993. Build a birdhouse

Danielle texted me towards the end of last year or the beginning of this year asking me bird house or bird feeder and I was like if it's for the bucket list, I need both. She picked up birdhouse and bird feeder kits. I was thinking she got these at like Home Depot or something.

The weather was finally nice enough to make our birdhouses and bird feeders after Danielle and I went on our bird hike. I met her at her house and discovered these weren't home depot kits.. there were from the Dollar Store. Normally that's not a problem. Dollar store crafts are cheap and fun. These were teeny tiny birdhouses and feeders... maybe for a hummingbird or something equally as small.

I was expecting to have to nail the pieces together. Oh no, these birdhouses and feeders required glue which was included in the kits. However since the birdhouse was made of balsa type wood, we were dealing with a very tiny edge to glue and try to get to hold. The hardest part was trying to get it not fall apart. Luckily Danielle was thinking ahead and got some craft glue as well which helped immensely.

It was not the most perfect bird house but it stayed together.

We probably should have painted it before we put them together. At least the kids thought about that and colored theirs with markers.

Fast forward several weeks and I finally got around to painting my birdhouse and bird feeder. I wanted to make them red and white but I didn't have any red paint. I wasn't going to the store to get red paint so blue sufficed.

In the meantime I lost the eyelet screw to put on the string for the bird feeder so it can't really go outside.

Once the paint dried, I hung my birdhouse in the tree. It last a day or two before the eyelet screw pulled loose. There really wasn't a good way to attached it to the birdhouse. So now my birdhouse is in the garage.

I can honestly say I built a birdhouse. Did a bird live in it? Nope. I really have no desire to make a bigger one. I'm not a huge bird fan and I find them annoying when they try to build nests near my patio. So it's probably a good thing I didn't make a large bird house. For all you bird people, if I get to make another birdhouse in the future, I'll gladly give it away.

337. Celebrate Cinco de Mayo

I've never been big into Cinco de Mayo but I do love my Mexican food. It might be the people I hang out with that we just don't do the whole margaritas on Cinco de Mayo thing. The hubby isn't a big fan of Mexican so we rarely go out for Mexican let alone on Cinco de Mayo.

When I discovered my annual tea party was on Cinco de Mayo, I was like I want a Mexican Tea Party. Does such a thing exist? Is it even possible to have a Mexican tea party? With some help from Google, Pinterest, and Stacy, it turns out that we most definitely can have a Mexican Tea Party. So what if it's not a "thing."

I told everyone that it was a Mexican Tea Party and bring your favorite Mexican dish. Erin was like I don't know any Mexican dishes. I was like make Mexican Wedding Cakes. She wanted to know if they were really Mexican. I was like close enough for me.

Since scones is a staple at my tea parties, I wanted to make Mexican scones if they even existed. Turns out that one can make Mexican Chocolate Chip-Oatmeal scones or even Cheddar Jalapeno scones. After looking over a few recipes, I figured I could adapt my go-to scone recipe into mini Mexican scones and that's what I did. I added some cocoa powder, cinnamon, and cayenne pepper to the batter. They were like the hot chocolate cookies at Christmas but in scone form. I did add cinnamon chips to half the batch. These might be my favorite new scone.

We had scones; we had Tres Leches Cake and churros. There were tacos and quesadillas. But you can't have a tea party without tea. Stacy found me a Mexican tea recipe that used Hibiscus petals. Thanks to World Market, I was able to find the actual petals and not just hibiscus tea. I am not a fan of iced tea but this stuff was amazing. Since I only had a 1/2 cup of petals (because I was cheap) I only made half a recipe which was definitely not enough by any means. Everyone loved it and I made sure to save Stacy a cup.

I was going to go all out and decorate with a Cinco de Mayo theme but time ran out so I went with the traditional tea party look.

Who knows next year what theme our tea party will have. I kind of liked having a theme to the tea party. We shall see...

My Mexican Tea Party probably wasn't the most "authentic" to celebrate Cinco de Mayo but it sure was fun. Maybe one day I will go out for Margaritas on Cinco de Mayo.

690. Go birdwatching

I don't even know why go bird-watching is even on the list. I like nature. I like going for hikes but I'm not one to sit and watch for nature. Maybe I thought everyone should go bird-watching at least once. Who knows.

Luckily Heckrodt Wetland Reserve is teeming with wildlife and has a bird club. The even better part is they have bird hikes periodically throughout the year so novice bird enthusiasts can learn the names of the birds and learn how to identify different birds in their yard. Since I figured there is no way, I'm going to do the whole bird-watching thing by myself with a pair of binoculars and a guidebook, I decided to participate in one of these hikes.. even if it was at 8 am on a Saturday.

Dragging Danielle and Gavin along, I joined the bird watching hike and even got my very own pair of binoculars to use. We didn't go more than 10 feet from the Nature Center before we saw our first birds. Okay so it helped there were feeders there. We saw cardinals, blue jays, robins, red-breasted blackbirds, among others. I've seen (and could identify) all of those birds. I swear we spent a good thirty minutes oohing and aahing over the birds at the feeders. Danielle and I hoped we would actually get to walk because so far I wasn't impressed.

After everyone got there fill of cardinals and robins, we headed down the boardwalk. Soon we stopped to find an board owl hanging out in top of a tree. After scanning the whole area, I finally was able to discover the owl. Even with all the pointing, I was having difficulties spotting him with my binoculars. I have to admit he was pretty cool to see and wished I brought the good camera.

There's an owl in those trees somewhere

Then we headed over to the pond. The pond had small ducks. I've seen those around the complex before. However, we also saw white herons and blue herons. The white heron was a bi tricky to pick out since he was hanging out along the edge of the marsh. A seagull was having fun trying to pull something out of the water. Danielle and I were disappointed we saw no turtles. I know I know this is a bird hike but still the turtles would have been cool.

Danielle suggested we head over the bridge. There we found a hawk and some other birds. By this time I was losing interest in the birds and wanted to get on with my day. However, since I borrowed the binoculars I needed to stay with the group.

Eventually we headed back to the nature center and I could head home. I don't mind bird watching per se but I definitely have about an hour attention span and we better be moving a lot. Maybe that's my problem, I can't stay in one place long enough to look for birds.

Will I ever bird watch again? Maybe. The right opportunity will have to present itself. Until then I will just keep wandering through the wetlands hoping to see a woodpecker or owl.