Screveton Men in Sheds meet Tuesday and Friday mornings at FarmEco, Home Farm, Screveton in Nottinghamshire. We enjoy the use of a heated barn thanks to the site’s biomass boiler which supplies heating and hot water to a number of residential and commercial properties on the site. As well as our own little, or not so little projects (Men in Sheds has an old grey Fergie tractor), we also get involved in both farm life and village life restoring commemorative benches, the church notice board, the village pinfold and even making rustic table numbers for 1 to 50 for Café Velo Verde, the local cycling café.
When the Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust agreed to help with a FarmEco project to increase biodiversity by turning part of a meadow into a wetland area, the directors at FarmEco asked if they could do anything in return.
Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust asked if FarmEco could help with the supply of a number of birdfeeders and bird boxes and that’s where our Men in Sheds group stepped in.
Screveton Men in Sheds was established, and has been supported by FarmEco for a number of years. In return, we have supported FarmEco with the repair, replacement or creation of items needed by FarmEco. So typically, that might mean replacing bearings on a sit on tractor, fixing faulty wiring on a trailer, cutting fencing so it can be used to protected young trees, repairing fencing, help herding the sheep and helping with the apple pressing.
The bird feeders and bird boxes though were of a completely different scale! In total the order was for 41 bird feeders, 140 Sparrow boxes, 30 Small Owl boxes, 20 Barn Owl boxes, 10 Tawney Owl boxes and 10 Kestrel boxes.
To date we have completed the order for the bird feeders and sparrow boxes. The Kestrel boxes are waiting to be sprayed with Sadolin Matt Ebony and all the wood has been cut for the Tawney owl boxes. We have just four weeks left to complete the order.
