It's the Simple Things: May 2009

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Concrete Birdbath

Maybe it's a sign of the times...maybe it's just a sign of getting older! Either way, I am driven by a yearning to live more simply. On this journey, by choice, is my loving husband, Don. Also along, but mostly just for the ride, is our teenage daughter, Elizabeth.

I think that "living more simply" goes hand in hand with "being more creative". For example, for years I used a wonderful, concrete, hand-me-down-from-my-Aunt-Sandy birdbath in one of the front-yard flowerbeds. I loved the way it looked, nestled in some tall grasses, under the birch tree. And I loved watching the birds drink and bathe from it. Then one year it just decided to quit holding water!

So it sat, empty. I couldn't afford to replace it, didn't know if it could be "fixed", and desperately wanted to continue offering water to the birds that visit our yard. Fast-forward a bit to my visit, this spring, to a gardening friend's house. I admired the simple, concrete birdbaths she had made herself, just by heaping some dirt into a pile, mixing up a bag of concrete, and (as she put it) "slopping it on and letting it dry". I could do that!

It all came together that day...the old birdbath would look great, moved to a different flowerbed and filled with plants that could tolerate heat and a home in concrete (the slow-leaking water made it a perfect place for succulents). Then I bought a couple $3.00 bags of concrete at the hardware store, weeded out a place to form my dirt birdbath molds, and, for very little money and just a little time, had multiple birdbaths for my fine-feathered friends! I cut a leaf from my horseradish plant, formed the dirt mold to fit the leaf, put the leaf face-down on the mold and then "slopped" the concrete on and let it dry; I raided the pumpkin leaves to form another. The next day, I flipped my birdbaths over and peeled the leaves off. Functional, creative, simple birdbaths...I love it (and so did the birds and the bees!).