Air

We finally opened the big front doors yesterday. Normally this is a job for late April. I hate having plastic up over the beautiful windows so I pull it down as soon as I can bear to. We have no choice but to put up plastic as the old doors are drafty as a bat cave and the wind beats against the front of the house all winter like the devil's angry fist.

However, last fall the guys managed to put plastic over the outside instead of inside where I have to staple it up...so we could see the windows all winter.

Then there has been this cold, wet, unforgiving spring. I didn't WANT to take the plastic down. It has been that cold.

Yesterday dawned sticky and breathless. No air. No breeze. Drawing breath was a conscious job and the valley smelled like a wet mop. I tried to pry the plastic off, but I am short and turning into a worse wienie every year. Liz had to do it. As soon as it was down and the doors were opened, the house took a deep breath and finally, finally, shuddered off winter. Soon a breeze popped up and the laundry began to snap on the clothesline......and within an hour the wren was on that porch. Despite nesting in the box on the other porch. Despite spending weeks swinging from the camel bells there and chittering all day long, he moved the minute the doors were open.

Somehow the birds seem to know that if they sing in front of the door on that porch, the two-story, ten-foot ceilings front hallway will serve as a birdie Carnegie Hall for them, amplifying and strengthening their voices until they sound like the biggest birds on the river. I wonder how long it will take the mockingbird to show up....and the great crested fly catcher...phoebe....cardinal....I wonder if they have been doing this since the house was built so very long ago..