One day early in the Spring, we began to brush the donkeys and their hair blew around the pasture and into our gardens. In June, we found a nest blown out of a tree near the Dahlia garden. Maria saw that it was made of donkey hair and picked it up and brought it into the farmhouse.

A few days ago, we found a small blue egg lying in the back yard, near the place where the donkey hair nest had blown and been discovered. What a wonder of nature, and of art, in so many ways. Try as I might, I can’t really put the story of the next and the egg together. Did the egg belong in the next? Did a bird bring it to us. Did the bird in the egg hatch, as it seems?

I wrote my own story. The birds made the nest, and worked so hard to make it so beautiful. When a storm came up and blew it out of the tree, they were crushed. It was gone, they could not imagine where it went. They found more donkey hair and built another next. They were grateful for the hair and the use of the apple tree.

In the new next, they laid several small blue eggs. When the eggs hatched, they took one of them and flew it over to the back of the farmhouse, so it  might be found, given a new life on a windowsill in the kitchen, a gracious token of appreciation for the gift of the donkeys and the beautiful, tall and safe apple tree.

Yours is as good as mine, but that’s my story, and I like it.