Going back to my roots

Going back to my roots….when I was 10 or 11 years old I would build bird houses and sell them to the ladies at church. It was a very lucrative business. I was quite the little entrepreneur and I didn’t even realize it.

At a young age my parents moved us to the desert outside of Phoenix and there was not a lot to do. Although we moved out there with my best friend I still needed to fill the time, so my dad’s woodshop was a great way for me to pass the time. We didn’t have much money so I would build with what I could find laying around. Most of my materials were old used wood (who knew recycling and being green at that age) and the occasional rusty piece of metal. Well as it turns out those items were in high demand and I sold every birdhouse I built. At 14 I was even getting special orders.

When high school started I signed up for the woodworking class thinking it would be an easy "A" because I already knew my way around the woodshop. Boy was I wrong. I learned so much in that class, to this day I use techniques I learned. High school woodworking was such a niche for me the high school let me take the class all four years even though the maximum allowed was two. They had me be a shop supervisor and machine tuner and repair man. My junior and senior year I was king of the woodshop and I knew it.

So, going back to my roots. 15 years later and there are three birdhouses in progress in my woodshop. It’s kind of funny, I’m not sure I am as creative as I was as a boy….but I am still having a lot of fun doing what I did that got me interested in the creative woodworking thing.