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If you read the recent post about my New Year’s resolutions for 2022, you learned how much I dislike winter. So, one of my goals for this year is to come up with several fun activities to make winter more tolerable.
My first project was to create a bird feeder to hang on my deck. I anticipated it bringing hours of entertainment for me and for my cat, Ollie.
To make the bird feeder, I began by saving empty toilet paper rolls. I painted the rolls with peanut butter and rolled them in colorful birdseed. After stringing the rolls together, I hung my new bird feeder on the railing of my deck.
Tip: If you’re doing this project at the nursing home, you may wish to use pine cones instead of toilet paper rolls. When I volunteered at the nursing home, I collected pine cones from a nearby park in the summer and saved them for craft projects. If you don’t have evergreen trees in your area, you can find pine cones in lots of different sizes on Amazon.
I was quite pleased with the way my bird feeder turned out. My plan was to post a photo of Ollie gazing out the window, watching a flock of happy birds feasting at their new bird feeder.
Well, it didn’t turn out quite that way. The next morning, I got up to discover the bird feeder was gone. And then I saw it. One tiny section of my masterpiece remained, lying decimated on the snow below my deck.
I suspect a squirrel as the culprit—perhaps assisted by a few rabbits after the bird feeder hit the ground. Anyway, you can see the results in the photo at the top of this post.
As with any failed project in life, we have two choices. We can throw in the towel and call it quits. (And sometimes that’s okay.) Or we can evaluate what went wrong and come up with a new plan. I’m choosing to do the latter.
Once again, I’m collecting toilet paper rolls. I’m also researching ways to create a squirrel-proof bird feeder. Next week I plan to give it another try.
I’ll bet you’ve had a few projects that didn’t turn out quite as planned, too. Perhaps it was an activity you did with the residents at the nursing home, or maybe it was something you tried at home. Please share your story in the comment section!
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