The Final Roll Out

During the warmer weather this past week, I awoke to the sounds of many more martin arrivals.  I could tell they were new arrivals by the way the excited resident males were circling the racks and landing on the upper perching rods, flicking their tails and bouncing their screeching calls off the back of the house.  Summer time with my martins is the ONLY time I am willing to get up early!
After work this past Wednesday afternoon, I decided to make the final roll out of the rest of my gourds.
I had been holding back 1/2 of them for awhile mainly to keep the number of gourds that would need hand warmers to a minimum, just in case the weather turned frigid.  Another reason was to try to force more martins under the new owl cage on the big rack, until I could get out and put up the owl guards on my other 2 racks.  Lastly, I was hoping that some of the arrivals would disperse to some other new colonies and potentially help some of the landlords that I mentor start their new colonies.

I love this little squeaky, noisy trailer.  I bought it 4 years ago for $75.  Bob hates it because it's so noisy, but I love to run around with it bouncing along behind me.  He can hear me coming from anywhere on the property.  I can handle anything with my little trailer - just give me a shovel and some plants and I'm off and digging and planting.  I can also cram over 24 gourds in it.

But I knew I was forgetting something.  Oh yes, my mounting arms!  So, I walked back to fetch them from the garage and decided to do some bicep curls on the way back to the racks with them.  After all, this will save me having to spend 30 minutes on the Elliptical later!

I found a good use for that Parmesan container that has been sitting in the garage for the last year - one of those things I just couldn't throw away because it 'might be handy for something someday'.  Well, it has a new purpose in life!  Why spend money on those little screw containers at Lowe's when you can just re-purpose these?

The martins were very curious about the added gourds.

And for some reason, my camera switched right back to black & white pictures while I was shooting. .  That's okay, I like them as well as color pictures anyway.

Today was so warm and several things are bloomed or getting ready to bloom, so I decided to put out a few mason bee cocoons.

Mason bee cocoons

I placed them on top of some of the tubes that I rolled this winter.  I turned this old file box on its side and removed the top.  It should protect them from getting wet.  I put the cocoons on top of the tubes, so that when they chew their way through and crawl out, they will know where to come back to.  I also put some chicken wire over the open part of the box so that birds can't make a meal out of the cocoons.

Friend Lumber told me I could have all the old pallets out of their scrap yard that I wanted.  I've tucked in some bamboo shoots, elderberry canes, the box of tubes, some bricks I found in the scrap pile, and some 3" PVC with rolled tubes inside also.  I still have some stuff to put in, but it's really starting to shape up!

The number of poles in the yard that Mr. Freeze has to mow around has now been reduced by 2.  He came up with this plan and I agreed.  I love it too!  These 3 cameras are the same distance from each rack they're monitoring and even closer than they were last year.

This year, I'm continuing to use the heavy duty garden stakes from Lowe's for my 2 Deluxe systems, but today I added the fencing on top, to keep the owl from landing directly on the top row.  He left these racks alone last year - for now, I'll monitor, and if he goes after these, I have the frame created and only need to add more fencing.

It felt therapeutic to get out in the sun today and put the final touches on a lot of my projects.  I was rewarded this evening with many more martins coming in to the housing.  I estimate that I'm not quite 1/2 full right now.  Looks like migration is still a bit slower this year, at least, that's what I'm seeing at my site.  It will be interesting to see how things progress this year.