Building a Better Birdfeeder

by Kerry Blair

Today after school, half a pack of Cub Scouts will descend on my back porch, giddy with excitement over using power tools, sharp, pointed objects, and real iron hammers to build their very own birdfeeders. (Pray for me.) I suspect Scouts have been undertaking this project since Lord Baden-Powell saw his first hungry sparrow a century ago. Obviously, in all that time – and with the incredible advances of technology – there are now many ways to go about this project.

This is my problem exactly.

When I took over Cubs a few months ago, my sister-in-law gave me half a garage-full of books, files, flags, and left-over projects. I discovered the prototype for my feeder in her junk. It is, in my humble opinion, ingenious in that it’s functional, requires the use of almost every tool I can personally name and/or handle, and allows a lot of leeway for creative expression on the part of the boys.

Come to find out, there are people who appreciate none of these things.

First Case in Point
I was at my brother’s house in Mesa yesterday when I mentioned that we’d be making bird feeders. With obvious elation, he told me about the father/son make-and-takes they have in their troop. Seems the “guys” all get together one afternoon and the dads make the kits for the kids to assemble. Right. The birdfeeder hanging on the tree in his yard has my nephew’s name on it, sure, but looks like it should be stamped Ikea. Even if I wanted to aim for perfection like that, I couldn’t achieve it. Martha Stewart couldn’t do it. Of course, Martha Stewart wouldn’t try. Forget plywood, Martha’s all about gourds for fall.

Case in Point the Second
I came home the other day to a sack full of gourds left outside my front door by a helpful Cub mother. Stapled to the bag was a print-out from Martha Stewart’s web site, showing me step-by-step how to make absolutely adorable girly birdhouses. When I called her (the mom, not Martha) to explain that we were making manly birdfeeders – using power tools and sharp tacks and iron hammers – she said, “But gourds are so pretty. Remember, I’m the one who has to hang up whatever my kid brings home.” Tough luck for her, I say. She should have thought of that before she gave birth to a boy.

Third Case that Sort of Makes a Point
This morning another mother called to tell me that when she was a den leader she bought birdhouse kits from the Scout Shop. They were all the same and all you had to do was snap them together and slap on a little paint. Slapping paint is pretty fun, I guess, but using power tools to make whatever design you want is funner. (Besides, even if I wanted to take her suggestion, the nearest Scout Shop in more than a hundred miles away. As far as I know, they don’t deliver.)

Fourth Exhibit in My Ongoing Case-Point Making
About an hour ago . . . you know, I could go on (and on and on – I’m like that), but my four- and six-year-old nieces are here and have run out of patience with blogging in general and me in particular. More precisely, they ran out of patience around 7 AM and I’ve been writing one sentence – or word – at a sitting since then. Better people than me (Julie, Stephanie, Sariah, Jeff, Rob) would persevere, but I just don’t possess the multi-tasking gene they do. You’ll just have to believe that I was planning to liken building a better birdfeeder to writing a better book in an ironic, insightful, absolutely fascinating and probably profound sort of way. Instead, I’m going to abandon this blog mid-thought and go play “Spin for Spots” instead. This afternoon when my daughter comes home to babysit I’m going to let nine-year-olds build a better birdfeeder in the way they see best.

I’ll let you know how it goes.