I have one of the best views right from my bedroom window. I can see a part of the dirt road I live on and I can see my gardens. Okay sometimes its not the best view looking down because then I realize how much work I have yet to do on my gardens. But right now even with the gardens needing a lot of attention my view is great. And the reason for this is swallows and robins.
A few years ago I started being gifted tools. I call them my 'girl' tools because they are scaled down versions of some tools/machinery that can be fairly large. I have a small drill press that sits on a counter top. They make huge drill presses that could not even fit in my cellar. So slowly over the past few years I have been gifted lots of tools and/or machinery. I got my hubby an air compressor he got me an air nail gun. And so it goes.
Of course the one drawback is I really don't know how to use most of this stuff. I may be married to a carpenter and know how to hammer a nail but actually figuring out and using stuff that could possibly hurt back? Nope, hadn't done that.
But I found that instead of trying to start out large, like building a chest of drawers, start small. Birdhouses are small. Birdhouses come in a variety of styles and can be embellished upon. They also teach you the first lessons of cutting straight lines, learning angles and how to nail things together that need two set of hands to hold all the pieces. They also can be made with a variety of scrap wood so you don't need a big investment there.
The first birdhouse design I stumbled upon was totally different. A birdhouse with only 3 sides. A kind of 'shelf' birdhouse for birds that prefer not being in an enclosed box. Robins being and example. So I struggled through and made 3 of them. I hung them in various, suggested locations around the yard and the birds ignored them. I swear I heard laughter from them. So much for that.
I tried again this past winter. I made swallow houses. A bit more complicated. But overall they came out well. I made 3 but only had 2 poles to mount them on. I figured even if the damn birds didn't like them, they added a bit of art to the garden. So I got them on the poles and attached them to our fence. Then a miracle occurred. A pair of swallows came and started looking at one of the houses. Then they moved in!
When I look out my bedroom window in the morning I can see the male hanging off the front of the birdhouse busy feeding bugs to his mate. This is thrilling and what adds to it is one of those silly 'shelf' birdhouses about 25' away is occupied by a robin. I got birds!!!
It is an amazing feeling to watch these beautiful birds swoop and dive across our front lawn. I get to spend a season with them. That in one word is 'awesome'.
They don't seem to mind me wandering about as I do my yard work. I am probably helping both sets of birds with stirring up the bugs for the swallows and mucking about in the dirt gets the other bugs and worms moving for the robins.
There are days when I think, 'this is the best time of my life.' I have found that in the balance of my life, the best times do out weigh the worse. But it isn't a balancing act. It's just life. As my little grandma would say (& this is paraphrasing), stop and see the sunset. Don't just look at it. See the clouds, the colors, feel the air. See the sunset. Like I see this dirt road, the same, different, changing, staying the same. Now that I have walked it, I see it, I no longer just look at it. And what a difference that makes.
A few years ago I started being gifted tools. I call them my 'girl' tools because they are scaled down versions of some tools/machinery that can be fairly large. I have a small drill press that sits on a counter top. They make huge drill presses that could not even fit in my cellar. So slowly over the past few years I have been gifted lots of tools and/or machinery. I got my hubby an air compressor he got me an air nail gun. And so it goes.
Of course the one drawback is I really don't know how to use most of this stuff. I may be married to a carpenter and know how to hammer a nail but actually figuring out and using stuff that could possibly hurt back? Nope, hadn't done that.
But I found that instead of trying to start out large, like building a chest of drawers, start small. Birdhouses are small. Birdhouses come in a variety of styles and can be embellished upon. They also teach you the first lessons of cutting straight lines, learning angles and how to nail things together that need two set of hands to hold all the pieces. They also can be made with a variety of scrap wood so you don't need a big investment there.
The first birdhouse design I stumbled upon was totally different. A birdhouse with only 3 sides. A kind of 'shelf' birdhouse for birds that prefer not being in an enclosed box. Robins being and example. So I struggled through and made 3 of them. I hung them in various, suggested locations around the yard and the birds ignored them. I swear I heard laughter from them. So much for that.
I tried again this past winter. I made swallow houses. A bit more complicated. But overall they came out well. I made 3 but only had 2 poles to mount them on. I figured even if the damn birds didn't like them, they added a bit of art to the garden. So I got them on the poles and attached them to our fence. Then a miracle occurred. A pair of swallows came and started looking at one of the houses. Then they moved in!
When I look out my bedroom window in the morning I can see the male hanging off the front of the birdhouse busy feeding bugs to his mate. This is thrilling and what adds to it is one of those silly 'shelf' birdhouses about 25' away is occupied by a robin. I got birds!!!
It is an amazing feeling to watch these beautiful birds swoop and dive across our front lawn. I get to spend a season with them. That in one word is 'awesome'.
They don't seem to mind me wandering about as I do my yard work. I am probably helping both sets of birds with stirring up the bugs for the swallows and mucking about in the dirt gets the other bugs and worms moving for the robins.
There are days when I think, 'this is the best time of my life.' I have found that in the balance of my life, the best times do out weigh the worse. But it isn't a balancing act. It's just life. As my little grandma would say (& this is paraphrasing), stop and see the sunset. Don't just look at it. See the clouds, the colors, feel the air. See the sunset. Like I see this dirt road, the same, different, changing, staying the same. Now that I have walked it, I see it, I no longer just look at it. And what a difference that makes.
No comments:
Post a Comment