T...I...M...B...E...R........!!!

Saturday, June 30, 2007

They had to come down. My daughter had two beautiful ficus trees in her backyard that just couldn’t stand up to the freeze that hit the valley last winter. They took on a brown, sickly, “we are not going to make it” look and died as dead as door nails.

I took my trusty little saw over to her house and with a Dr. Kevorkian kind of skill—my son and I put them out of their misery. We hauled away two pick up truck loads of tree “stuff.”

It’s sad to see a beautiful life come to an end—even tree life.

The saddest part of the whole experience was disturbing a bird and her nest. The tree came down. The nest came down with it. The bird flew away, leaving her eggs behind in the nest. We tenderly placed the nest in another tree hoping she will find the nest before it is too late for the “birds to be.” At what stage can we safely terminate the birth of a “bird to be”? Are there birds in those eggs or just “stuff” waiting to be birds?

I hope that mother bird gets busy and finds those eggs. This is deep theology and I don’t know the answers. Regardless I don’t want to be a bird abortionist.

Maybe you better steer clear of me today. I have dismembered two trees and maybe killed some baby birds and broken the heart of a mother bird.