For the third consecutive night the temperatures never dropped below freezing. It was supposed to on Sunday night but stopped falling at around 35 degrees. Last night is stayed in the 40s all night. Today it got up into the 50s for the third consecutive day. Virtually all the snow is gone from around the Aerie and we are supposed to get over half an inch of rain tonight and tomorrow. That should remove pretty much the rest of the snow except where it's piled high and packed into ice.
I'm beginning to wonder how they will have sledding and x-country skiing at the Winterfest to be held at Hills Creek State Park on Saturday. I asked a birding buddy of mine today if they were going to have iced tea instead of hot cholclate on hand. He said probably not but they may open the beach.
I applied one coat of boiled linseed oil to by birdhouses yesterday. The wood soaked it up so quickly I didn't need to wipe off any excess. I may even put a second coat on them tomorrow.
I also started to build two Screech Owl boxes. These are just much larger versions of the smaller birdhouses. The floor is 8" x 8" instead of 4" x 4 1/2" and the hole is 3 1/2" in diameter some 10" above the floor. To build these I'm still using the tongue-and-groove pine boards (this time the 1" x 6" version) but I've got to put two together to get the right width. They're coming out pretty good, if you ask me but they sure do chew up the boards! For these two bird houses, I'm using up three 14' long 1" x 6" boards. And I don't have half the number of clamps I need to glue all the boards together.
I might be able to finsih one of them tomorrow but due to the clamp issue it might take me until Friday to get the second finished.
2 comments:
I was just bugging my hubby yesterday to make some bird houses. I hope you get some screech owls this year!
Was reading up on owl boxes and thought I'd pass this on. All the plans I looked at said to make the hole an oval 3 1/2" X 4" to better accommodate the wings.
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