Every season seems to present me with a project. It's usually inspired by something I have seen in a magazine or on TV. Because I'm inclined to tell myself "I can make that, I don't have to buy it," I have welded, hammered, nailed, carved, and painted an amazing assortment of projects ranging from fences to headboards. One bubbled up from happening across imaginative recycled bird houses. I kept seeing these whimsical creations at various shows and craft fairs. I loved the old barn wood and the geegaws artisans incorporated.

So it was that I set about making my bird house - absent pre-planned design of what it might become ― with a pile of old remnants and barn wood. As I surveyed the stash of wood, I figured I could make a three-story house. I cut the side, the holes in the face board, and the flooring. Assembling the sides and base tested my ability with a drill. I am not one of those DIY folks who have a tool for every project. I only have the basics: a scroll saw, electric drill, hammer, and screw driver.

I had old tin ceiling tile with which to fashion my bird house roof, protection sufficient for any rainstorm. Then came the decorating fun. I had some old initial letters to personalize the house. I nailed on old garden rake tines, door knobs, old tools and topped it with a whimsical wooden bird. No perches on my house; I knew the birds didn't need them. When finished, my bird "mansion" was three tiers and 42" high with 14 holes. It probably weighed about 40 pounds. Alas, I had to hire a handyman to get it fastened to the top of a 15-foot pole in my garden.

To my excitement, the first visitors were nuthatches. Because they made this their home the first season, I named my creation "Nuthatch Inn."

Have you seen a bird creeping down a tree? If so, you're probably watching a nuthatch. We commonly have one kind of nuthatch in the Broad Ripple area: the White-breasted Nuthatch. This small, blue-gray, black, and white bird loves to come to feeders that have peanuts, sunflowers, or suet. Our yard is a perfect habitat for them because they love woods and pine trees. One interesting fact about these small birds is they like to store food in tree crevices and bark, cracks in the ground, or under small rocks and can go back to their cache as long as a month later. They don't use their tails for support, this allowing them to descend down trees head first.

Another nuthatch you might see in the area is the Red-breasted Nuthatch. Although they usually do not frequent our area, we have spotted them about every other year recently. They were an oddity for me when I first saw them- a bit smaller than their cousin and marked with a decidedly rosy breast. This nuthatch irrupted in our yard when its food source became scarce further north. They predominately search for northern conifer seeds and visit Indiana when need dictates.

Nuthatches nest in cavities. That's why I think they were the first residents of my housing project. My bird house was more than spacious and had the scent of old wood. Thereafter, sparrows occupied the dwelling. And this year, I walked out after one of the fall storms and found my well-built condo lying on the ground. The bottom platform that attached to the base had rotted after 15 seasons. Now I'm deciding whether to repair and repost or create a new nesting box. Just maybe you'll be contemplating picking up a hammer and getting creative too. Nuthatches might be our beneficiaries.