Every other day or so I reach up and jiggle the pot to get it off the hook then I set it down on the porch to water the flowers.
But the other day after I'd set the pot on the porch I saw that a bird had built a beautiful little nest right in the middle of the flowers.
Now I don't have the heart to water the flowers for fear of drowning the bird's nest. But on the other hand, if I don't water the flowers they'll die.
But I've heard that when a bird's nest is disturbed the bird won't return to it, and I figure it's possible that when I jiggled the pot loose from the hook and lowered to the ground I disturbed the nest enough to ruin it for the bird.
Or might the bird return to the nest after all and lay its eggs? The flower pot hangs too high for me to check inside without first jiggling it loose and setting it on the ground, which would doubtless cause the bird, if it did return, to fly away and abandon its eggs for good. Then, of course, I'd be able to save the flowers but the baby birds would die.
So I could not water the flowers for fear of hurting the birds if they happened to be in the nest. But if I don't water the flowers and the bird's nest was already ruined then the flowers would die for nothing.
So at this point whatever course of action I decide on next, either the flowers, birds nest, or both will be ruined.
I had the best intentions when I bought that flower pot and attached it to my house. But if I'd never bought it in the first place then it wouldn't be my responsibility to keep the flowers alive and the bird would surely have found somewhere else to build its nest and I wouldn't be sitting here wondering what to do next.
I guess the moral is, think it through before you buy yourself a flower pot. Or a war in the Middle East.