When I was in 8th grade, my science class focused on the life and environmental sciences. The teacher offered one opportunity for extra credit: she had packets of projects we could do at home and, once completed, we could bring in the project and (ideally) receive some extra credit points.

Thumbing through the packet, I found simple plans for a bird house. Of course, being only 13 years old, I needed some assistance. So, one spring weekend in 1989, my father and I worked in our little shed building a birdhouse.

After accruing the coveted extra credit, my dad affixed the bird house to a post, and stuck the post in our front yard, just a few feet from my bedroom window. Within a few weeks, chickadees built a nest in it. I loved watching them from my window that summer! For a few days, I even kept my blinds closed so as not to scare off the birds who hadn’t yet put down roots.

Then, that winter, we moved. A few days before we were all packed up, I asked my dad if we could take the birdhouse. Of course, he was busy with a thousand other things regarding the move, but he complied. Actually, it was tougher than you might think, because he couldn’t just pull the post out of the frozen ground. He had to saw it off near ground level.

Then we moved in with my grandparents…then we moved into a townhouse…then I moved out of the house. First, I lived in a rented duplex. Then, I lived in an apartment, then another townhome. Finally, over 14 years after moving out of the home where my birdhouse had last been set up, I was living in a place with property. Jennifer and I moved in near the end of summer, so I didn’t bother with the birdhouse that year. That winter, though, I told my mom I wanted my birdhouse. At first, she didn’t know what I meant. I assured her there was a birdhouse, affixed to a six-foot long post, laying on the floor in the back of her garage. She was surprised to discover I was correct, and she brought the birdhouse to my house the next time she visited.

I sanded the birdhouse, buffing off the blue paint, and painted it yellow. I then inserted a new perch as the original one had broken.

That spring, sparrows came and nested in it. It was the first time in 16 years that it was in use.  And they came the next year, in 2006. And again in 2007.

But then Jennifer, Owen, and I moved out of that house. In March 2008, on the day we moved out, I called my mom (who was on her way to pick up Owen) and asked her to bring a long extension cord. She did and, just as my dad had done 18 years earlier, I plugged in my saw and trudged out into the snow and sawed off the post as low to the ground as I could.

Then we moved into an apartment, so I gave the birdhouse to my sister. She and her husband owned a house, and they set it up on the side of their driveway where birds frequently nested in it, even as recently as this summer.

But then my sister moved. I forgot about the birdhouse until the last minute and, unlike previous moves, this one was in the dead of summer instead of the heart of winter. The week before she moved, she told me there might be birds nesting in there. I was worried, because I wasn’t sure what to do. I didn’t want to disturb the birds, but I also didn’t want to lose the bird house. Thankfully, she called that same evening to say the birdhouse was empty.

I picked it up from her that weekend, and here’s what it looked like…

Notice that the years on my sister’s property (where it lived for 6 years), weathered away almost all of the yellow paint, even to the point of revealing the original blue paint. Notice, too, that the wood is splitting in several areas. And though it’s not very apparent in the photos, the perch is broken and the nails are all either missing or rusted.

So, for the rest of July, the birdhouse spent some time on my workbench. In between other, more pressing and larger projects, I spent a little bit of time showing the 26-year-old bird house some love.



Okay, so it’s not yet set up in my yard for birds to nest in (but that’s not terribly urgent in mid-August), but otherwise, it’s all set to go. I have, once again, replaced the perch with a secure, solid dowel. I removed every single nail and replaced them with stainless steel nails. I also replaced the two side screws that allow the front to be swung open (as you can see in the lowest picture). I sanded the wood to remove all old paint, then used wood putty to fill in the worst-worn sections. I used wood glue to firm up some of the split areas. Then I sanded again. Then I spray painted with the same blue color as our deck chairs – a color very similar to the original that my Dad and I used back in the spring of ’89. Finally, I applied a couple coats of polyurethane to keep the precipitation at bay.

Come on, little birds…there’ll be a nice nesting site for you this spring!

Last June, Owen participated in a Star Base Camp at the military base near Fort Snelling. Each student had the opportunity to design their own rocket fins to go on their model rockets. The designs were then printed out on a 3D printer.

On the last day of class, it rained pretty heavily, so the class couldn’t launch their rockets. No worries, we launched Owen’s rocket at home at few months later…

Then, for Christmas, Jennifer gave Owen a pack of rocket fuel. Of course, December isn’t the best time to launch a rocket, so we waited until the weather was warmer.

On Sunday, June 14th, we attended a fundraising picnic at Wabun Picnic Area in Minneapolis sponsored by Camp Quest. Owen brought along his rocket set, eager to finally launch it for the first time this year. When we arrived at the picnic site, though, I told him there were too many trees around. He disagreed, and selected an open spot in the field. So, with about ten people looking on, we launched the rocket.

And it got stuck in a tree. A very, very tall tree. One of the guys standing nearby took his son’s football and threw it up at the rocket with all his might, but even he couldn’t get within 20 feet of the rocket.

I felt terrible for losing Owen’s rocket like that, especially since I was the one who had hit the trigger (Owen was having difficulty getting it to work). I apologized to him several times, but he didn’t seem to mind too much. He pointed out that he would be making another rocket later that same week, because he was enrolled in Star Base Camp again this summer.

And, yes, he was right: he and the other students did make rockets that week. But it wasn’t exactly the same. They didn’t get to custom design 3D-printed rocket fins this time. So…I still felt really bad.

That Monday, I stopped at the park after work. There was the rocket, still up in the tree. I searched online for ideas on how to get rockets out of trees, and the two main takeaway points were: 1) the ideas only work if the tree is in your yard and 2) just wait. Then I wrote to the Minneapolis Parks department and asked if they could let me know if a toy rocket found its way into their lost and found. They responded by saying they’d post it on their Facebook page, so that was nice of them, but I didn’t really hold out any hope of recovery.

The following Monday – about an hour before we had to be at the airport to fly to Massachusetts, Jennifer and I stopped at Wabun again. There had been a thunderstorm that morning, so I hoped it washed the rocket out of the tree. Well, no, it didn’t. It just washed the rocket about 5 feet lower than it had been. However, there were several larger sticks on the ground, and I whipped them up into the air (they’re actually easier to throw than footballs) and got close enough to rattle the correct branch but, still, no luck.

On Tuesday, June 30th, there was a beast of a thunderstorm in the early morning hours. I had to work from home that day but, during my lunch hour, I took Owen and Isla to Wabun yet again. Holding our hands up to block out the sun, all three of us stood under the trees trying to see if we could spot the rocket. Oddly, I couldn’t find it anywhere. “I guess it’s gone, buddy,” I told him. He suggested we look around on the ground, but not having seen it on our walk up to the picnic area, I wasn’t hopeful. Still, I marched due south to check out the area we hadn’t walked over yet.

Bingo.

The parachute was destroyed, and the rocket’s body was a bit soggy and bent. Nevertheless, after 16 days and 2 hours, Model Rocket Kepler 4-B finally came back to Earth. It is now decommissioned and sitting on Owen’s shelf in his room.