Repurposing the Past

Holyoak family farm in Parowan

I freely admit it. I am sentimental. The older I get, the more fond my memories of years long since passed become.

Growing up as a kid, our family vacations were always the same--and I loved them! We parents, two brothers, little sister and me would cram into the station wagon and head west to visit family in southern Utah. We would spend one week at my grandparents' in Glendale and then head across Cedar Mountain to spend the other week in Parowan where I LOVED doing the daily chores with my Grandpa Vern.

We would feed and water the cows, bottle-feed calves, cut and haul the hay, change the water, run into town and do whatever else a Utah farmer needed to do. I also remember climbing onto the roof of the old barn with my brothers, with hammers in hand, to drive any loose nails back into the beams.

One day Grandpa told me to head to the old chicken coop out back--a place where I had gathered eggs just as my father had gathered eggs decades before me. He told me the sparrows were rifling through the chicken feed and he needed them thinned out. Dutifully (and as giddy as a young BB-gun toting kid could be) I headed that way to do my best. I soon discovered it was hard to shoot any sparrows because there were so many of them flying so fast in such a confined space. Grandpa then gave me a small iron rod, gave me instruction to swing it around like a mini baseball bat and left me to do the deed. This was both great fun and allowed me to hone my little league skills! As each bird met its demise and fell to the coop floor below, the hens quickly sprinted to my feet to "clean up the mess." Little cannibals! It was truly a delight for all involved (except the sparrows).

Lori & Kathrine in front of the old chicken coop

This past summer, I set foot back in that chicken coop for the first time in years. Probably constructed by my great grandparents about a century or more ago, its roof is now caved in and most of the wood is warped, faded and rotting. I stood there looking at the old nesting boxes and recalled my time with the sparrows.

When I returned home to Montana I brought the old chicken coop door home with me. It had been laying on the ground by the coop barely visible beneath the brush and tall weeds. My parents were coming for a visit and I had just the perfect present in mind for my dad for his 87th birthday.

Square-headed nails

I removed a plank from the door and repurposed a bit of our shared Parowan past. I used my chop saw to cut the old wood into five smaller pieces, grabbed one of Grandpa Vern's old Utah license plates for a roof and attached it with some really old, rusty square-headed nails (probably older than Dad and I put together) which I also brought home from the farm's shop.

When the big day finally came, Lori made Dad a huckleberry pie for his birthday meal and then I presented him with the repurposed Parowan birdhouse. He commented that he could use it as a birdhouse outside or a decoration inside. He really liked it!

You see, he's sentimental too.

Happy birthday Dad!

Find directions on how to make the birdhouse here.