Thank you! I'm saving this info so I can do this sometime in the Spring, whenever the weather decides to warm up :) !! pkponder ...do you have a picture? Would love to see it. I want to include a Birdhouse and a Birdfeeder. My Birdfeeder is very large and I hung it last summer and was still out till recently when it needed seed and found out the thing broke at the top where you take it off to add seed ... so I'm mounting it on a pole and it will be just fine that way. It is VERY heavy so I can't have a tall pole for it. I included a picture of my bird feeder. It is 13 x 13 and has 9 feeding stations, 11lb capacity. I want to have a birdhouse separate but not too far away. Have an idea to put these alongside our ramp ... will look nice with some vines I think. :) Also, I know this bird feeder can be pole mounted because a couple people told me about how to do it. I saved that info and it says The pipe needs to be no wider than 7/8 of an inch. Anyway, looking forward to mounting that and I have to find a nice bird house to also mount on a pole. We have lots of cats around here (including ours that goes outside) and squirrels, so I might have to figure a way to keep them out.

Paulette, I wish I could provide a home for many more birds. It's sad to see the scuffle that goes on when several birds want to move in the same house. They watch me when I go out on the porch with the dogs at night. But they are quiet and there is no singing going on yet. We'll probably find out that 'bird singing' is all about the mama bird yelling at her kids once they are born. LOL Sunny- That hardware is a brass piece that craftsmen who build decorative boxes use on the corners. I once had a homemade pot rack built of wood and had those same brass corners to decorate each corner piece. Lowes have shelf building ladder shaped pieces that you put two in a pantry and nail boards in between to create storage. Just one of those ladders make an excellent hanging pot rack. You can paint them and decorate them because they come in raw wood. When I converted to a metal pot rack, I reclaimed the brass trims that I had decorated with. The house on the left was built with some doll house pieces. I bought the house many years ago on Super clearance and I have been scraping it out for such projects ever since. The table they are sitting on is a mosaiced microwave plate with a glass totem type tower base that doesn't show. Now lets all hope that those English Sparrows dont come and evict my American birds. They are killers of the American Blue birds and other American bird house dwellers. Thanks for your kind comments.

You didn't mention any gourds on your vines. What is the condition of the gourds? Have they reached a size that would carry them through to maturity? If there are no gourds, or they are very small, they probably won't make it this year. As for the coffee grounds, and egg shells, we try to add them before the growing season, and work them into the soil. You may have to consider this season a learning season, and try again next year. Jan

sharpgirl, I can only share my experience w/ BB. For several years I put up houses built (I thought) to BB specs. No takers. And because I had seen BB on my farm I knew they were around, but I didn't know where they were nesting. Until one day I noticed that the 'fake' hollow owl I had attached to the roof peak of my small barn, had BB's coming and going around it. BB's had pecked a hole in the chest of owl and apparently built a nest inside. This is now the 2nd year that they're nesting there. Their nest is about 15-18 ft. off ground, 100 ft. from a feeder but hidden by a bldg., hole faces South, slightly southeast. BB's perch on barn roof before they enter the hole. Both male and female feed the babies. Area of nest is surrounded by either mowed pasture or lawn. No close trees for 50-60 ft. I overflow a large watering trough (for horse) several times a day and the BB's show up to bathe and frolic in the water, if it's warm outside. So my bluebirds outsmarted me and made their own personalized nest and they must like it cause they've returned this year. Good Luck with attracting your own BB's. PS/I'm in zone 9B Central Fl.