Maybe I'll make bird houses today.

i've just wandered through the garage and noticed an awful lot of leftovers from various household projects.

There really isn't much that is big enough to save for a serious project but I could sure make a whole slew of bird houses. That sounds like a pretty good idea.

This is my 60th year on the planet and I realize that my life is rapidly coming to an end as my family history does not include a whole lot of people that made it to a ripe old age.

Last year I didn't plant my usual annuals, either because I was led astray by someones ideas that never seemed to materialize. There was also the issue of the roof that came up, too.

Anyway, as I age I seem to feel a need to return to some of the simpler things in life like looking at pretty flowers and watching the deer and the birds from my little back deck.

I've had a pretty simple life and I have learned to enjoy simple little things like watching the birds and the animals.

I used to enjoy all four seasons, my favorite was fall, but as I have aged, I have found winters to be pretty hard on me so fall now means the onset of winter is near so fall is now a little bittersweet.

Somewhere along the line I got disgusted at people that thought that life was a contest that he who dies with the most toys wins. It never became my style.

When I got out of the service, I juggled a couple of interesting things. I went back to school and lived in a tipi for well over a year. It was a pretty good deal as I could go to school and live well on my GI bill and enjoy an outdoor lifestyle. Wintering in the Rockies was a rare and challlenging treat. There were quite a few munus 40 nights to deal with and I enjoyed knowing I dealt with it with ease.

I remember more than one night studying in the tipi by gasoline lantern in temperatures well below zero while sitting in cut-offs and a t-shirt while the storm raged only a layer of canvas away from me.

I then moved to Alaska and lived pretty close to the earth there.

By my reckoning, by the time I hit 35 I had lived over half my life out of doors, sleeping under canvas or in a small camper-trailer or aboard a sailboat.

At about 35 or so, I started to settle down a bit and seem to have insulated myself from the earth and elements.

As I write this, it is cold outside and the furnace just kicked in. I'm warm and dry and grateful. I don't take these things for granted.

Still, as I age, I feel a need to get a bit closer to the earth because I seem to have wandered off a little to the world of creature comforts.

While I have no desire to move out of this house and back into a tent, it just occurred to me that it would be nice to spend some time with the flowers and birds and return to my roots.

I think I'll set up shop and build bird houses today and get ready for the spring.





Edited to add: At 1630 I packed it in. I now have 9 birdhouses to paint. I might givee them a coat of paint tonight. We'll see.





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