Interloping

Definition: When a spouse moves in on, or takes over, their significant other’s domain. In this case, I moved in on my hubby’s workshop. When we bought our house, it came complete with a huge garage with a heated floor, plenty of built in shelves and workbenches for E to store all of his tools and our goodies. Over the last five months, he seems to migrates toward his shop and spends countless hours out there doing I don’t know what, but it ain’t eating popsicles like his father-in-law does because 1) he doesn’t have a deepfreeze out there and 2) we don’t buy popsicles.

With Spring fast approaching I had a couple of projects I wanted to tackle so with E’s help I moved on to learn how to operate a few power tools. My first project was a trio of birdhouses in differing heights. My inspiration came when E and I went on a trip to New Brunswick with my visiting childhood amigo. We were headed toward Hopewell Rocks when we stumbled upon a home-based business that sold everything birds, including the most adorable birdhouses. Wouldn’t you know it, in this age of debit and credit cards, between the three of us we weren’t able to scrounge up enough money to buy a single one. Of course the two of them tried convincing me to approach the owner and ask for a deal but I was too chicken (get it, birds...chicken...see the likeness?). So I stored my plans to buy one away for another trip. And then one day it dawned on me. I can make my own!

So I set to hunting the net for ideas and free plans and found one that looked fairly simple, made a couple of modifications and we set to it. I made some green tea to put in my portable coffee mug...doesn’t every carpenter? I put my plans on a clipboard, put on my toque and mittens and strapped on my tool belt. Yes, I have one...a hand me down, but it’s mine. E loaded it with a hammer, a carpenter’s pencil, a tape measure, and a speed square. I again used some remnants of the box E & Dad made for our utility trailer so I didn’t have to invest in any wood. I used screws from E’s stash...he stashes hardware, I stash wool. We had a length of dowelling that neither one of us could remember what it was purchased for nor, I have a container full of acrylic craft paint. All I really needed was a can of varnish to seal it when I was done and some embellishments and off we went. It took a couple of hours to get the first one done, with E’s help. I am not so great on the table saw; it’s pretty intimidating. And, don’t get me started on screwing. Apparently, I can’t screw straight. Every time I thought I was going in straight, my screw would protrude ever so slightly from where it should have been neatly hidden. I started using his drill that has a level on it and had better success but the battery died. My nailing isn’t much better than my screwing. On a more positive note, I have mastered the chop saw. When complete, my marriage was still intact - a feat in itself and I had three lovely birdhouses.


I got a little smarter as I went on and installed doors at the bottom to clean out the mess at the end of the season. I do love the fact that my first one has a tin roof and a tin star mounted over the entrance way as it is reminiscent of the homes here. Everyone seems to have these stars hanging on the exterior of their homes. It got to be a joke between my visiting friend and myself. Instead of hollering out "punch buggy" and slugging each other in the arm as we did as kids to allay our boredom driving to our hockey games, we would yell "STAR!" and belt each other one.

Eventually they will be mounted on some poles and will be strategically placed in the yard. Hopefully someday they will make a perfect little
pad for some little birdy families.