In the mean time

Over at the barn...

Over at the barn there is little assembly line of bird house parts being manufactured by my husband and my great niece, Laura.

Our old cedar picnic table had seen better days and the holes for the lag bolts were getting too loose to tighten up anymore, so when Tony and Hazel visited from England in early May, Tom and Tony disassembled the picnic table and burned all the short wood and stacked all the long pieces for bird house construction at a later date.

Many nights after school, Laura helped Uncle Tom mill the wood to the proper thickness and I found two bird house patterns for the little carpenter crew to make.

Tom is easily confused when you have to measure and cut and when there are multiple pieces for a project, stand aside.  Laura was a huge help making a list of all the pieces needed for a bird house and how many to cut, etc.  She is an excellent list maker.

Before anything at all could be done, two boards would have to be glued together.  That was the first step.  Then milling to the proper thickness, Then measure, mark and cut out the pieces.

One afternoon Laura came and asked how big a hole was needed for wrens and I looked it up on the internet.  1 1/8” is how big the hole can go and that keeps the sparrows from using the bird house.  Down the basement and searching the drawers netted a drill bit that was the proper size.  I think this is the very first time a project got started and no tool had to be purchased…well wood glue, they ran out of that.  It doesn’t freeze well apparently!

I went to the barn today to see how things were progressing and found Laura painting designs on the bird houses so they look pretty.

Recycle, reuse and build a skill.

And they planted the beans and tomatoes in between the sunny days and the rainy days.  Perfect timing.