Milk Carton Bird Houses

When I was in the Boy Scouts -- about 1964 to 1968 -- we took what were then new, the cardboard cartons that milk came in ... instead of the class bottles with cream at the top and a cardboard seal ... and converted them into bird houses for our feathered friends.

I don't remember how mine turned out. We never took a picture of that -- not with Mom's Kodak Instamatic or the yet-to-be-invented smartphone.

It was a long time ago. Now that I think of it, it may have been when I was a Cub Scout. We made those kinds of projects all the time. I remember asking mom for a bar of smelly girl soap and a fine handkerchief that she took out from her hope chest. I then got pretty girly pins stuck the handkerchief into the bar of soap and gave it to her for Mother's Day. Boy, was she surprised.

But probably not as surprised as the first birds who moved into my milk carton bird house. I wonder if they could tell it was built by a carpenter's son?

© 2014 Anthony Buccino

Want to help your kids make milk carton bird houses? Try these directions at About.com 

BELL THE CAT

The first time I met John I delivered a big roundhouse punch into his belly. He never knew it was coming.

He had just transferred into our Nutley catholic elementary school that morning. Sister Genevieve had introduced him to the class.

At ten o'clock recess, outside in the playground next to where we could look down into the cafeteria kitchen window and watch the old fat ladies with silver hair in buns getting lunch ready for the kids who got to stay for lunch, where we could smell the smells of cooking vegetables and meatloaf and whatever kids who ate in school ate:

POW! Welcome to the second grade, kid.
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Copyright © 2006 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.