When you have a six-year old daughter, getting rid of the birds nest in your garage is far from easy. Instead of just swatting it down and chasing its owner away like you would normally do, you’re asked to “not hurt the babies” and, “give me the nest I’ll be the mom”. Neither of which are on your mind at the time, or at least they weren’t on mine when my daughter Vanessa and I discovered the Swallows that had been crafting themselves a home in the rafters of my garage. She was ecstatic to see the nest since they had a lesson on birds in her Kindergarten class just days before, and desperately wanted me to take a picture for her. Since she’s my one and only little girl, I obliged and pulled out the ladder so I could get a closer image. Big mistake. Instead of just finding some feathers, twigs, and grass like I expected, I found six tiny white eggs decorated with small red dots, and one had the beginning of a crack going right down the side.
Climbing down, I hesitantly showed Ness the picture I had taken, I had done my best to zoom out so she might not recognize what the little white spots were, but she knew right off. She ran from the garage quicker than a fox, her little legs pumping furiously. Once I realized where she was going, I chased after her. If her mom found out about the little birds living in the garage just waiting to hatch, I would have seven kids instead of one. Luck wasn’t on my side however, my wife just happened to pick that day to sit outside and weed her garden, I had no chance of getting that picture back from Vanessa in time.
Sure enough, once the word was out about the birds nest in the garage, there was no getting rid of it. Instead I was ordered to regularly check on the nest to make sure that the parents hadn’t abandoned it and to see if any new progress had been made on the hatching. Soon enough there were five ugly, pink birds (one didn’t make it I guess) wailing for their mother, and she came. As the birds grew so did Vanessa’s interest in them, she loved to climb up and see them as they grew into bigger, stronger birds and when they left the nest, she cried for hours. As heartbroken as I was to see her so upset, I did a little rejoicing. No babies in the nest meant I was good to go on getting the thing out of there. All I can say is the next time there’s a birds nest in the garage, it’ll be gone before ANYONE knows about it.