Wren House and Texture

..and a little color.

For the past three days the wrens have been complaining a lot about the state of their housing, but they tend to complain about everything, and they get it for a song. A beautiful song. There are three wren/chickadee houses in the lower garden, seemingly in similar locations. Not so. For whatever reason this is the prime spot for the wrens and after a dozen years the old house was just about gone. I picked through the old fence drop-off pile and spent one pre-aged redwood board on a new rental unit. I rolled the table saw to the open garage door and started eyeballing and whacking away anything that didn't look like a wren house. The din of a power saw always draws neighbors to kibitz. As I was trying to fit the pieces together without measuring as I went along, Christy told me his old man made birdhouses for one of the big chain stores and he had made thousands of them as a kid. He had two thoughts, pieces of advice for me:
   #1. Everybody he knew that used a table saw eventually lost a finger.
   #2. If I cut all the pieces at 90 degrees I would save a lot of time.
I told him I both had fingers and time to spare, a saw guard is a pain in the ass and square houses are boring. Then Penny came over to critique (she likes tools), Lorna came back, everyone was thirsty so we went down to the Growlery for an hour or two. I eventually finished the wren house after supper. If I were doing it again I'd change a few angles. I won't remember that 12 years from now when I make another one.

It ain't art; it's just a birdhouse.

These are about done. Even in passing they are beautiful.

8 inches across.