New Arrivals

I still have some bits of memory from my second grade field trip to the Home Depot. We were given small orange aprons to wear and we were showed around by one of the workers. Having grown up with it, I loved the smell of saw dust in the air. After the tour, we were taken back to a workshop where we were each given pre-cut pieces and were helped in creating our own birdhouses. It had a simple design of a long box with a roof placed over the top, a whole in the front with a small perch, and a gap of open space under the roof for another entry point. Once I brought the small birdhouse home, my mom and I painted it. I panted the box bright yellow with green grass along the bottom, a flower around the perch, and lady bugs scattered across it. The roof was painted blue and we took cotton balls, dipped them in white paint, and then used them as sponges to create clouds to simulate a sky. My dad hung it outside for me outside one of our kitchen windows and I eagerly awaited when birds would make my creation their home.

Years passed and no birds came. Every spring we would hang the house up on its designated hook and every winter it would come down and be stored away after having been empty the whole time it was hanging up. It took more than a few years for birds to make my birdhouse their home. I figured that the house was too small for any bird to want to live there. One day, I remember sitting at the kitchen table with my family when I noticed movement outside the window. I rushed to the window, trying to peer into the little birdhouse, but I couldn't see anything but darkness. But, there was a tiny, brown bird sitting on top of the sky-painted roof, a twig in its beak. I watched it fly down and scuttle into the house through the side slots under the roof and add to what was its new nest. I watched the birds everyday and, soon enough, there was twigs poking out of the house on both sides. My dad told me the birds were called Wrens. Ever since then, the Wrens come back every year and sometimes, if the light shines into the house just right, I can see the movement of baby birds inside. When I sit at the table, I listen to them sing and I have their songs memorized. I feel happy that birds are living in the house I made and I'm even more happy that I get to see them come back year after year.