One Man's Trash...

is another man's treasure. It is so true, isn't it? Last week one of the guys I work with brought me one of these wooden boxes and asked if I couldn't turn it into a duck nest box. All it was missing was the roof, bottom and hole. I was so excited and asked how many there were. There were six altogether, but when I looked at them I could tell that two would be more work than I wanted. He took those. These wooden rectangles were used to ship a large piece of equipment to the factory where I work. And as they say, if it looks like a duck box and quacks like a duck box, it must be a duck box!

While he intended to turn these into duck boxes, I looked at them and instantly thought "screech owls" (or flickers or woodpeckers)! I'm cuckoo for owls and we already have two duck boxes mounted anyway, so owl boxes they were.

Last night, Jim and I worked diligently to finish the boxes with proper hinged lids, bottoms with drainage holes and 3" entrance holes. Voila! They are ready to mount. I am giving one to my mom's friend in Michigan and another to the Black Swamp Bird Observatory if they will take one. I'll mount the third one as well as the big duck box in this photo.

While we had all the tools out (and the inspiration) we finished this cute log cabin bird box Jim built during Christmas. It was a prototype to the one he built for his parents as a gift. I'm currently looking for the perfect mounting pole. It has to be something that I can grow a vine on. This little log cabin is so cute I can't put it on a plain old pole. Isn't it precious? Don't miss the teenie birdhouse on it!