The surprising and happy side benefit of planting sunflowers in my garden was the daily visits by goldfinches to our backyard.
But sadly, when the sunflowers faded, so did the visits.
The goal of this week's Field Trip Friday was to bring back the birds.
My Dad had an ingenious way of keeping the birds in his garden. It involved a trip to his friend's farm for some faded sunflowers, a wooden stake, and a roll of duct tape. Worked like a charm.
While I loved his idea, I was looking for something that would last the whole winter and that could be installed near our kitchen window for easy viewing during the winter months. The educational goal is to learn about the native varieties of birds....what they eat, how they behave, what they look like....
So this week, Beppe and Nonno came to visit and helped us with our project. We all piled into their SUV, me between the car seats in the back,
and headed to.....
Clearly we were in the right spot, since this was the display just inside the front door.
We purchased some supplies.
Pushed some carts, and admired some forklifts.
And headed home to fire up the power tools.
Nonno spoiled us by doing most of the assembly work ahead of time in his workshop, but Mimi helped drill some holes for drainage.
Nonno dug a deep hole for the post, and I covered the surrounding area with plastic sheeting to attempt to prevent my kitchen herb garden from being invaded by germinating bird seeds in the spring. (I'm not kidding myself though, I know I'll be pulling up seedlings for most of the next growing season.)
Lastly, we added some seeds, and now we wait for the birds.
So far, no luck. Mimi suggested we make a sign so the birds know where to go. If we have no visitors by tomorrow, we may do just that.
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