A Beautiful Day in the Neigh-bird-hood

Little flying creatures we call birds add so much to a life, even if through a mere glance. I love pretty colors, too, and so I painted some birdhouses years ago, not thinking they would be used as homes but just a way to brighten the day. But then, of course as it does, time weathered them and, since I’m not very good at throwing away things I love, I simply moved them just outside my back door.
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 Off and on for years, various families of Gossipy Blue Jays have nestled under a wooden deck frame out the back door.
 When the most recent family left, it was quite the brouhaha.
 Two parents screeched as Baby Blue Jay leapt from the safety of the nest to land on the wooden deck chair below him.
 Blue Jay Mom and Blue Jay Dad immediately moved into protection mode, squalling and swooping so close to the human--as he was leaving--that it would have been termed a harrowing assault if they had been charged in today’s legal environment. 
 Over the next hour, Baby Blue Jay moved-not quickly -from chair-to garden-to fence- finally ending in the neighbor’s yard even as Blue Jay Mom and Blue Jay Dad screamed overhead, “Not yet! It’s too early! Not yet!”
 But then gone he was.
 Weep as they might, the little guy was no longer part of the nest which, soon after, was completely empty.
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 But back to my sweet little painted birdhouses.
 Because they were pretty, I had not enough strength to throw them in the garbage so I set them near the Blue Jay nest by the back door.
 It was funny: I wondered (not my most brilliant moment) why I kept finding them knocked to the ground-by some wind or mistake, I thought.
 So we strapped them against the pillar so the birdhouses would not again fall.
 Then the strangest thing happened.
 Twigs appeared in them.
 Were they now, stabilized, a place of safety for growth and nurturing? ********************
 And so here I am again: watching a nest that in near days will again be emptied.
 My little birdhouses were carefully painted out of love but not foresight; for a season they are home for these babies and perhaps even future families, regardless their shabby exterior, worn and beaten.
 It has become my little neigh-bird-hood, offering safety and peace to some precious little chicks that God loves, just as He loves me. ********************