one down one to go

Last fall and winter I was making birdhouses.  Some of them were included as part of the Christmas gifts for my children, part of them are hung by my parents at their home and their lake home.  Four will be hung at the farm.  Two of them were painted blue and I hung those on the white fence a couple days ago.  

I had two left to hang. These are both red, white and blue and are to go on the south wall of the barn, joining the barn quilt and fencepost flag already mounted there.  I was able to get one hung today.   I am still considering if the method that I used to hang it will be the final choice or if I will continue to look for a better way to attach this large, heavy birdhouse to the barn. 

In the picture above you can see several summer projects on my list.  The winter has been hard on the window below the birdhouse which needs to be repaired or replaced.  There are also plans in the works to build new barn doors.  When the granary door needed to be replaced last year Dad was able to replicate a door from a photo found on the internet.  After that success we just naturally decided to make matching doors for this building as well.  

Here is the other opening that needs doors.  I am picturing a dutch door on the single opening, above, and two doors that swing open armoire style for the double opening, below. 

 Below is the Granary with its brand spanking new door built by my dad and painted by my mom.  Thanks Mom and Dad. 

The door that inspired this project can be found on the blog listed on the sidebar to the right where it says 'inspiration'.

zeus

Today before the snow got started I took down the last of the winter decorations from the fence and replaced them with a couple bird houses.  They are blue and they are hanging near the bottle bush that holds the blue beer bottles.  If I put the blue bird bath in the same area it will be kind of a cobalt garden. 

I have two more birdhouses to hang.  These are flag colors and will hang on the barn alongside the fencepost flag.  Hanging those involves a ladder and a helper. 

In a related project I am planning to make a mason bee house to attract pollinators to the yard.  Mason bees do not sting and they will lay their eggs in tubes.  I have several lengths of bamboo that I can cut down to short lengths and place them in a box that will hang near the garden and orchard.  Perhaps if I paint the box blue it can hang in the cobalt garden. 

Today while it was snowing Cody and Sadie and I heard a very noisy vehicle.  Not sure at first what it was, I looked out the window and eventually saw a dark pickup driving in the field along the ditch across the road from our house.  We watched him travel east until he got to the approach by the dredge ditch and up he come, onto the road.  So of course we had to go check it out.  Turns out he went into the ditch west of our house just past the approach about halfway between our house and the neighbors, drove at an angle thru the ditch, up into the field and continued along the edge of the field until he got to the next approach.  Although there was very little snow on the road in front of our house, where he went in the highway was covered full width with a snow/slush mix.  Luckily he didn't hit the first approach and I imagine he didn't dare stop because he surely would have gotten stuck in the mud.  That ditch is pretty steep so I am wondering if he caught the edge of the approach as he went across.