An Old Birdhouse

A bit of my old garden hangs here in my new one and that's kind of nice.

My sister in law gave me an artisan handcrafted birdhouse many, many years ago as a housewarming gift. I had no place to hang it -- no trees or branches were big enough when we first moved into our new home in Connecticut in 2004. So it stayed on the ground where a family of fairies moved in and spent winters making pancakes and having parties.

It was a beautiful piece of woodworking, with a metal tiled A-frame roof and solid wood walls and floor.

It was more decorative than functional -- birds never did make a home in it, but wasps and yellowjackets thought it was fine. Years ago the solid wood floor fell out, so now it is a shell of a home, empty at the bottom.

Eventually there were big enough trees to hang it from a branch. When we moved to Santa Fe I brought it with me, still harboring an empty paper wasp nest inside. 

Now it hangs on my coyote fence in the new garden I created in back. Still bottomless, it won't be a home for bird nests, but it's a bit of my old garden hanging here in my new one.

After 17 years it is weathered and the side has split. In dry Santa Fe the old wood will shrink even more, but for now it still holds on, hanging from a brace on the coyote fence and overseeing my new garden.