empty nest

I am not having much luck with my front porch hanging baskets this year. Three of the four have bird's nests in them. One of them is a robin's nest. Home girl just set up camp right on top of my strawberry plant which pretty much died. I haven't been watering the rest of the plant much because I don't want to drown the baby birds so it's starting to look pretty sad.

Tonight I decided enough was enough so I took the basket down and was going to carefully add some water to the soil without getting the baby bird wet. Well, baby bird turned into monster baby bird over night and decided to jump ship when I took the basket down.

Then all hell broke loose. I promise he's not dead. He was perfectly functional after he picked himself back up and started hopping around. Then took a doo doo on my porch. Awesome. So mama and papa bird are now ticked at me and I run for dear life into the shop to take cover. I know I will have to leave this world at some point in my life but I was definitely not going down being pecked to death by robins. Mama and Papa eventually fly away to go look for worms or some related tasty treat so I decided to attempt and put Mr. stunt man back in his nest. I told him that what he did was not cool and shove him back on top of the basket. Little man jumps back out and lands on his head. Again. So I pick him back up and we try this again. Prior result is repeated. I give up. They're on their own. There's not much I can do now. I honestly have no idea if they are suppose to leave the nest this early or not? He looked pretty pathetic at trying to fly. My next question is, will they come back to the nest or can I carry on with watering my baskets everyday? Crazy birds.

After my baby bird fiasco I looked over across our property and the sun was shining in on our patch of newly seeded grass where the old farm house once sat. The sprinkler was going and it was really quiet. This photo doesn't do it justice but it felt almost like there was a presence amongst me and it really hit me that the old house was gone. The house where my husband's grandfather and all his siblings were raised. Gone. But really it's a good gone. At some point in our lives we have to start over. Some things just aren't worth making work anymore and that old farm house was one of them.

That thought can be applied to almost any aspect of life. The last several months have really taught me that sometimes you have to figure out what or who is holding you back from getting the most out of life. Life is too short to hold onto anything or anyone dragging you down.