Surprise in the bushes

Sometimes life is so stressful. When that happens, I have a trick. You might call it avoidance. Or denial. Whatever you call it, I am really good at it. Sometimes I eat, sometimes I play the piano (this works similar to a treadmill, but not), and sometimes I work in the garden. I would always rather garden than clean house… or pay bills… or  lots of stuff…

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I am sweaty and hot. I have been working in the yard for a few hours, just putzing around, hoping to get a handle on the shape of the landscape.

Which, might I add, is pretty much a wreck.

But the last thing I was just trying to accomplish was the clearing out of some brush that had grown out of nowhere behind our shed. The brush was a mixture of some giant unnamed green weeds and what I was taught to call “bird bushes”. These are the bushes with the little red balls of fruit on them that are poisonous for people but not for birds.

All the while I was cutting, I kept hearing a bird scolding me. I had no clue why…

But within this mess of bushes, as I clipped and cut away, I found a nest.

I quickly tried to rectify my transgression, literally picking up the sticks and weeds I had just cut down, placing them gently and protectively over the nest.

Within days we saw those three blue eggs hatch. With their mouths agape and necks stretching, we saw baby birds clamoring for food, and heard mommy and daddy bird scolding us each time we got too close.

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Two weeks later, the babies have flown away. Still there, sits that nest, empty.

I think about all of the things that nest held for those baby birds: safety, security, food, and family.

And I know how blessed I really am.

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