Bruce Down hammers a nail into a Bluebird box in his South Lake workshop.
Asked why he hasn’t driven it in fully, he explains it is used so people can open the bird feeder to clean it. Also, they might have to quickly go in to protect newborn chicks from blowflies, a parasitic threat to Bluebird nestlings. The larvae of the flies feed on the blood and body fluids of the young birds, potentially impacting their health and survival.
Down is a bird box and bat box builder – giving them away in exchange for donations to charities, including the Haliburton Highlands Health Services Foundation for Hyland Crest long-term care home in Minden.
Selling at farmers markets, he estimated he had raised more than $8,000 for charity since Aug. 1 of last year. That’s roughly 160 boxes.
“I’m very fortunate that 90 per cent of the material I’ve had donated,” he said, taking a break from the woodworking and grabbing a camping chair for a chat on the day before his 90th birthday – which was Aug. 20.
He uses reclaimed barn boards, which are becoming scarce, for the bat boxes. He noted former Minden Hills coun. Ron Nesbitt recently gave him some barn board. Ken Barry has also donated to the bird box cause.
Down has always been into woodworking, a likely byproduct of being born and raised on a farm in the Oshawa area.
The family bought the place on South Lake in 1974, for $9,700, and family and friends built the cottage using beams and barn boards from the family farm. He worked as an agricultural salesman, but the family spent weekends up north until moving up full-time around 15 years ago.
Down recalls dropping into a sawmill near Rosedale one day and the owner offering him slabs for free, since he was just going to burn them anyway.
“That’s what started it, free slabs” he said of the boxes. “I just enjoy doing this kind of stuff.”
It also sprang from loss.
He built boxes to raise money for the Terry Fox Foundation. “We lost our son, Phillip, 23 years ago to blood cancer.” And, Down lost his wife, Joan, who had been at Hyland Crest, last year.
People can find Down in the artisan section of the Minden farmers market some Saturdays. He says he doesn’t go every week. “I have to get ready. If I sell six, I have to make six.” He said it takes him three to four hours to make a bird box, a bit less for the bat ones.
“This is my home…four or five hours a day, but I have to have my tea at 3 p.m.”
At the market, he enjoys the people, and people watching.
“The odd guy will come along and sit there and talk to me for 15-20 minutes. Then he’ll ask, ‘what do you have here anyway’? before wishing me the best of luck and keeping on going.
“I had one guy at Wintergreen last fall who handed me $100, and never said anything, I said, ‘I owe you a bird house’ but he said ‘no.’ I asked for his name and address for a tax receipt. He said ‘no’. I had made some walking sticks, and he took a $5 walking stick.
“It’s the kind of thing that keeps me going, that drives me.”
