Birding

Here at casa de la Steinke there are birds galore: Robins, cardinals, blue jays and woodpeckers to name a few. They love all the trees in the woods behind our house. After the new fence went up, one of the posts stuck out over the fence quite a bit more than the rest of them. So I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone -- so to speak -- by building a birdhouse for our feathered friends.

I did some Googling for birdhouses and settled on a version of this one. It looked fairly simple, and I have bluebirds in my neighborhood.

The interweb said to put the birdhouse close to a tree. What a lucky coincidence that my post was next to our only mature tree.

The best part was, it cost me almost nothing. I used a weathered, slightly warped piece of wood I found at grandpa Steinke's house. I nailed the wood together with some moderately rusty nails, which I bought in a large jar at a garage sale for $2 earlier this summer. I had a carriage bolt leftover from when we built the fence. And I attached the roof with a somewhat rusty hinge I salvaged from something else here at the house.

I didn't buy a new piece of wood and build a clean, perfectly-square birdhouse because it would've blended in with the fence. I really liked the weathered ones I saw online, so that's what I aimed for. Having everything I needed to accomplish that look for virtually free was icing on the cake.

Augie and Gretchen weren't impressed.

They were too busy having fun in the pool.