Oh How My Mother Loved Her Birds

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Feeding birds and bird watching was a big part of my life growing up. My Mother was fascinated by them and she taught me at an early age how to feed birds, how to plant for the birds and how to take care of Gods creatures at an early age. 


I remember my Mother was crazy about hummingbirds. She always had 4 or 5 hummingbird feeders on her porch right up until the day she died. We would always have at least a dozen hummingbirds buzzing around our heads when we sit outside having lunch or swinging in the swings that Daddy made. It was not uncommon for the hummingbirds to swoosh our hair as they flew by either. Lol. It's so much fun watching them chase after each other and my Mother would just laugh and laugh. 


It always amazed me how the hummingbirds would fly right in front of my Mother's face and hover there as if they were looking deep into her eyes. Mother would always give me the little hand signal with her beautiful hand to be perfectly still while she had a conversation with the bird, face to face. In the last days of her life; would you believe she still gave me that hand signal? Yes she sure did- but with a little wrinkled hand and a little crooked finger, but still ever-so soft in her gesture.


I knows my love for birds came from my Mother. Not only did she take care of hummingbirds but she was fascinated about blue birds too. We were forever having to go and watch their activities. When I would go to visit her (as an adult) she would tell me story after story of her bluebirds. She knew when a bird went missing and when her blue birds had babies too. I don't know how in the world she knew which bird belonged to which house but she could always tell me which bird was the mate to which bird too. giggle~ 


Mother's front yard had 4 bird houses nailed to the trees and all 4 of them had blue birds in them. Sometimes the squirrels would take over a bird house and chew out the entrance of the house and when that happened we would have to take it down - paint a brand new bird house "blue" then nail it back to the tree. We would then spend hours and hours sitting on the patio waiting for a blue bird to find the new house and move in. Lol!


Mother is gone now and I have recently moved into the house I grew up in. In fact I've only been here a couple of weeks. I walked out in the yard just yesterday and noticed 3 of the blue-bird houses still on the trees. I noticed one was missing. I walked to the tree it should of been in and found the 4th one had fell to the ground and busted. I guess it happened  sometime during the last few months. When I noticed the little house on the ground it actually brought a tear to my eye. The truth is it brought a few tears to my eyes. I think some how I related it to Mother being gone and knowing the life of that bird house was over like the life of my Mother was over- Never to see another blue bird and a little house that was never to provide a home for another blue bird again.  


I'm very happy I've inherited the bird houses, bird baths and bird feeders. I plan on replacing the broken bird house and put it back on the tree. And yes I think I will paint it blue. I plan on fixing the cracked bird bath so I can watch the birds fluff their feathers in the water and I plan on filling the hummingbird feeders with sweet liquid too. I plan on watching in amazement the "daily going" of the birds just like my Mother did. Oh how much my Mother loved her birds.