In an earlier post, I mentioned that my husband assured me that there were buds on my recently planted lilac bush. I didn’t mention that I had asked him to not only look for signs of spring, but to photograph them and send them to me. He did. Imagine my surprise when I noticed in one of the shots that our Christmas wreath was still on the door. You remember that I left for California on January 2, having put all signs of Christmas away. Except for one. In my crazed preparations to leave, I missed the wreath. Don apparently didn’t ‘see’ that it was still there the entire time I was gone, even though he goes in and out of that door repeatedly. I immediately emailed him with an urgent request to ‘take it down!’

Fast forward a few days: Having not yet taken the wreath down despite my urgent request, Don opens the front door and a bird flies in the house. The bird panics and takes cover behind our umbrella stand. After a few moments, the bird flies back out. Don is amazed and shocked. We’ve never had a bird fly in the house before.

Shorty thereafter, Don remembers about the wreath and goes to take it down. There, on the backside of the wreath, he sees that birds have begun building a nest. Right between the wreath and our door. Of course, given how often we go in and out the front door, sometimes with the dogs, there is no way that nest and any eggs would have made it.

Lesson learned: Take your Christmas wreath down right after the New Year. Oh, and don’t leave it up to your husband.

Oh, I saved the sweet beginnings of the birds’ nest – its tucked safely in one of my McCoy planters.