A few weeks ago I started clearing space for a small garden. Tedious work due to the area of the yard I picked, tons of some ugly vine that took hours to remove. I built four mini raised beds by using some 1x4” fence pickets and a small block of 2x4” at each corner. Not a lot of planting area, but enough for my daughters to plant a few different things and work on learning that food doesn’t magically appear at the grocery store. We planted one of just about everything; corn, tomatoes, green peppers, squash, broccoli, peppermint, egg plant, probably a few more.

I don’t know what made me think about it, but I realized that a good garden should have a scarecrow. Never made one, seemed like a good family thing,so added to the list. Kids definitely excited about it.

We built the first one using a 2x4” and a couple scraps of 1x4” for shoulders and waist. The clothes,if you can’t tell, are dockers and a button down shirt out of my closet (I wear long sleeves about once every 3 years). The head is a pillow case stuffed with Styrofoam from a a recent tool purchase, and the hat is a good panama straw hat that had suffered from being chewed on by one of our dogs. I was all set to stuff the clothes, add shoes and gloves, but they declared it good enough, finishing it off by drawing – hard to see – eyes a a mouth. It’s all just stapled together.

I had only planned to make one, but I have two children, so we had to have two. Same basic construction, but this time my oldest insisted that this one wear a dress. Have to say I was taken aback, just didn’t have a picture in my head of female scarecrows, but why not? It’s another long sleeve shirt with a pillow case for the skirt.

Here you can see the scale, one standing guard at each end. Not sure how scary they are, but also not sure the birds know the difference. I know when I park in the driveway on the other side of the fence I’ll catch the heads out of the corner of my eye and for a second think there is someone in the yard!

Fun project, didn’t take long, and didn’t cost much – hard to beat.