You build a birdhouse and they don't come. Stands Kevin Costner's logic on its head, yet that is just what has happened with this lovely little house. Built by my husband out of scrap lumber a few years back, it hangs near the bird feeders, in a nicely wooded area near the garden, but no one moves in, except possibly mice--and why shouldn't they? It's there for the taking. We have offered it to the world, and someone in the world has taken us at our word. But not birds.

Wrong sized hole? Wrong perch? Wrong type of tree? Wrong materials? We don't know. We only know that it seems anyone should be able to build a birdhouse out of anything, yet that is not true. Fortunately, a friend has given me a book on building birdhouses--fancy birdhouses, at that. Maybe that's where this one went wrong: no cupola, no front porch, no porcelain doorknob perch, no gable trim, no shingles. Then again, maybe it is just that the housing bubble hit avian real estate even before it hit our markets. Foreclosure looms for this house. Rehab is in sight. A fresh coat of paint and it will be good as new. We won't even have to fix the plumbing. Clean it and they will come. Birdhouse of Dreams.