My kids absolutely love bugs. Anything small that scuttles, crawls, slivers or flies is right up their inquisitive and rather grubby street. It’s simply amazing how much joy and caring instinct the average garden snail can extract from a child.
Manning-up
I’m all for bugs... at a relative distance! Shameful to admit it as a grown man but I’m rather less keen than my children are. I wouldn’t say I’m scared but equally, I don’t go out of my way to hold (or even kiss – yes they really do!) such critters. My wife’s pretty cool with bugs but me less so. In fact, when our first child was born, I was told in no uncertain terms that I needed to "man-up" and show the children that spiders can be removed from the house by hand and without the paper and cup “song and dance”. I hasten to add, with just a smidgen of pride, almost six years later the "song and dance" appears relatively infrequently - unless there’s one of those big so-and-sos I swear could borrow my shoes without needing so much as an insole!
Bear Grylls and flailing saws!
It was last weekend whilst the kids were playing in the garden that I decided to continue my manning-up mission and asked if they’d like to make a bug hotel. Well, they were frenzied with joy – in six small words I’d solidified my status as the coolest human on the planet. Let’s do this – bugs aren’t that bad, the kids love them and they're great for our garden and wildlife...
We set gathering some old wood and garden matter from the garage. Despite my youngest initially wanting to use an eight foot scaffolding board as the basic frame, we decided to go small and have a go at something a little more shoebox-sized using some floorboard off cuts to make the frame. Word of warning at this point: compressed bamboo flooring is VERY tough, proven with two broken pilot drills and blistered palms (pathetic I know but I work in an office and driving screws into wood harder than Bear Grylls is not something my hands are used to!). But we got through this minor obstacle thanks to Mummy suggesting the kids gave Daddy a few minutes to "concentrate" while the kids painted a welcome sign for the house.
So not even the threat of the kids wielding saws when my back was turned (seriously, please take care) got in our way and in relatively little time we had a lovely, characterful bug home complete with welcome sign:
Give it a go
So our humble garden has its very own bijou bug house and we couldn’t be happier. I’m basking in the glow of being a Daddy superhero, the kids have a venue to meet with their friends and our scuttling, crawling and slithering nature has a home!
If you fancy giving it a go I’d wholeheartedly recommend it - instructions can be found on the RSPB Giving Nature a Home pages (just steer clear of bamboo floorboards!) But if you’re pushed for time, don’t fancy getting blisters or would like something less rustic, you can always buy an array of homes from the RSPB online shop.
Keep going sarahjo!
I returned from holiday this week to find our bug hotel empty - looks like the inquisitive garden birds might have emptied it looking for a tasty snack. Never fear, another afternoon's activity is now on the cards to glue in some canes to provide more sturdy, peck-proof cover for our bugs!
I'm still in the 'song and dance' with a paper cup stage! Thanks for sharing this!