Joyous morning — as I walked out to fetch the newspaper (about 1/4 mile round trip), swallows were flying around selecting homes! On the way back, I was asking myself, but what will they eat? Just then, I walked through a cloud of tiny insects. They must have wintered over and erupted at the same time the birds started to arrive. Was this a plan?

But why is their arrival such a big event in our lives?

Several years ago, Doug made a few dozen bluebird houses. He gave some to friends and posted the others. Nary a bluebird. However, some birds this city girl had never seen began to make a community at our place.  We found that swallows are remarkably tolerant of us, and make great families. When their first chicks grow up, they help feed the second set of chicks to hatch. To feed all of them requires a lot of insects. We had very few mosquitoes. When we began sleeping outside full time, only three mosquitoes bothered us in the first season. This also gave us a platform to watch their aerial acrobatics, flying down the ridge, eating as they go.

At the end of last season, I noticed that almost 100 swallows had gathered in the trees and bushes near the garage. The next day, they were gone. Was it a meeting? How do they know?

We clean the houses very carefully in late fall so that they will return to us. We love them.