DIY Bug House!

Building a bug-house is a cool Do It Yourself project that gives bugs a place to build homes, or dwell!

It’s also a pretty yard decoration.

Step one: build the frame. Cut two pairs of wood to equal length, then drill them together to create a strong frame. Make it any shape, but adult permission/supervision is recommended.

Step two: The filling. You will need to collect sticks, twigs, and logs to fill the space.  Have an adult cut them to the right length.

Step three: Fill. Use glue or screws to keep the bug-house from falling apart as you stack each short piece of wood into the house. I also added some clay the I dug up, and some dead grass or hay.

Step four: Finish!  Now it’s time to place the house. If its small, you can hang it in a tree. Mine was very large, so I mounted it on two wooden planks and secured it to the fence behind it.

Again, make sure you get adult permission/supervision while doing this project.

Thank you for reading!

Trash Cleanup!

Some People dump their trash on the side of a road. That trash can make its way into rivers, or the ocean, washing up anywhere! Sadly, this is true.

Doing a park, road, river, or beach cleanup can make a big difference though! Get friends or family members to help you walk along picking up trash with you.  If you’re doing it on the side of the road, please be very careful! And get adult permission to do this project.

You will need:

A garbage bag,

Gardening gloves,

Clothes that you can dirty,

And friends to help you!  

Thank you!

Raising money!

Maybe you don’t have time for a long tedious project. But don’t let that stop you! 

Raising money to donate to a good cause still makes a difference!

ANd there are so many ways you can raise money! Like a bake sale or lemonade stand, or even making and selling little desk-top calendars.

I made little calendars that cost about $10 and have ideas for ways to help the environment each month!

I designed the text, cut out, and put together the pieces of paper until I had made around thirty calendars to sell.

Then, I went to a local craft fair and sold as many as I could, earning some of the money to buy a post-hole digger from Carolina Tiger Rescue’s Amazon wish list. 

I also ran a bake sale to earn some of the rest of the money that I needed.

A child running a bake sale

 

A child’s calendar selling advertisement

A child’s calendars

Here are some ideas for things to write on your calendars:

Try to go all-organic for a month; 

If you’re already organic, go vegetarian;

Start volunteering at a local animal shelter, zoo, or vet clinic;

Go hiking and make a list of all the creatures you see;

Participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count;

Take a course to learn about local birds;

Look for nature-related activities to do in your area;

Go on a hike and document the plants you see;

Learn about your favorite endangered animal(s);

Sell old clothes to a thrift store; buy any needed new clothes from a thrift store;

Go for a hike and list all the spring signs you see;

 

 

Thank you for reading!

Hanging Suet!

In the winter, animals don’t have easy sources of food. Especially birds! Hanging suet in a local forest is a fun project and a great way to help little critters!

To start off this project, you need permission from a local forest to hang suet along a trail.  To do this, you need to call the forest rangers and make sure it’s all right.  Or you could hang the suet in your backyard, which may be a much smaller-scale project, depending on your yard’s size.

Once you have a place to hang the suet, you need to actually get the suet.  Doing a bake-sale or lemonade stand is an awesome way to raise the required funds!

A young girl running a bake-sale to raise money for her suet project.

The next step is to buy the suet.  You could also make it, but I’ve found that it’s a lot cheaper to buy suet at your local hardware store.

 

I attached each suet cake to twine so that I could hang it on branches.

A young girl stabbing an innocent suet cake in order to get the twine through.

Now it’s time to pack up your suet and go hiking! Place/hang each suet cake about fifty feet apart!

A young girl hanging her suet cakes in a tree.

Thanks for reading and good luck!

Helping the Vaquita!

Photo by Emiliano Arano on Pexels.com

Vaquitas are a type of dolphin that lives north of the California Gulf.  They are extremely endangered with only about twenty of them left IN THE WHOLE WORLD! :0 😥

obviously we need to do something about that!

Hopefully they can make a great recovery…

But not without our help!

First we need to learn about them: Here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here!

Now that you’re all stocked up on good information, lets analyze the threats.

Threats: Here, here, here, here, and here.

How to help: Here, here, here, here, here, here, and here!

Please get adult permission/supervision when browsing the internet!

Thank you for caring!