A few weeks ago I was instructed by my HOA board that I had to take down my bird feeder. It was against regulations because fallen seed can attract mice and raccoons, and I reluctantly did as I was told. I had enjoyed watching the birds at the feeder and I subsequently wrote here about my dismay at losing it.

One of the comments suggested that I replace the feeder with a birdbath since birdbaths also attract birds, and that struck me as a good idea. I bought one that I could hang from the same pole that had held the feeder. At first I hung it at the same height, but that was too high so I lowered it to make it easier to fill and to see from my living room. I Googled birdbaths online and found that birds like to have something to perch on, and accordingly I added some small rocks from the garden.

A week or two passed and not a single bird visited my birdbath.

My Google search had also suggested that birds like movement in their water baths and the recommendation was to get a solar-powered fountain. Right away, I ordered the smallest one I could find online, because it is only a small birdbath.

When it arrived, I was keen to set it up right away. It took me a while to figure out what all the bits and pieces were for, and the tiny instruction manual was of no help. Fortunately someone on YouTube had bought the same item and provided the world with a very helpful video on how to assemble it and explained which parts I could put aside to spend eternity in my storage room.

A new problem, I soon discovered, was that that depth of the birdbath was not sufficient to provide water to the underside of the solar panel. The mechanics of the thing extended further than my birdbath allowed. So, clearly, I needed a deeper birdbath.

After thinking about this for a few days it dawned on me that I had a plastic plant pot that housed only a dead plant and a lot of dirt. “Why not turn this into a birdbath?” I thought. “Good idea,” I said to myself. For this I would need another water-container.

I happened to have several plastic plant pot drip trays in my storage room because you can’t just buy one drip tray. You have to buy a whole pack of them. Fortunately, they were exactly the right size for me to be able to put one on top of the dirt in the plant pot and fill it with water. I happily arranged my few rocks around it for the birds to perch on, added a few shells from the beach, and waited for the birds’ arrival.

Sadly, this arrangement fared little better than the hanging birdbath. It was still too shallow for the gizmo to work properly. I watched it failing to work for a day or two and decided that I needed to use the plant pot in its entirety! Of course! The whole thing could be a birdbath. Subsequently, I took out the drip tray birdbath, spread out a tarp on my patio, and dumped out all the dirt from the pot. That is when I discovered the drainage hole.

This pot was among several I inherited from the previous owner of this condo, and they had drilled a hole near the bottom of the pot at one side. There were no drainage holes in the bottom. Just one big hole in the side. If I was going to use this as a birdbath, I would have to fill the hole which was about the size of a good cigar. It occurred to me that a cork from a wine bottle might do the trick and so I contacted a friend to see if she had one. As it turned out, she had a bottle with a cork and some leftover wine in her fridge. Her great sacrifice in finishing up that wine so that I could have the cork is much appreciated.

After I had cleaned out the pot and particularly the area around the hole, I filled the hole with the cork which I had wrapped in plastic to fill out the space. I plugged it is as tight as I could and surrounded it with bathroom tile grout both inside and out. It didn’t look pretty, but I thought it would do, and I left it overnight to set.

The next day I filled the pot with water to a point just above the cork plug and waited. Within an hour it became clear that the plug was not watertight and a few drips became a steady stream. It turns out grout is not waterproof. Who knew? That is so illogical. Why would they make bathroom tile grout that isn’t waterproof? Gah!

Undaunted, I looked around my patio to see if I could come up with another solution. As I did so, my gaze fell upon my peony pot. The peonies had recently flowered and the pot they were in looked as though it might hold water. At least, there were no holes evident in its sides.  “That will do nicely,” I said to myself.

Once again, I spread out the tarp and dumped out the pot, the peonies, the dirt, lots of small peony tubers, and some miscellaneous bits of foam and plastic. The previous owner had apparently used whatever was at hand to fill out the bottom of the pot to add some drainage. Clearly, a person after my own heart.

When the pot was empty, though, I discovered that it did have drainage holes after all. They were in the bottom and I hadn’t seen them before because they were plugged up with wet dirt and I had never seen them leak water. So, I couldn’t use this pot for my purposes and, after a side-journey to Google to figure out what to do with the tubers, I put it all back. The bits of plastic and foam went in the bottom and the tubers went into the top layer of dirt.

Now I still had to find a way to fill the hole in the first pot and I went looking among my miscellany for duct tape but found instead that I had a roll of water-resistant tape for hanging things up outdoors. It is supposed to be double sided but I figured that I could use it as single-sided tape instead and used it to put a red cross on both the inside and outside of the hole. Once again, I filled the pot with water to just above the hole and I waited. After a couple of hours there was no leak! Woo hoo!

I filled the pot and put the solar-powered fountain on top and it quickly created a very satisfying display. However, I didn’t have anything in there for birds to perch on, so I cut a solar-fountain-sized hole in the middle of the drip tray and put it over the fountain. That was all fine and dandy until I put a rock on it. You can probably guess what happened. The drip tray sank.

It took me another day or two to figure out a solution to this latest dilemma, but I did it. First, I shoved the drip tray down as far as it would go into the pot until it was jammed in there. Then I took five empty salsa jars from my empty salsa jar collection, filled them with water and placed them upside down on the tray.

Then I took a second drip tray, cut a hole in it the same size as the first one, placed the second tray upside down on top of the jars, and decorated it with the rocks and shells. Ta Da! My make-do creation was complete.

Now, on sunny days the solar fountain provides a pleasing spout of water about eighteen inches high and the tinkling sound of splashing spray. On cloudy days it provides a much smaller ejaculation and a desultory “ploop ploop” splash into the bath. The birds still haven’t shown any interest, but at this point that is a minor detail. I have a non-leaking solar fountain in a plant pot and all is right with the world.