Have you ever been in this situation? You really need something in particular, but you can’t get to it because of a nesting bird? Do you save the nest? Do you save the birds?

We are siding our garage.

The garage siding is nailed as high as it can go without more scaffolding.

The garage has two levels. We need to use scaffolding. My husband has been keeping some of his scaffolding next to the garden shed, and the rest has been stored out back, in an old building, behind the barn.

With the temperatures being somewhat cool, he starts on the south side of the garage. He could get all pieces for that side up and painted this week—the weather was perfect! Then, he will move the whole operation to the east side. What a great plan!

The storage shed build with repurposed materials.

Soon, all of the scaffolding (that had been leaning next to the garden shed) is set up in front of the garage doors. That makes it fairly easy to get the new siding up above those three big doors. It doesn’t take long to nail ten or so lengths of siding. He is now as far up as he can go using that scaffolding. Next step—hang siding on the second level, all the way to the peak. He needs the scaffolding stored in that building out behind the barn.

Let me explain this building.

It was put together with repurposed materials—it didn’t cost a penny, just some basic construction know how. The important thing here is, repurposed. There was a set of old doors available, but they weren’t wide enough to cover the opening we needed to get the boat inside. He decided to use them anyways. Some coverage is better than none when the wind blows the snow around in February, right? The doors left a gap about one foot wide. But, hey, they worked. It was good enough for storing a boat, a canoe, and some scaffolding.

My husband slips inside to retrieve the scaffolding. He finds, right on top, a nest filled with helpless, little baby robins. I repeat, helpless!

The doors don’t keep any critters out. But, go figure, an active nest of all things.

I think he would have almost preferred to find a skunk in there.

What to do? Back at the house, he tells me about it. He could have disposed of the birds and never told me. The robins are very young. They barely have any feathers. He looks at me. What difference would it make? Robins often lay a second time in a season. They could have another chance at it.

The look on my face confirms that it does make a difference to me.

Can I quickly convince my husband to save these helpless, baby robins?

The look on my face is the quickest response I could give him. Looks can say a lot. But, does he really understand?

I talk about how close I am to nature. How protective I feel about our little spot here. We take a lot of walks together through the woods. He is used to me pointing out the wonderful things I see that I want to capture with my watercolor paints. He is used to my collections of sticks and leaves and rocks scattered around the house. He, himself, often brings things home that he thinks would make a suitable addition to my collections. He must understand.

The backside of the garage in progress, waiting for the baby robins to mature.

He decides to work on the lower level of the garage, for a while. We are hoping the baby birds get their flight feathers soon.

In the meantime, the scaffolding is still set up in front of the garage doors. It stands there as I write. It waits for those helpless, baby robins to fly.

It also stands there with my car stuck inside. Luckily I don’t need my car, and I am not going to say a word about it. I am happy for the little robins and I am sure they will be searching for worms on their own in no time.

You know, we don’t have a lot—we have enough. But I could never wish for more than this man with a heart big enough to set aside his great plan to let these little birds grow. How lucky am I?

I don’t think he needed to be convinced at all.