Wren house

Took the wren house in for the winter on this blustery fall day. Wintering this large bird house has been a late-autumn ritual of mine for several years now and involves unscrewing it from its post, pulling out old nesting material and the occasional spider, and vacuuming the cavities until it’s dry and clean for next year. A bird is much more likely to nest in a dry clear space, and I quite like the sound of the house wrens that come and stay in my Rhododendrons. Last year, a field mouse jumped out of one of the compartments after I’d transported the house to my basement and nearly finished cleaning it. He was likely thinking he’d found an ideal home to spend the winter, but it wasn’t to be.

This is the last time I’ll perform this ritual; we’re selling our house in the spring and moving to an apartment closer to town. I’m at turns excited and saddened by this news. It’s sad to leave a place where I’ve invested so much of my time, energy, and aspirations. This was the house where the kids mostly grew up. It’s a large house, so their friends, our friends, and our extended family were all frequent guests. We even had “Linksgiving” one year, seating every living Link in the clan.

Today, the kids are in various states of departure. We no longer have the need for such a place, and we’d be foolish to overstay our welcome. There’s always something breaking, and just keeping it warm in the winter and cool in the summer comes at considerable expense. It’s a beautiful house, and it deserves to be filled with young voices and heady plans. Not unlike our bird house.

My excitement at the change is the thrill of the unknown, of starting over, and of experiencing new things. I know this is healthy and what we should be doing at our age. The alternative is to dwell in the past and atrophy. We must all lay our eggs and move on.