Material List

Today I sowed more seeds. Over 400 plants-to-be. Will have pictures when they've germinated.

Several have requested a materials and price list up to this point. 

Wood:

12' Furring strips - $55 (at auction including buyer's premium)

Asst. 2x4, 2x6 - $34.92 (obtained half from dumpster)

Plywood  7 sheets - $37.21 (bought on clearance sale)

Hardware:

Box of 3" deck screws - $25.69

Box of 1.25" deck screws - $0 (donation)

Carriage bolts, washers, nuts - $41.22

Misc.

Wood Glue - $4.89

15 cinder blocks - $0 (donation)

57' length 5/16" nylon cord - $0 (donation)

37 custom metal brackets - $0 (donated material and relentless ambition)

Grand total thus far: - $198.93

That leaves $801.07 still in the budget. 

Up to this point, I've been spending time on my house. However, my winged brethren, compatriots in the fight against mosquitoes and flies, demonized by suburban homeowners, flit about with no sense of security at all (emotion anthropomorphized*) of where they might land, and so today I am gathering materials for a bat house -

This is a little brown bat. The types of bats in my area. They eat 50% of their body weight in insects every day (also perhaps this will increase the chances of the fox nabbing a couple for himself) if they can find them. The bat house should be able to house a colony of 250. Each adult weighs 1/4 ounce (wow, can't believe so light). So that's 1/8 oz per bat * 250 = approximately 2 pounds of mosquitoes every day slowly turning into fertilizer for every inhabited bat-house. The alternatives are bug-zappers (which, if you look around a bugzapper, are nowhere near as effective; 2lb of mosquito carcasses would be quite a pile.) or some type of insecticide (the negative consequences of which surely outweigh a few mosquitoes.)

I still need some time to figure out how to strengthen my roof. Excellent point not to hang from the rafters, and surely I will no longer. But the snow might not be so thoughtful. 

*I couldn't remember what the word was for when you assign human emotions to animals. This is it. I looked this up. My very good friend, now living in Brazil, goes overboard with this with her devilish little dog (guilty). He wears clothes and once I think his name was Santa Paws. It has been claimed that he is omniscient.