Bird House Whimsy and Housing

Finding Whimsy Whilst Addressing Concerns

I have been checking out bird houses recently on my morning walks. I delight in spotting them. Great care and love go into them and it makes bird watching all the more enjoyable.

A friend up in Ojai has hand made two huge ones in his beautiful old California Oaks for owls. I get a kick out of how intricate some of the bird houses have become, with second stories and architecture stylings.

I remember my mom had one in her yard on top of a pole and the squirrels would climb up and steal the bird seed. So, my mom would grease the pole with oil so that the birds seed would not be snatched by the squirrels. She, my son, and I all got a great laugh watching the squirrels slide down the pole. We should have videoed it. But the memory still does the trick of amusing me.

There is some irony in that we make homes for birds when we don’t need to as they are fully capable of making their own nests. Would that we take more care as a society in the housing and providing services for our own human homeless population. Interesting how I focused on something delightful and it brought about a thought of something of serious concern. We can do both and we need to for ourselves and our community.

I hope you all find something to uplift your spirits like Bird Houses does for me and may we all work diligently to provide housing and services to our homeless population. For as Mahatma Gandhi said, “THE TRUE MEASURE OF ANY SOCIETY CAN BE FOUND IN HOW IT TREATS ITS MOST VULNERABLE MEMBERS.”