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Gardens and Scarecrows

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A few weeks ago I started clearing space for a small garden. Tedious work due to the area of the yard I picked, tons of some ugly vine that took hours to remove. I built four mini raised beds by using some 1x4” fence pickets and a small block of 2x4” at each corner. Not a lot of planting area, but enough for my daughters to plant a few different things and work on learning that food doesn’t magically appear at the grocery store. We planted one of just about everything; corn, tomatoes, green peppers, squash, broccoli, peppermint, egg plant, probably a few more.

I don’t know what made me think about it, but I realized that a good garden should have a scarecrow. Never made one, seemed like a good family thing,so added to the list. Kids definitely excited about it.

We built the first one using a 2x4” and a couple scraps of 1x4” for shoulders and waist. The clothes,if you can’t tell, are dockers and a button down shirt out of my closet (I wear long sleeves about once every 3 years). The head is a pillow case stuffed with Styrofoam from a a recent tool purchase, and the hat is a good panama straw hat that had suffered from being chewed on by one of our dogs. I was all set to stuff the clothes, add shoes and gloves, but they declared it good enough, finishing it off by drawing – hard to see – eyes a a mouth. It’s all just stapled together.

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I had only planned to make one, but I have two children, so we had to have two. Same basic construction, but this time my oldest insisted that this one wear a dress. Have to say I was taken aback, just didn’t have a picture in my head of female scarecrows, but why not? It’s another long sleeve shirt with a pillow case for the skirt.

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Here you can see the scale, one standing guard at each end. Not sure how scary they are, but also not sure the birds know the difference. I know when I park in the driveway on the other side of the fence I’ll catch the heads out of the corner of my eye and for a second think there is someone in the yard!

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Fun project, didn’t take long, and didn’t cost much – hard to beat.

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