First Flight

We fed the birds today.

It was 57 degrees, sunny and I needed an excuse to be outside for just a moment.

After the usual dog poop sweep, I set The Boy loose in the back yard. Usually he hauls out his machinery to play with, but today he flew.

With his skinny legs pumping as fast as they could, he reached straight up to the sky and flapped his arms down in front of him. More pumping legs. Then reach for the sky and pull down double hand-fulls. Back and forth between the bird feeders.

"I am flying to the tree! I am eating aaaaaalll the suet! I am peck peck pecking the good seeds! I'm a piggy Stellar's Jay!"

"I am flying into my nest!" And he "climbed" a tree. Which is to say, he sat down on the lower branches of a weedy fotimia. But it's still his first tree-climbing experience.

It was one of those moments I will remember forever. They'll be wheeling me through some sterile Home and I'll drift back to this morning. Maybe I'll stay for a while.