The last couple of years, birds have built a nest right above my front door. I LOVE my birds. I'm obsessed with watching for them and listening to them cheep-cheep-cheep every time the mommy or daddy come to feed them (although I don't love their feces-encrusted nest).
When I saw them getting ready to fly, I watched even closer waiting for that moment when they would jump out of the nest. I could tell one was getting ready to go, so I ran in and grabbed my camera. Go baby bird, go!
You can't see it here, but one of those blurs is my baby bird after he took off just a second after I took the last photo. Hooray!
And then it happened. What is "it"? "It" is Mother Nature and her cruel ways. Little did I know that I gynormous blue jay was just sitting there waiting for my sweet baby bird and the second it landed in the tree, the blue jay attacked it. The mom and dad bird tried to help it, and I did all I could considering I had a baby in my arms (yes, I was completely overly emotional about it considering that fact) and a camera, and they were too high. But within a minute my baby bird was dead on my neighbors yard. I was crushed. I cried. It really was too cruel. That whole "circle of life" is crap.
Eventually all of the birds left the nest, hopefully to a better fate. I was too jaded about the whole thing and couldn't get too involved. After I was sure they were all gone, I cleaned off their nest that was taunting my pain and decided to move on.
And then, wouldn't you know it, there was a flurry of activity outside my door one day, and I looked out to find my mommy and daddy house finches going back to work building this:
I didn't have the heart to evict them. There must be some eggs in the nest, because the mommy bird is there all day and the daddy bird brings her food. She sings a loud, pretty song whenever he comes to feed her. I know I'm just setting myself up to get hurt again, but I can't resist watching this sweet little pair of God's creations. Hopefully Mother Nature is more kind this time around.
Which was great, since just in digging the holes for the posts, he cut our cable line (which he had fixed within a couple of hours),
Had to saw through various large tree roots
He pulled out large boulders (I didn't get a picture of that one), and sliced our underground drainage pipe (which he also fixed). 
We love the finished product. I especially love our beautiful maple tree that shades it the entire day and makes me feel like I'm in a treehouse when I'm out there. I'm all about the do-it-yourself mentality, but some things are best left to the professionals.
