Woodworking Hobby

This is a picture of a bluebird house which my brother made for me. I now have three of them around this place. One is visible from my front door. One is near the road leading to my house. The other one is on the far end of the property at the upper end of the vineyard. Usually they are occupied by bluebirds but on some occasions I learn that other birds have moved into one of the unoccupied houses. Once I found a tiny blue feather on the ground under the one in the far end of the vineyard. I peeked inside and saw little blue feathers all over the nest of eggs. When I explained this to my brother he said a tree swallow had moved in. He was correct as the tree swallow covers her eggs with her small fragile feathers.

This hobby of making things from wood started when he was a teenager in high school. In the 1940's most boys in high school in our part of the country had a class in manual arts. He chose to make a cherry end table. It was a beautiful piece of furniture which graced my mothers home for many years. It is now in the state of Illinois in my older brother's home. A few years ago one of the legs was broken so my woodworking brother made a new one for this table.

After retirement my brother returned to this hobby. He had a large work shop built at the end of his property. Since retirement he has been making reproductions of antique furniture for different members of his family. For one of our family reunions he made a desk, chiming clock from walnut as a door prize. My sister from Ohio was the lucky recipient of this lovely clock. When he saw how much I admired it he made one for me. He also made a wall shelf for it to sit on. It is now on my wall in the front room and is a work of art. He involved me in the making of it by asking me to paint roses on the face of the clock. This I did and also had the glass over it frosted so that the pendulum is exposed as it moves back and forth.

The people in his church, The Sinking Springs Presbyterian Church in Abingdon know about his woodworking skills so they asked him to make a 7 foot cross of walnut to hang over the altar. That cross is shown to the right. He was asked to replace windows in an old steam engine which is parked in their historic town. This he did also.

He has been making very good use of his retirement years with his woodworking skills. I know that he makes bluebird houses which are placed at strategic places for the purpose of increasing the bluebird population.

I feel so privileged to actually own on of his reproductions. To be able to use a skill that was learned in your teens and continue with it all of your life for the benefit of nature and man is a satisfying hobby. Thank you my brother for all of the many worthy things you do and have done in your lifetime.