My daddy loved birdhouses. I never knew why, but even as a very young child I knew that he loved to build them. He would somehow find these scrap pieces of wood, tin & shingles and the next thing you would know he would be hanging a new birdhouse. Sometimes he would paint them bright colors and at other times he would put no paint at all. Once I ask him about why he didn’t paint them all. And he answered he thought the birds should have a choice and that made perfect sense to me.
As I began to get older, I noticed that in the early evening, daddy would go and sit on the porch and watch the wildlife in our back yard. Although we lived on a major highway, our back yard spilled into the woods, so we had rabbits, squirrels, snakes and of course many species of birds. It was like daddy was watching over the animals just like he did me as I played.
One evening I was sitting with him; we heard loud squawking. Just as we looked up, we saw a baby bird falling. In less than a second, the mother bird took off to join her offspring in the air. I believe they were talking to each other because just inches above the ground, the baby began to fly. I could tell the mother was so proud. They were in flight together…the baby struggling…….the mother strong and protecting.
What an amazing sight. That was when, I knew why daddy built birdhouses.
3 comments:
Nice memory of your dad. You are really getting into this writing thing. No pictures?
beautiful story Red. I could just imagine that protective mamma.
What a lovely story, and the pictures complement it beautifully.
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