Yard Art...

Now...... where was I? Oh, yeah...... we were discussing my mountain, weren't we?


Did I ever mention to you that if you wander off yonder a ways, you can view about 200 miles of the Cascade Mountain Range? (What you see depends on where you are standing at the time!)





The view may always be there, but every couple years I have to go down the side of the mountain to clear away some of the Alders and Maple Trees that have grown enough to distract from the beauty of the scenery!

Now, I don't want you to think that I am anything but "gung ho" when I start a project like clearing the trees from the view, but I'll admit that once in a while I get a tiny bit off track.....

Two years ago, as I headed down the side of the hill I came across a forked Alder that caught my attention... It was early Spring, and the branches of the Alder were pliable, so with a little twisting and manipulating I formed the branches into a heart!

It would have much easier and quicker to create if I had opted to use twine to hold the branches in place, but in my mind that would have been cheating! The basic shape was fairly easy to accomplish by bringing the two outer branches together and intertwining them, using the new leaf buds as "stops" that interlocked the two. A third smaller branch was used to pull the center of the heart down to define the shape more clearly. Two or three times a year, I go back and do a bit of pruning and to weave any new branches into the pattern. My "heart" is only five feet tall now, but with luck there will come a day when you can wander off yonder and view my mountains right through my heart!



Before I close for today I suppose a few of you would like to know what I did with my Cedar logs.... Maybe?

The logs made an excellent bench to sit on as I pondered what to do with them, but...... naw...

I considered Loz's idea of using the logs as pillers on each side of the entry into the bird garden, but when I stood them in place... well, they just didn't look right because of the size difference.

However, once I moved the short log over next to the tall one, I knew that I was close to figuring out what they would become....

OK....

I'm probably the only person in the world with a 800 pound birdhouse! More precisely, I used the logs to create a combination bird house/bird feeder/squirrel den/planter!


There were several rotted knots that I dredged out slightly in the hope that the local song sparrows would find suitable for creating homes. Happily, the sparrows DID find the holes to their liking! Even better, two days later, a Northern Flicker began to excavate into the largest of the holes!

The top of the tall log was completely hollow so I cut a circle of plastic and laid it in the bottom of the 2 foot hole to help divert the majority of water away from the areas of the bird holes. Then I filled the hole with compost and planted a large sword fern in it!

The shorter log has a few more bird homes in it. I use the top as a bird feeding area!

I'm not sure if this is good or bad, but a Douglas Red Squirrel decided to build his burrow underneath the taller log.

All in all, I am pretty pleased with the end result of this project! The photo was taken before everything was completed, but you can get an idea of what I did. It seems that these logs will probably be a very busy place next Spring. I'll post a new photo for you then!