Bird Altar

Bird altar

I’m not much of a carpenter but I’m a wannabe. I especially like to use old fashioned hand tools. So when we moved to our new home in the country and I I found some old lumber in the garage, left by the previous owner, I was itching to build something. My wife, away on a business trip, had been feeding birds in our old house. On arriving here I had erected her feeders on a hill, adjacent to a wooded area and thick thicket of berry bushes. She was attracting scores of finches, cardinals, bluebirds, jays, grackles, and chickadees. I thought I would surprise her with a bird feeder, similar to one I had seen in a book. In an hour I had completed my project. I nailed it to a wooden stake left on the property line by the builders and erected it on the hill. I could watch it from my porch with a pair of binocular. When I sat down that evening to observe the feeding frenzy I thought would ensue, I gasped at the view. I didn’t need magnification to see that I
had manufactured, not a feeder, but a crucifix. The much too narrow feed-tray made a perfect cross with the upright. It resembled a gravesite. I had killed my spouse and planted her on the hill.

I am Jewish. I have nothing against religious symbols but this made me somewhat uneasy. Furthermore, the birds wouldn’t go near it. I pulled down my creation and redesigned, widening the feed tray. I re-erected it and
added dead braches and brush to disguise the base.

My wife returned the next day and questioned why I had built an altar on the property.
My son thought it looked like the preparation for a Klan meeting. The birds still avoided my offering.
That night, under cover of darkness I removed my masterpiece and relegated to the scrap heap. “Must be Jewish birds” I muttered to no one in particular