It's a small thing and a beautiful thing

Pay off. … Build the boxes. Cut the eight-foot posts (from cedar trees I find in the woods and stockpile) on which to mount the boxes. Dig holes. Situate the houses a hundred or so yards apart. Monitor nests through the spring and summer and then wait and hope.

It’s a small thing, a very small thing, but it’s another of the myriad reasons I love where I live.

One day last week, my parents and I watched 14 bluebirds at two birdbaths in the backyard. Fourteen! Some were obviously juvenile, with muted plumage, but blue was in abundant supply as they bathed and played in the evening sun.

A couple of weeks ago, 5-year-old Addie and I checked 20 or so of the bluebird houses in and around the pastures and were pleased to find that all of them had nests from this summer. Not all would have produced fledglings, but many did. It’s been a fruitful year.

“A rainbow in motion/ a miracle flies/ sermons in feather and song.”