A pair of robins have built a messy nest on top of the garage floodlights at the Writing Studio and Bait Shop. The floodlights do not work, as ice dams wrecked the fixture and replacing it has turned out to be more of a project than I thought. I noticed the mess hanging there and thought Huh, I wonder how all that dried grass managed to get caught up there. I started to pull it down when I realized that it was attached to a nest under construction.
I’ve been watching developments, and I know that Mama Robin has been sitting on the nest. She flies off in a panic whenever I get too close, so I can’t show you her portrait peering over the edge, but here’s the nest.
Mr. and Mrs. Robin checked out the neighborhood before they moved in. They perched on the deck and watched me working at my desk. Surely they noticed the resident cat and the resident dogs, but they must have decided that the chosen location was relatively secure, which is possibly the best a robin can hope for.
So what we have is a messy nest on top of non-working lights on a decrepit garage, all of it built on the hope of benevolence. Dysfunction on top of dysfunction. I will do the best I can to provide the benevolence. I am put in mind of the duck who made her nest on the ground next to Earl and Joanne Mandel’s front door. What was she thinking? I suppose that Earl and Joanne and all their friends would wish her well, and in this she was not disappointed.
Maybe it’s true of all moms. We bring children into an uncertain universe in the hope that somehow it will all work out. We do the best we can, build messy or tidy nests, raise our offspring and push them out to try their wings. And love them. We love them no matter what. Which, in the case of Rob the Firefighter, turns out to be very easy to do. The loving part. Not the raising part. Don’t get me started.
I thought you should have something pretty for Mother’s Day, so here is a tiny lavendar wildflower that is getting ready to bloom in patches in the woods. I have no idea what its name is, but I think it’s brave and persistent.
Torch Lake Views 
uphilldowndale
May 10, 2009
May be we mums just need something to worry about! Happy Mothersday.
(Have you told them to go tidy their nest, it’s a bit messy!)
Gerry
May 10, 2009
Ha. They have seen my nest and know that the standards here are somewhat lax.
flandrumhill
May 10, 2009
I would never have guessed that to be a robin’s nest. Maybe they still have to do the mudding to give it the finishing touches… could it be the mudding that holds it all together nice and neat? Please provide updates.
My sister told me today that a pigeon had made its nest in a pot on her balcony that she was planning to throw out. She was just about to pick up the nest and move it to another container when she realized it had eggs in it. Life goes on… despite the fact that it does hang on by a thread at times or must learn to thrive in dysfunction or chaos.
Gerry
May 10, 2009
I promise to report on developments. I think I just have messy robins. It’s only fair. I’m messy myself.
Cheri Sell
May 10, 2009
Happy Mother’s Day!
Gerry
May 10, 2009
Thanks, Cheri! Happy Mother’s Day back to one of the world’s great aunts.