The Circle of Life

From where I am sitting I can see a mama bird rebuilding a nest in the corner of our back patio. That corner has been a hotbed of activity for nests in the past four years. In fact, the nest got so high from years of ad-ons that it toppled over this past fall. No birds rebuilt this spring and I was a little bummed. I am happy to see that soon we will have new baby birds up there! She's working hard so she must be ready!

This morning while I was getting ready for church, I let the dogs out to go potty. I could see them getting pretty excited down around the play structure and saw that they were trying to get something. I saw Crusoe flipping something around and thought it was a frog. When I got closer I saw that it was a baby bunny! I screamed for him to stop and went over and picked the frightened thing up. Then I saw that they had another one corned by the fence, so I picked it up, too. I put them in a bucket for Rick to let loose back on the bluff out of harm's way.

The nest they had been hiding in was nearby. I was pretty sure there was another one hiding under the bottom step because the dogs were pretty interested in that area, but I didn't try to dig it out.

Well, later this afternoon Crusoe did. He let it for me as a trophy at our back door. I was so sad. The little guy was just laying there so peacefully with a small tooth wound on it's side.

Animals don't keep their homes for long. They do what they need to do there and then move on. Once the babies have left the nest, the nest is abandoned and the mamas and daddies move to a place better suited for them.

That also happens with people. This past fall my parents bought a home in Pensacola, Florida, where, in a few years, they plan to reside during Missouri's winter months. They also have a lake house in Missouri that they enjoy on the weekends, near their home. Their home is one they built when my Dawson was a baby. They have lived there about 12 or 13 years. They sold it a couple of days ago and bought a small house on Main Street in the town where they live. They wanted to have these three small homes, instead of just their one big one, where they could live out their retirement years. Of course there's still room for us to come visit, and visit we will!!

But it was still sad for me when my mom told me they had sold. I wasn't sad when they sold my childhood home 13 years ago. I guess I have more attachments to this house because it's where my babies have grown up. Brynne learned to walk in that house. Kyndal officially became a woman there. My boys have spent hours and hours soaking up the solitude of the basement, playing with their toys and sleeping on the sofa bed. It holds a lot of memories.

But the house does not serve the needs of it's owners anymore, and it's time for them to move on.

The baby bunnies move out of their nest to face the scary world on their own, and the nest was left behind. The baby birds will live in that nest, that their mama is furiously trying to construct, for just a short period of time before they move on. And my mom and dad have better places to go and more people to see. I am happy for them.

The circle of life.