Tag: Reuse

How to Stuff a Scarecrow to Last Through Rain & Snow

All Weather Scarecrow

I my early days of doing scarecrows, I stuffed them with straw. Where we live it rains several days in October. Occasionally it snows at least once by the end of the month. My scarecrows were smelly and starting to rot by the first of November. Often the clothes were not worth keeping more than a year or two. Last year I decided to try something different.

I was cleaning out my craft stuff and deciding what I want to use for that season. I have always crocheted and knitted a lot. Several years ago, I discovered that I could crochet with plastic grocery bags. I made a play rug for my youngest son for him to use with his cars and monster trucks. It looked like parking lots or tracks and he loved it. I also made beach bags and reusable grocery totes. I have always been big on recycling. I had saved a great deal of bags and my arthritis in my hands was making it hard to crochet the plastic. So, I was trying to decide how much I might use soon and if I should store the rest in my shed.

Suddenly I remembered stuffing an outside cushion with it so I could leave it out on rainy days. I dawned on me that it should work with my scarecrow. I started with a pair of jeans my son had outgrown. He had a growth spurt, suddenly taller than me. I put some big rubber bands on the ankles so the bags would not fall out and stuffed legs full and then the top part. I arranged the legs where I want hi to sit and got some old boots to stuff the ankles into, hiding the rubber banded area.

Next, I started the second step. I placed a large flannel shirt where I wanted it to sit on the pants and stuffed the body up to the sleeves, so it was full enough to sit up. I stuffed half of the sleeves from inside the neck then finished filling up the body enough that the neck hole stayed open. Finally, I stuffed the sleeves the rest of the way from the wrist opening so it was easy to place the arms the way I wanted them, bending a little at the elbow. I took a pair of work gloves and stuffed on bag in each. I buttoned the sleeve openings so the bags would not come out too easily and pull the gloves up over the wrists.

Final touch was to place a pumpkin on the neck opening, I used and old decorative pumpkin that we revived a few years before by painting it silver with splatters of black. Arrange his arms and legs however you want them and add a hat. I used and old gardening hat that was easiest to find this year, but I will probably hunt threw all the old stuff from years of drama club and see if I can find a straw hat. The best thing about this scarecrow is nothing purchased, just old stuff I would have been donating soon and it held up so well in the rain and a light snow, that I was able to re-use everything this year.

If you have any tips you have uses to create your own scarecrow, please share in the comments below and also share a picture if you have one.

Our Front Porch Project

Before

In our efforts to go a little bit greener we have tried to reuse as many materials as we can find and blend that with new for the rest. One of these projects was our front porch. We bought an older fixer upper home and the front porch was more of a front step, and the wood was beginning to fall apart making it unsafe. We tore it out and began with the new materials. This was a three-year process, as we were also working on other projects needing done.

First year

The first year my sons helped to build the larger porch area with a small step in front and on the side. My oldest was taking a carpentry class at the local career center as part of his high school class and wanted to try his hand at this project. So, my husband showed him the plan and let him do much of the work, with my youngest helping to get tools out in the morning and putting them up at the end of the day. This ended up as a nice usable porch as it was, so we stopped there and finished up our yard work, gardening and preparing for winter.

Buy sell site find

Year two I found a small wooden porch for sale on one of the local buy sell sites. It was the perfect size to add to the front of our porch replacing the temporary small step we had made the previous year. My oldest son went and picked it up and helped me put it in place.  My husband was dealing with cancer during these years and my son was graduating high school and preparing for entering the military, so we did not get any more done that year, but still it was much nicer than the original we had started with.

The third year my oldest son was gone to follow his calling, serving in the military and getting further education in his chosen field. Thankfully, my husband was done with cancer treatments and on the road to recovery. So, we found some weathered porch railings, again on one of the local buy sell groups and added them to the porch. My youngest son was now old enough to be a big help with this. We had thought about staining or painting the porch, but other projects needed finished. I love my front porch the way it is, being able to sit outside enjoying nicer days. Chatting with my neighbors who also love porch sitting makes staying at home during this pandemic much more pleasant.

Gardening & Recycling 2020

Here is my latest example of gardening and recycling. I walked around my yard this spring finding things that were hidden behind Lilacs and Trumpet Vines and other such things, that more than doubled since they were first planted. All these plants were starts from other plants I already had growing in other areas. At the very bottom of the picture you will see Chocolate Mint. I can’t really remember how long ago I planted it. We have lived here about 29 years and I generally plant one or two new things each year. Mostly I just get starts from old plants Or friends and neighbors sharing starts, only buying one or two new plants and maybe a few for my vegetable garden.

The Chocolate Mint could be a blog in itself. My boys were young when I started growing it. They were fascinated with the idea of playing outside and just picking a leaf or two off of it to chew on for a bit. Freshening their breath and tasting enough like the candy that Dad let them have a bite of once in awhile. I was fascinated with the idea that two little boys could be happy with something natural with no sugar. I had enough to harvest the second year and would dry it to make tea or add to my “Feel Better Tea” all winter. My oldest son had friends over a lot. I made a big pot of Chocolate Mint tea and poured to over ice for me. One of the friends asked if he could taste it. I of course told him he could and if he liked it, he could have as much as he wanted. I think he drank at least half of it and next time he came over he wanted me to make it again. He is grown now and I haven’t seen him for a bit. Someday I will have to ask him if he would like a start of it. My son is grown now, in the Navy and I rarely get to see him. He tells me that when he gets his own place someday, he wants starts of all his favorite tea ingredients.

The pot on the very top sitting on the cart has a volunteer Weeping Cherry Tree in the center. I have the loveliest huge Weeping Cherry in my front yard. We have four lots on the edge of town. Most of the neighbors have the same. When we moved here we thought it was like living in the country only there were very few trees on our property, no wild flowers, flower or vegetable gardens either. So we planted our own. The Weeping Cherry Tree was the first tree we planted. It has already lived longer than they are supposed to. It bloomed either on Easter or my birthday (April First) every year until recently. It was struck by lighting two years ago and we had someone cut all the dead out, that was mostly high up in the top of it. I noticed a little more dead limbs this year and my younger son trimmed the lower limbs. Still a few I need to get trimmed. I mentioned that to my Sailor son a few weeks ago and he said he would love it if I would save some seeds for him so he can have a baby tree from his favorite old tree. There was a rain storm shortly after and all the blooms where blown away, so when I later found this volunteer baby tree I immediately found a place to transplant it. The plants in the center of that pot had died and I hadn’t looked for anything to replace them yet, so the baby tree landed there. I wasn’t really sure how it would do, but I wasn’t losing anything but a little time which I enjoyed anyway. To my surprise it is doing very well and my son is happy about getting a baby tree instead of just a few seeds. I hope to get another volunteer next year in case my old tree ever dies I will plant another.

The cart was donated to me many years ago when my sisters two girls were moving out of a trailer and had a big rummage sale along with the small town yearly festival and rummage. I can’t remember which of the two it belonged to. I showed up early to help my sister who had a booth on the main street with the festival and the girls whose trailer was just a couple blocks away. A lot of stuff was sold that day, but the cart was still there and they offered it to me. It had been white but was mostly rust colored when I brought it home. I cleaned it up and dusted the rusty places with a light green spray paint. I liked how it turned out. We have a long wooden fence all the way down the side of our driveway. It was so plain looking that I decided to plant a couple Lilacs and two Trumpet Vines in between. I set that old cart by the fence along with several other things trying to dress up that fence the best that I could. That was probably about ten years ago. The Lilacs and the Trumpet Vines now cover the fence in a large area. I dug that old cart out and placed in front of my living room window and started piling on bits and pieces of pots and plants that were buried here and there behind other growing things. Most of the green paint has worn off and the rust is showing through here and there, but I like it the way it is. May need a little more paint in the future, but I will worry about that when the time comes.