threegardeners's blog: Thanksgiving was for the birds...

Posted on Oct 10, 2011 9:05 PM

Years and years ago my Dad built a garden seat/bench for Mom. It was beautiful and she used it a lot to rest between playing in the garden.

Eventually, after a lot of use and then being moved here its legs, that were buried in the ground, rotted away and it blew over one summer.

DH leaned it up against the shingle shack and I'd hide in there while photographing birds.

Then, as things made of wood in our climate will do the cedar shingles rotted and the sides fell off.

Oh, wait, you're all probably back there wondering what the dickens is a "shingle shack".The shingle shack is a building that resides in my back yard. It was, way back in 1835, the original homestead. According to the old timers here in the village, it was used during the first war as a safe place to keep all of the towns important documents. True? I don't know...but nobody (including myself) has ever had the heart to tear it down.

Now, where was I? Oh, right. I've been rescuing pigeons at work. There are 5 crows that tend to hunt them, as crows will do. They sometimes miss and knock the pigeons for a bit of a loop. The pigeons live on the roof of the gas station. The loopy pigeons wander around and used to get squished by cars. Until I started working there that is. I run out and scoop them up and bring them home until they get better.

You're all probably wondering about now if I've got some kind of point happening here...am I actually going someplace or just typing aimlessly. You'll see...

Well, the pigeons have been living on my front porch. It's screened in but it was getting kind of...um...messy. Pigeons are not the cleanest birds. DH knows that there's no way I'm going to stop rescuing pigeons, so he came up with a solution. Pigeon coop.

He took out the window in the shingle shack and put that garden bench in front of it, wrapped it with chicken wire and ta da! one run out for pigeons. Inside was a different story. He needed help. Enter the man DH occasionally works for. He keeps pigeons and has also been known to build the occasional house.

The turkey was in the oven. It was an amazingly gorgeous October day (in the 80's). Tools were set up, wood was scrounged.


Inside of the shingle shack.	Wood and tools gathered. DH is the tall, scrawny one on the right.

Me? I know well enough to let men do their thing when tools are involved. I grabbed my camera and took a look around to see what was happening.


Found some bugs.

Meanwhile, work was progressing right along.


Walls being made and chicken wired.

The turkey finished cooking. We all took a break to eat. Turkey, stuffing, carrots and parsnips out of the garden, home made rolls, gravy and lemon pie for dessert. We ate outside since it was such a lovely day. Couldn't of asked for a nicer Thanksgiving.

After lunch the men commenced work on the inside.