Our good friends and neighbors Jack and Kim Macmillan came to the farmhouse today to bring us a Christmas gift, a hand made mahogany and slate roofed Bluebird house, the classiest bird house I have ever seen. Jack built it himself and had strong ideas about where it should go – Jack has pretty fixed ideas about most things, he makes me seem meek – but I argued it ought to go where we could see it easily, as it is too beautiful to tuck away. I prevailed, it is right outside the living room windows. The house is meant for Bluebirds, but Jack says other birds will use it as well. Neat Christmas gift, Jack even showed up with a drill, knowing that might be a crisis for me.

I told him it was too nice to go outside, I wanted to hang it in my office, but he just laughed at me, as he often does. We are lucky to have friends and neighbors like this, we know it.