by Carolyn L. Brown from our Riverside Court location in Woodstock, NB.

Here at MacLeod Riverside Court, we are blessed to have so many talented residents who certainly do not mind sharing their talents with us.

This month, I want you to meet Dalton Albright who has lived with us since 2017. Throughout our home, we are pleased to have some of Dalton’s carvings decorating our common spaces and if you visit his suite here in the home you find a lovely mix of treasured carvings ranging from trucks to many horses and birds and animals. Surprisingly, when I asked Dalton when he started carving, and of course I was thinking it was a lifetime passion, he told me it was after he retired from his Government position in 1992. He had always had an interest, but time constraints with family and work didn’t allow the time until retirement.

Not being one to want to sit idly by in retirement, he began carving. His dear friends and neighbours here in Woodstock, the Sutherlands, inspired two of his first carvings. One was a bird and the other was a horse which reflected the interests of these neighbours. Those were the first of many birds and horses, and then his wife decided she wanted a tractor, also which became the first of many tractors. He recalls the first tractor took him 6.5 hours to carve. Imagine!

Dalton recalls meeting a friend when he had purchased an arm load of wood to carve his first truck to the tune of $6.00. Today, that sounds like a bargain, but in the day, not so much. His friend thought between the cost of the material and the labour intense hours to carve it, it wasn’t to be a very profitable endeavour. Dalton laughed as he told me this fond memory and again reinforced the simple fact it had nothing to do with the cost but simply the hours of enjoyment it provided him. He tells me he never used a screw or a nail in any of his carvings, just glue as needed.

As I chatted with Dalton about his carving, it was very evident the enjoyment he still gets from reminiscing about it all. When I asked when he last carved, he said it was about a year before coming to live here with us. His wife had become ill and he spent all his time with her until her passing. How thankful are we to have this talent living with us and his carvings in “ the big yellow house.”