“Nine bluebirds came out of one little hut on a February morning. They’d spent the night packed together to stay warm.” — Why a 73-year-old Maine doormat maker is letting her last coconut-fiber roosting huts go at a special price, before her press goes quiet for good.

At half past four on a January afternoon in Maine, it is already getting dark. For the next fifteen hours, every small bird in the yard has one job: to still be alive when the sun comes back.

The cold alone isn’t the biggest danger. The wind is. A chickadee sitting on a bare branch at 10 degrees loses its warmth far faster than one tucked behind a wall.

Most backyards today don’t have that wall anymore. And most people never notice, because it all happens at night.

The longest night of a small bird’s life happens in your backyard

A chickadee weighs about as much as two quarters. In winter it spends the whole short day eating, just to build a little fat for the night.

Then the dark comes. The bird fluffs up its feathers and shivers to make heat. It even lets its own body temperature drop by many degrees, so it uses less fuel. By morning, it can lose about a tenth of its body weight.

A bird that small has almost nothing to spare. One night out in the wind can use up what it needs for the next.

Where did the winter hiding places go?

Small birds used to spend winter nights in old hollow trees, thick hedges and brush piles. Today, the dead tree gets cut down. The hedge gets trimmed. The leaves get blown away every fall.

Many people put up a birdhouse and think the job is done. But most birdhouses are built for summer. They have air vents, gaps under the roof and a big box inside. In July that keeps chicks cool. In January it lets the wind straight through.

“People fill the feeder all winter and think that’s enough. Food gets them through the day. It doesn’t get them through the night.”

That is Jeannette Pelletier. She has watched this happen outside her kitchen window for 31 winters.

One frozen morning in 1994 changed what a doormat maker did with her life

Jeannette is 73 and lives in Lewiston, Maine. For 38 years, from 1972 to 2010, she pressed doormats out of coconut fiber at a mat factory on the Androscoggin River.

“Coir is what they make doormats from. Snow, mud, boots, all winter long. That’s the fiber I trust outside.”

On January 19, 1994, it was 22 below zero in Lewiston. That morning, Jeannette went to take down an old flower basket she had forgotten on the porch. It had a coconut-fiber liner inside.

When she lifted it off the hook, a chickadee flew out. Then another. Then four more.

Six birds had pressed themselves into that fiber and made it through the coldest night of the year.

The next week, she brought home scraps from the factory and pressed her first roosting hut. It took her 19 tries, until 1997, before the walls were tight enough and the roof was right.

What Jeannette’s huts do that a summer birdhouse can’t

Jeannette didn’t try to build a pretty birdhouse. She tried to build that old flower basket again, only better.

• “The Packed-Wall Principle” — Jeannette lays the fiber in by hand, layer after layer, and presses it tight. There is one door and no gaps. “If I can push my thumb through the wall, the wind can too.”
• “The Overhang Roof” — The roof reaches out past the walls on every side. Snow and rain drip off the edge instead of into the entrance.
• “The Huddle Size” — The hut is only about eight inches tall. That is on purpose. A small space fills up with the birds’ own warmth. A big wooden box stays as cold as the air outside.
• “The Fiber Bed” — Inside there is loose fiber the birds can push into, just like those six chickadees did in 1994.

One thing Jeannette always says first: the hut doesn’t heat anything. It doesn’t need to.

“The birds bring their own warmth. My job is just to keep the wind from taking it.”

Hang it before the cold, not after

Birds look for their winter sleeping spots in late fall. A hut that goes up in November gets found. That is why Jeannette tells everyone the same thing: hang it now, under an eave or in a thick tree, with the opening away from the wind. No drilling, no tools, just the cord.

The basket that never came down again

The old flower basket from 1994 still hangs on the same iron hook on Jeannette’s back porch. She has never taken it down again. Not in spring, not in summer.

Every winter morning, she stands at the kitchen window with her coffee when the sun comes up and watches the huts in her yard. Her best morning was February 4, 2015. Nine eastern bluebirds came out of one single hut, one after another. They had spent the night pressed together inside.

“Every bird that comes out of there in the morning is a bird that made it through the night.”

The last winter at the press

Jeannette’s workshop is an old garage behind the house. There is a wood stove in the corner and bales of fiber on pallets. On the wall stands the old hand press from the factory. When the mill closed in 2010, she bought it for 40 dollars.

But 38 years at a press leave their mark. Both of her thumbs have arthritis now. This spring, she had surgery on her right wrist. The doctor was clear: no more pressing.

“I can still make them look right. I can’t make them tight anymore. And a loose hut is just a pretty basket.”

With two women from her church, she finished one last batch this summer. After that, the press will be sold. 412 huts are left. There will not be any more.

Why she is asking so little for an hour of work

Each hut takes Jeannette more than an hour to make. She could ask much more, and nobody would blame her. She asks $29.99.

The reason is simple. She doesn’t want her last huts sitting on a shelf as decoration. She wants them hanging in as many yards as possible before January comes.

“I want them on a branch before the first hard freeze. That’s the whole point.”

Her downstairs tenant, Marcus, a 26-year-old nursing student, built the little online shop. He packs the boxes at night and takes them to the post office. Jeannette doesn’t own a smartphone. “Marcus does the computer. I do the fiber. That’s the deal.”

Whoever hangs one of her last huts this fall is keeping something going that started with six chickadees in a flower basket.

What bird lovers say about Jeannette’s huts

• ★★★★★

  “I hung it under the porch roof the day it came. Three days later, a chickadee went in at dusk. Now I check every evening like Jeannette does.”

  – Carol D., 71, Bangor, Maine
• ★★★★★

  “It is smaller than I thought, and that is exactly the point. The fiber is thick and tight. You can tell somebody knew what they were doing.”

  – Richard H., 68, Duluth, Minnesota
• ★★★★★

  “We had wrens in the yard every summer and then never in winter. This December we have one that sleeps in the hut every night.”

  – Susan M., 66, Albany, New York

Before the first hard freeze: your questions

Where can I buy Jeannette’s huts?

Only through this page. Jeannette’s huts are not sold in stores or on Amazon.

How long will they be available?

Only while the last batch lasts. Right now there are still 412 huts. When they are gone, there will be no more, because the press is being sold.

Can I try one without risk?

Yes. You have 30 days to send it back if you are not happy. Just send a short email to info@cedarandtinco.com, and you get your money back.

More from people who hung one this winter

• ★★★★★

  “I bought two, one for us and one for my sister in Vermont. Hers had bluebirds in it by Christmas. She sent me a photo of four of them on the rail at sunrise.”

  – Margaret L., 74, Concord, New Hampshire
• ★★★★★

  “After reading her story I started watching from the kitchen window too. Eleven mornings in a row, a chickadee came out of that hut.”

  – Thomas B., 72, Green Bay, Wisconsin
• ★★★★★

  “It went up in ten seconds with the cord. Snow sits on the roof and the inside stays dry. Simple, and it works.”

  – Linda P., 69, Erie, Pennsylvania