In my life as a carpenter, most projects start with some kind of demolition, and friends inevitably ask me what kinds of things we find in old buildings.  I think they’re mostly imagining that I have a story about a cookie tin full of old silver dollars.  I don’t, and the one diamond ring I found I felt obligated to return to the homeowners.

It turned out that it wasn’t theirs, but they kept it anyhow.  No one lays claim, though, when we encounter the remains of animals that share our homes. We find our share of desiccated mice and squirrels,

but sometimes something really cool turns up.

 

 

I found this cigar-like object as we were removing cedar shingles from an exterior wall in preparation for installing a new door.  It’s a nest from a solitary leafcutter bee of the genus Megachile.  They cut semicircular fragments of leaves and bring them into existing cavities to form their multi-chambered nests.  Each cell in the nest gets an egg and some honey-like substance to nourish the hatching young.  After the new bees emerge, the nest remains to puzzle a carpenter years later.