Have you ever watched a newborn foal, fawn or kid? It amazes me how beautifully choreographed their first few days of their lives are. It doesn’t take them but a minute to find their legs and a heartbeat later they are walking! Before long the newborn babies are nursing, and soon after that they are following their mommas, through pure natural instinct.

On the wall of my front porch there hangs an artificial Christmas wreath. It has been in the same spot year-round for the past five or six years. All because of one very difficult weather year. We had endured weeks of subzero temperatures and ice storms, one after another and our Christmas lights stayed up well into March.

By the time I went to remove the wreath from the porch wall, a very proud bird was already in mid construction of its spring home. Ever since that spring, we have had many bird families come and hatch their eggs on our front porch, sometimes two different families at the same time, one on the top and the other inside on the bottom.

I am pretty sure that it bothers some, that my Christmas wreath never comes down, but it does not bother us. The joy of watching the baby bird’s hatch and fledge, completely out way the decorating faux pas.

Two weeks ago, 5 little eggs were in the lower nest. We knew when they had hatched, as baby birds are quite loud when they were hungry and their momma would pitch a fit every time we sat on the porch. Letting us know just how disappointed she was in our seating choice.

Then yesterday, I came out in the morning with my coffee only to be greeted by silence. No babies yapping for food and no momma yelling at me to change my seat.

 I found just my rocking chair and an empty bird’s nest in the Christmas wreath.

And now somewhere beyond my front porch five tiny birds were doing exactly what they had been created to do.

I sat there for a long while thinking about that. Every other creature seems to arrive already knowing how to be what it was made to be.

Humans? It seems we spend a lifetime trying to remember