Whimsical Birdhouses are popular

[john]

A friend called yesterday to see if I could make another birdhouse by Friday. It seems her friend, who bought one of them already, would like to give one to her 75 year old brother for his birthday on Friday.

I Went out and bought the wood last night and have been working on it most of the day. Right now the second coat of wood filler is drying andv hopefully I can get it finished and primed tonight so my dear wife can paint it tomorrow.

The last one was for my daughter in Calgary and I managed to get it to the primed stage the night before we left on our trip tp the west. Then the "trouble" started. My dear wife was to paint it, and started, but my daughter had her own ideas so changed some of the colours while we were visting daughter #2. I didn't get pictures as it was not yet finished by the time we had to leave.

As to the trip, fantastic time. We spent two enjoyable days in Vancouver, B.C. before boarding a train for a two day trip through the Canadian Rockies. We spent long days on the train but saw amazing mountain scenery including wildlife such as osprey, eagles, bears, elk and deer. We missed most of the animal pictures but did get an osprey in a nest, eagle beside her nest, and a bear. At the end of the line we spent an extra day in Banff, Alberta which is a town in the rockies about 1.5 hours from Calgary. All this in celebration of our 55th annivesary. Then it was on to Calgary to visit the kids for four days and to help one of my daughters with work on her new house, didn't quite get the fence finished, but someone else can install the gate.

Have fun

John

[charlese]

Congratulations to both of you on your 55th:) . Yes! The Canadian Rockys are truly a beautiful and marvelous region. We used to live close and traveled to Lake Louise/Branff and up to Calgary for one of their rodeos, going through Glacier Park in the U.S. We will be going back and am presently jealous of your trip.

Maybe you should think of making and keeping a coupe of spare birdhouses in the shop for more emergency's. There will likely be more requests!!!

[john]

Chuck:

Thanks for the sentiments.

As to making extra birdhouses, I sort of started in that direction by buying extra wood the other day, mostly because I found two nice fairly clear knotty pine boards that I couldn't pass up. I'm not too inclined towards woodworking in the summer as there is always work to do, and I do like relaxing in the yard with a coffee and a book. Mostly I do the latter.

Dear wife is putting the finishing touches to the birdhouse as I write so we should meet our timeline of tomorrow.

A note on the train trip to anyone is contemplating taking a "Rocky Mountaineer" train excursion, if you can spring for the extra dollars, take the dome car service. It's worth it. We, (dear wife), decided to splurge for this special occasion and are glad we did. The views were spectacular and having dining car service for meals made the long (ten hour+) days more enjoyable.

John