Blue Birds
My grandfather passed away in May of 2002 while I was pregnant with Lake. He was an incredible man and father and grandfather. He was a dairy farmer and woodworker and truly a man of many talents. Half of the furniture in my house was built by him including this wooden table I use as a desk in which holds my computer I am typing on now. When he passed, we were all able to go through his many barns and pick and choose things to remember him by. Jason and I picked a lot of things no one else seemed to want but they were things we thought were golden. An old wooden hammer with severe signs of hundreds of hours of use….a straw hat which shielded the harsh sun of his face while he tilled his gardens. I should mention that my grandfather was legally blind when he died and had poor vision for many, many years so many of the things he made have multiple flaws or are simply not very symetric but I love that. My tables are a bit wobbly, too, but I love them. I love that when/if he needed a table for something, he built one instead of buying one. There was also a pile of cedar planks that absolutely no one wanted and we quickly grabbed them and are storing them in our barn. We have a very peaceful & creative vision of a long dining room table built from them one day by a professional woodworker in which we’ll cherish for the rest of our lives. That wood came from trees on his land…the many, many acres where his cattle roamed grazing on grass.
Another item we acquired up was a hand made blue bird house that was laying in one of his many barns like it was a castaway or a “reject”. Jason uncovered it in our garage about a week or so ago and decided to finally hang it. It was one of those moments of frustration where you find yourself so behind on so many little projects you have been trying to do for years but that have just been piling up collecting dust. We have a lot of these, especially Jason since he has worked more 70 hour weeks in the last 9 years than he cares to dwell on. He yanked it out of a box, grabbed a hammer and some nails and picked a fence post and just nailed it up with very little thought thinking it would ultimately end up becoming a charming, rustic little yard ornament. After only 3-4 days, we noticed two blue birds flying in and out carrying pine needles to prepare their nest. We couldn’t believe how fast they occupied the house. Now they are all over our backyard all of a sudden and they are so incredibly beautiful. Jason sits on the deck and watches them often. He told me he gets cold chills knowing my grandfather built that and now it is here, on our property, housing beautiful birds. Jason wasn’t able to know my grandfather very long but grew a great fondness for him. Both of Jason’s grandfathers passed away before he was born. He could chat with my papaw Johnny about plants and woodworking and farming and all sorts of topics for hours. I miss him dearly and wish my boys were older when he was alive because I know he would have loved to take them down to wade in the creek just as he did me when I was little. My memories of my grandfather and visiting his farm are grand.
Here are a few pics of our new family of bluebirds. I enlarged one a great deal so you could see him with a mouth full of pine needles. It’s truly amazing…
