Signs of spring

It was late last spring when my CAMN class made bird houses for wrens and screech owls. I took one of the wren nest boxes and put it in the garage with bunch of other stuff. It was too late for wrens to be nesting so I figured I would assemble it and put it out this year in my new back yard. Today my nephew came over to use my computer to do his taxes. On a pass thru the living room I mentioned to my son and nephew that it was probably time to put the wren box out. I had no more uttered those words when I looked out back and saw a wren hopping around the top of the chiminea, turning his (or her) little head to the side to look inside and see if it would do. The mate was a few feet away on the fence. Of course then I worried they would find a home in the neighbor's yard before I could find all the pieces and assemble my own wren nest box.

I retrieved the wood pieces with the pre-drilled holes and the three of us made sense of what was by now a collection of puzzle pieces. "No, this is the top." "This goes like this." And so on. My son, who has always been good at that kind of thing, got it right and shortly after my nephew left for home we assembled the nest box and put it out on a hackberry tree. I hope the wrens find it suitable and raise up some little ones in there.

Motivated by that, I finally got out the staple gun out and stapled the chicken wire to the posts I purchased a while back. Now my outdoor compost pile has a fence around it. I wasn't living here this time last year so I missed the beginnings of spring. Besides the wrens, the white wing doves are cooing loudly, two little mourning doves sipped water out of the bird bath. The henbit and bedstraw are coming up, along with the rain lilies, the latter climbing out of the earth to celebrate the gully washer we got this week. I'm sure we'll have more chilly weather but today it felt like spring.