by Lorelei Cohen

Created on: July 14, 2009

If you love getting out into the summer sun to play in the garden, then there is a July Holiday that you might also enjoy celebrating, it is National Scarecrow Day, and it falls on the first Sunday of July each and every year. So how do you celebrate Scarecrow Day? You build a scarecrow of course.

The garden plants are up, and will be bearing their rich fruits soon, so the first Sunday in July is the perfect day to erect a scarecrow to help protect your gardens riches. By setting up a Scarecrow, or stuffed human like mannequin in the garden, we hope to trick overhead birds into believing that someone is out working in the garden. Hovering birds can see someone below them and it tricks them into moving on to a safer feeding area and leaving your garden area alone. However crows are one of the most intelligent creatures out there, so sometimes the scarecrow works and they fly on by, but at other times it simply offers them a perch to sit on while they visit your garden.

Scarecrows are generally made in the form of a human. They are easy to create as you simply stuff an old shirt and pants, usually with hay or other old clothing, and stitch or glue the arm and leg openings closed. The head of the scarecrow can be made by stuffing an old stocking and sewing or gluing facial features on it. Top your stuffed fellow with a hat and you have your basic scarecrow all ready to hang on a pole within your garden. If you are feeling humorous you can perhaps give your scarecrow a rake or hoe to hold, have him pushing a wheel barrow, or have him carting a bucket.

If you want to have an effective scarecrow it is going to take a little work and a whole lot of creativity on your part. You have to outsmart your adversary those smart old crows. If your scarecrow never moves, then the intelligent crow is going to figure out pretty quickly that your garden guy is not too much of a threat to him, he'll see the scarecrow as too lazy to move let alone mess with him. So if you want to have an effective scarecrow you are going to have to move him around the garden at least once a week. An even better plan is to put your scarecrow to work with you, and every time that you are working in the garden move your scarecrow to that same area, and into a different position. Another trick is to motion activate your scarecrow. You can accomplish this by using a battery operated motion detector device, anything with lights or noise will work, just affix it onto your scarecrow. When the birds start

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