A little birdie tells us about starting over, building a new nest and affordable housing
O ur neighbour returned a few weeks ago. I saw her mucking about in the yard early one morning, picking up the sticks blown from the trees over the winter, digging in the flowerbeds and picking bugs off the shrubs. “Hello,” I called out. She jumped, dumping a load. “Oh, it’s you. Hello.” “It’s good to see you. We’ve been wondering when you’d return. You know, we consider it a sign that spring has finally arrived when we see you pottering about the place.”
“Well, I’ve been back for a while. But it looks like almost everything else is a bit late. Even the tulips and cherry trees are still blooming.”
“How was your winter?” She goes south every fall with family and friends.
“Oh, you know, the usual. Just a lot of us old birds hanging out together. It’s great to catch up on everyone’s news, and it’s great to see their kids growing up and making plans of their own. But you know, every year, a few of the regulars don’t show up. And it’s not always the oldtimers, either. It’s kind of worrisome.”
“Maybe they had problems crossing the border?”
“Well, we headed south months before that business started, so that wouldn’t be the issue,” she said, turning her head to the side but still eyeballing me.
She changed the subject. “Anyway, the new restrictions apply only when you’re going south, so I had no problem coming home. Some folk may call me American, but I was born and grew up right here in Victoria. Same with all my kids.”
“Well, as you can see, your place survived the winter.” I pointed toward her home, hidden among the greenery. “We kept an eye on it, and everything appears to be fine. We didn’t even see any raccoons hanging around this year.”
A couple of years ago, raccoons had found a way into her home and did a lot of damage. She and her kids had been around at the time, but these kinds of encounters with wild, unpredictable animals with big appetites and sharp teeth never go well.
I have to give her credit, though — she just picked herself up, fluffed up her feathers and got on with things. As a single mom with a deadbeat partner, she’s had a lot of experience with starting over again. I reminded her of the May election. “Yes, I see affordable housing is one of the issues,” she said. “And somebody’s made promises about maybe eventually doing something about child care. As you can guess, those two topics make my rapidly beating heart beat just a bit faster.”
I told her about the vacant-homes tax that Victoria was talking about over the winter.
“Well, who would want to rent this place?” she said. “There’s barely room for me, let alone for the kids when they come. I mean, when they’re here, we live right on top of each other.
“As soon as they can, they make other arrangements. Or maybe it’s just that they don’t like what I feed them.”
She scratched at the ground, cocked her head, then shrugged. “Kids are so picky these days. All this bountiful garden freshness, and they just want to eat Cheetos and fries.”
She’s right in that her place wouldn’t qualify for a vacant-homes tax, should such a tax ever be applied in the region. Her home is very rustic, more of a private, outdoor camp made from found items — along the lines of, well, a homeless campsite, but with more grass and twigs.
“In any case,” she went on, “I’m going to be building again soon, so you’ll be seeing quite a bit of activity for a while. That way, when this latest brood of kids starts wanting more space, they don’t have to be under my feet. It’ll give them some independence, but still keep them close.”
“You’re going to be very busy, Robin.”
“Well, it’s spring. I’ve got a new nest to build and another clutch of eggs to lay. You don’t mind me building on the trellis outside your window again, do you? It’s out of the rain under the eaves there, and the raccoons don’t like coming that close to your house.”