Mom.  I had to be at a work reception in Halifax, so they worked on the lights while I was out.  Then we did the decorating when I was back, and we sat back to enjoy the fruits of our labour.  It really is a lovely tree, and the twinkling lights are perfect.