Today on Substack: Fathering, in the best and broadest sense. It begins outside my kitchen window, where I watch this Hooded Oriole disappear into the banana tree, busy building a nest. They are not alone. There are Mourning Doves passing twigs back and forth. A hummingbird has stitched a home into the jasmine. From one window, I can see several nests being made at once — some by mothers, some by fathers, all of them built with unreasonable hope. The garden teaches us something about care. About the quiet work of returning with what you can carry. A twig. A meal. A little softness for the edge of the nest. And that question: who gets to build a home, and who gets to stay. And how that thinking contradicts the Government’s new deportation policies and the people being forced from the homes and families they are trying to build. So today’s Substack is about birds, fathers, coyotes, borders, refuge, and the grace to let another life build its nest. Even when it is inconvenient. Even when it is untidy. Especially then. Free for Flamingo Estate members. x Richard