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Our "Ever-blooming Plant Box" can be adapted to whatever sizes
of pots you wish to use in it, and may be built with or without the trellis
shown. It will make a bright spot of color beside your front door, on the
terrace, or wherever you finally decide to use it. By fitting it with wheels,
you'll be able to move it about from spot to spot, changing it about
each day or each week, or whenever you give a party.
The "Ugly Duckling Doors" also require but little skill and only a bit
of patience for their rebirth and refurbishment. Old cracked panels
and odd, mismatched doors can be made into smart, fresh ones and will
last many years when they are covered and brought up to date this way.
These, then, are our "Little Projects," which we hope will inspire you
to find fun in building and will give you many years of pleasure and
profit from their use when they are completed.
May all your Little Projects become big ones as your skill and confidence grows.
STRICTLY FOR THE BIRDS
With the encroachment of building developments around cities, more
and more wooded areas are being decimated, sometimes being destroyed altogether. Birds are having a rather thin time of it these days
when it comes to finding suitable quarters for building nests and rearing
families. Every person who has the faintest interest in outdoor life and
in conservation will want to help to remedy this deplorable situation,
not only for the amusement afforded by watching the birds as they go
about the business of rearing their young, but for the very sound,
practical reason that they do so much good in ridding gardens and trees
of pernicious pests.
What can you do? Build bird houses and shelters and make feeding
stations, so that during the winter you can supplement their insect
and seed rations, particularly during the severe days when natural foods
may be iced over and unavailable.
A great many birds will adapt themselves to dwelling in man-made
houses and also are tolerant of living near human habitations. If you
wish to lure birds into your garden, the main consideration will be to
construct a house which will fit the requirements of the kinds of birds
you wish to attract. For instance, robins, phoebes, wrens, and bluebirds,
all fairly common in a good many areas, are amenable to living in man-
made shelters. Purple martins and flickers, song sparrows, titmice, nuthatches, barn swallows, house finches, woodpeckers, and even some of
the owls, are known to be open-minded about setting up housekeeping
in civilized houses. But each kind of bird prefers a certain kind of
house, usually liking it placed at a certain convenient level and in an
environment suited to its needs or attractive to the species.
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