Where Birds Get Together

 

Before I tell you about our "big" project we accomplished in May, I want to briefly get back to my last post about the nesting Mourning Doves. Someone asked what happened to the babies after one of the parents was caught by the hawk. Thankfully, the little doves had already left the nest when this happened. The other parent is still on his or her own (I really can't tell whether it's female or male) and sometimes hanging around our backyard.

Now let's get to our May project. We need to go way back more than 25 years when we were still living in Germany and bought a sun umbrella by Ombrelloni di creco, a German company who manufactured their beautiful sun umbrellas in the village near Tübingen where we were living. These umbrellas are of very high quality and the frame is made of wood.

Fast forward more than 20 years and the fabric of this heavily used sun umbrella started to deteriorate. Because of its rectangular shape we weren't able to find a replacement, so the wooden frame went into the shed. And finally we had a brilliant idea - turn it into a bird feeding station.

The Geek started the process by sanding the whole thing down.

After he had completely disassembled it, we varnished it on a warm Sunday - four coats with two hours each of drying time in between. Of course it took the entire day to do this. Kibeau was our supervisor.

After a couple days of drying out, the Geek re-assembled the frame, again under the supervision of Kibeau.

Finally we were able to put it up - here it is in all its glory. 

The hummingbird likes to hang out on the thin rope that stabilizes the "branches" of the new "tree".

So do the House Finches, before they land at the feeders.

The Hooded Orioles are frequent visitors at the little bowl filled with organic grape jelly.

But look at that! The California Scrub Jay likes that jelly, too! Can you see all the red stuff in his beak?

I love to see the Chestnut-Backed Chickadees at the feeders. They buzz in and out and always seem to be busy.

The Oak Titmouse first seems to check things out before settling down for a snack. They also like to nibble the jelly.

And of course it took the squirrel less than 15 minutes to figure out the new feeder opportunities!

With all these sweet faces I'm joining again Nicole's Friday Face Off.

Don't Fence Me In!

But that's exactly what we did - we fenced ourselves in.

We started out in January - the month was so dry that it was okay to start right away. The Geek designed the fence and then one Saturday afternoon began building.

Everything of this fence is handmade (except for the nails and screws and stuff like that). We bought the redwood and then set up the miter saw and cut, cut, cut. After I had asked him, the Geek showed me how to handle the saw and I was happily cutting the pickets.

The Geek dug the holes in the ground for the posts, sometimes with the help of Kaefer. I was the one who screwed the pickets in place for a big part of the fence, slowly working my way along.

Until, one day in March, the fence was completed. It was a day to celebrate.

It feels so much nicer now with our fence. We will keep it in this natural state, even though the color will gradually change to gray. But that is okay.

I'm linking this to "Good Fences" at the Run *A* Round Ranch for the first time - this definitely is a good fence!