I love wild, beautiful and free!  

Last summer, I spotted this abandoned decorative birdhouse. Its previous owner had had enough compassion to leave it beside the dumpster where it might be found by someone like me.  I guess they couldn’t bear the finality of tossing it in the bin. I recognized the potential and took it home to see if I could reclaim it. The first step was to remove all the cheap plastic flowers; the next was to separate it from its warped base, which was causing a tipping problem. I made a new base and painted it white, then began building out the Christmas theme with curly sticks, moss, alder cones and a miniature log. The red and green accents and the book-loving bear were odds and ends from my Christmas craft box. 

On December 20, we had a tremendous windstorm that knocked out our power from early evening until 4 am. I went out for a walk, just to feel the air moving, but very soon,I was back at my garage for a pair of clippers and a laundry basket. A massive cedar branch had come down and was destined to provide both my Christmas greenery and many cedar cone clusters for future projects.