Alissa Grosso

Things are moving along on getting the house next door fixed up for Ron’s parents, but in the meantime we have some more new neighbors, and they’re even closer. How close? Well, right under our deck, as it happens.

A few weeks back we noticed some strands of grass hanging off one of the beams under our deck, and then noticed an industrious robin making several flights from the yard to the patio and the deck above it. Well, it wasn’t long before we saw his mate, perched in a nest built beneath our deck.

We’ve done our best not to disturb our new neighbors, though stepping out onto the patio to water the plants inevitably causes her to take flight. In case you like hidden picture puzzles I’ll include a picture I snapped a few days ago. Believe it or not, there is actually a flying bird in this photo:

I am impressed though that a couple of times mama robin has decided to stand her ground and remain in the nest. When she’s in it, I can see her tail sticking out over the edge of the nest. The nest is far too high for us to see into it from the patio.

However, when we’re on the deck, if we squat down, and press an eye up to the crack between the deck boards we can see into it. That’s how Ron spotted four little blue eggs in the nest not long after our avian neighbor had moved in. We learned from the internet that robins spend about fifty minutes of every hour on the nest when they are incubating eggs. So, hopefully those times when our movements disturbed her weren’t too much of a disruption in her egg-incubating schedule.

Things seem to have gone according to plan because this week we noticed there are no more eggs in the nest, and instead there are some itty bitty naked baby birds in the nest:

It’s been pretty amazing to see this whole process unfold over the span of a few weeks!

Oh, and the baby robins are not our only new neighbors. Over the weekend, while we were out on the deck checking on the progress in the nest below our feet we caught a glimpse of an amazingly small fawn darting into the trees at the edge of the property. So, it looks like the deer herd that shows up for a dinner of backyard grass each evening might be getting a little bit bigger.

I think all of our neighbors are probably happy (as are we) that after more than a week of clouds things are finally clearing up here and the sun is shining again.

— Alissa

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Weekly Inspiration

What I’m Reading: The Road from Belhaven by Margot Livesey

What I’m Watching: Unfrosted

What I’m Listening to: “The Gambler” Fun.

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Find out more about my books at alissagrosso.com

Find out more about my digital art at alissacarin.com

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My apologies for the typos and such this post is almost certainly riddled with.