An early morning view of the Shuswap

The bird writes "D" for David in top right hand corner.

I had my eyes on the chickweed in the strawberry patch, barely after daybreak and long before the sun had risen.

One hand was pulling out the weeds and then other was gathering the small stones and tossing them in an old ice-cream pail to get them out of the garden bed as well.

I was dreaming of the strawberries I would eat in the summertime as I would stroll by that bed.

A robin kept swooping back and forth above my head.  Finally I looked up to see what the trouble was since it couldn't be me ... quietly weeding there.   

I could see she was building a  nest, tucked above my drain pipe.

I dropped my trowel and went to fetch a ladder to see how far she was along on her spring project.  The inside of the nest was a glistening brown colour that reminded me of melted chocolate.  I made a mental note to get a camera and take a good picture when I was through with the weeding.

But it was the next day when I finally climbed up for that picture and by then she had lined the nest with straw – and even put a signature on the outside of her creation – a “D” for David, I told him.

Please don't let the ladder shake.

He was as excited as I was to take a look in the nest.

But I didn't see the robin again and she didn’t seem to come back for the next few days.

I thought I had ruined everything in my excitement to take a look.

I pulled the nest down, only to look into it when I had it in my hands ... and see one little blue egg.

Sick at heart and hoping that no one had seen me, I  quickly tucked the nest back up on the drainpipe and waited a few more days.

Confirmation:  the bird is still interested in the nest!

 Glen did tell us to pull the nest down, ... that we would just have a mess there, and have to put up with the chirping birds.

But instead, we were thinking of how to make signs to alert everyone they would have to use the garage door.

No one was to get in the way of our science experiment.

No one was looking more forward to having them hatch than she and I.

I went to the inside corner of the house often to check and see how the our robin's nesting instincts was coming along.

Everything looked fine.

To be continued ....