Awaiting the Return

My Bluebird of Happiness

Yesterday, Captain Cliff and I put up another Bluebird house. I never stop hoping for the return of my Bluebird of Happiness.

I’ve only seen about a dozen bluebirds in my entire life. At my old house, a long time ago, I often saw a flying blue streak at the bottom of the ravine which I knew had be a bluebird as there is nothing else in nature that brilliantly blue. But, as for seeing a Bluebird up-close and personal, I think the third time I actually saw one was the very day that I moved into this house. I peered from my new kitchen window and one was sitting on the deck rail. He sat there a long time and then, away he flew, as if to signal “mission accomplished.” I never saw him again. Then about two or three years ago, about this time of year I spotted one again on the deck rail. When I looked more closely, there I discovered at least a dozen on the deck and in the trees. Yes, we were infested with Bluebirds. Then, they all flew off – never to be seen again. Almost every year since, I have put up a new Bluebird house, but they’ never come to stay.

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The Season of Juncos

Those little black and white juncos know well their primordial calendar.  It has been embedded in their tiny beings long before any human tread upon this North American sod. Yesterday, one day before the beginning of winter, I spotted my first junco visitor at my garden. Although it is my cold wintertime garden, to the junco it is a summer place, as he has stopped off in Virginia to escape the great northern chill that covers his usual home, somewhere in the cold, cold arctic tundra.

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