Owl Boxes and Wood Sheads

 

Life at the Little Homestead

There’s always something happening here at the little homestead — in fact, a lot is going on. We’re outside all the time. The previous owner took all the firewood with him when he moved, so we’ve had to gather quite a bit ourselves.
We’ve managed fine with small branches from the forest, half-rotten fallen wood, and the like. At the same time, we’ve felled, sawn, and split several dead trees. Everything is sorted into dry, almost dry, and wet.

So far, I’m deeply impressed with how well we can get by just burning branches. It takes about 20 minutes to fill the wood baskets, and that’s enough for a day and a half — though it’s not freezing yet. Once winter comes, we’ll start the furnace, but I’m still amazed how efficient a small wood stove can be.

We’ve just built a few extra wood sheds from leftover construction timber and free finds from Facebook. A layer of tar makes them look really good.

In general, playing around with leftover wood, rough-cut boards, pallets, and tar is excellent practice for next summer’s shelter project. I’m testing some ideas through these wood sheds and carports.

---

Owl Boxes

It’s been a while since we heard the first tawny owl out here, and later another joined — so we now have a pair. Tawny owls don’t build nests; they find them — and those are in short supply. So, we used a plan from uglekasse.dk, bought a large sheet of waterproof plywood, and built four owl boxes.

I had some roofing felt left from the house renovation; it’s waterproof, so we used it for roof protection. The boxes are painted with outdoor wood protection and hung up using heavy stainless wire — hopefully, they’ll last for many years. Inside, they’re lined with sawdust.

It’s quite a leg-shaker to climb a ladder seven meters up, but that’s about how high they need to go, with a clear flight path. I’ve found four perfect trees around the forest. The boxes face east or southeast (to protect from rain and wind) and have trimmed branches in front where the owls can perch. There’s at least five meters of open space — or completely clear flight — in front of each box.

The forest might be long enough to hold two pairs of owls if we’re lucky. Otherwise, the other boxes will simply be used by squirrels, pigeons, or maybe a kestrel.