I went out in High Noon mostly-sunny Northeast Georgia mid-spring timing, this day that means in the high 70’s. To do what? Move the big cedar gazebo feeder. It’s a large feeder on top of a cedar pole that is secured by a stake in the bottom of the cedar pole.
The original design has a side of the cedar pole off of it so that the metal stake can be driven into the ground, then the pole “wrapped” around the stake, then tiny brads driven through the “cover” to secure the pole and make it look “solid”. The pole is square, by the way. The middle of the pole is in two pieces, meaning the top of the pole screws down into the bottom of the pole. The top of the pole has a mounting platform for the feeder, and the feeder itself.
Well, I couldn’t undo the “wrapped” pole from the stake, so I had to figure out how to pound it all into the ground.
Why was I moving it? It was loose in the ground where it was, and I wanted to bring it closer to the house anyway.
So back to the installation story. I found the old northern white cedar mallet that came from our children’s play set installation. It worked well, but then I had to get a garden spade to cut through some of the grass/weed roots down a few inches. The metal stake is a “v-like” stake so I had to get the holes started with two lines like this: < : sort of. I put the stake back into the ground and pounded away with the northern white cedar mallet. It all seemed to be moving downward some with each !whack!, as was my tolerance for the heat. I was delighted to see that most all the stake was in the ground. The pole has a bevel cut at the bottom, and I can do more work to shore that up and keep the pole straighter, and make it less wobbly. For now it's fine. I was at my dropping point then, but I had to keep on truckin'. I screwed the top pole/feeder combo onto the bottom half of the pole then I dragged myself into the garage, which means climing onto the deck's several steps, going across it in the blazing heat (the sun beats hard on the back of the house, and on the deck, the temperature is at least 20 degrees higher than in the yard. Ick!) Into the house, through the kitchen to the garage. I had to haul out my new big bags of bird seed, and dump parts of them into a big bucket to mix it all up. I use a commercial birdseed mixture, and add straight black oil sunflower seed to that. I like heavy sunflower eating birds! So at this point I was ready to just plop onto the floor, but continued to go on, and lugged that bucket out to the deck, then grabbed a bistro chair there to take with me to the bird feeder. I was sweating and nearly shaking, and hauling a chair in one hand, and a 6 gallon bucket filled with seed in the other hand. I found a bowl in the yard and used that as my scooper. We always have bowls in the yard, for some reason! Handy this time! I scooped and scooped and filled up the feeder. I dragged the buck and tools back to the house, and myself included. I dropped it all inside the kitchen door. I couldn't do anything but go wash my hands and then get an ICY cold Coca-Cola. Ahhh! I'm cooling off now, and feeling better. Heat just kills me. So why'd I go out at High Noon to do such a task. Yup. Tsk Tsk. I'm glad to have that done though. Now the birds can come back and feed. The feeder had been empty for quite a few months. Not my choice, just what happened. In the future, when I camp out on the deck with camera in hand, I'll be able to get more close-ups into that feeder. 🙂