By Gary Schneider

For the Salisbury Post

Several years ago while living in Connecticut, I bought a replica of an early 1900s telephone at an estate sale. This one, though, had a dial and actually worked. I hung it up in the kitchen. Beautiful!

My wife, however, had a different description for it, and she hated it. When we moved to Salisbury two and a half years ago, my wife was happy to see there was no place to put it in the kitchen or anywhere else in the house. It wound up on the wall in the garage where, basically, no one could see it.

We started putting up bird houses at the edge of our yard and my wife’s been putting out bird seed, corn, nuts, carrots, etc., for the local critters. Then recently she suggested using that old ugly phone as a bird house.

Great idea! This is called “repurposing” like on “American Pickers.” (Yeah, I often tell people that my wife is a real genius.)

I took the dial off and revealed a perfect size hole for anyone who wanted to go in or just hang out on the shelf. Well, happy to say that this strange- looking bird house is getting a lot of traffic. God bless our little critter sanctuary.

Come to think of it, I have an old guitar that I’m not using,. Wonder how that would look hanging on a tree?

Gary Schneider is retired and plays guitar and sings at open mic venues as well as nursing homes. He also helps with a guitar class at Rufty-Holmes Senior Center.

Gloria Schneider is retired and enjoying oil painting, yoga and taking art classes. She and Gary both volunteer at the VA on Sunday afternoons  for the church service.