When I drove through the electric gate and into The Bird’s Nest, a retirement community in East Texas, I felt as if I had entered a fairy village. One of the tiny homes was pink with white polka dots. Another was surrounded by towering sunflowers. Nine dogs roamed freely.
Eleven women, most of them single, live there. They tend the grounds themselves, planting gardens and laying pipe. They’re trying to create what so many people seem to want in their later years: privacy and autonomy, caring and mutual support, friendship and laughs.
I recently visited The Bird’s Nest to learn about the community these women have made and the solutions it offers for the problems of loneliness and affordability so many of us wish we could creatively avoid. Here’s what I found.
An uncluttered life
When Robyn Yerian founded The Bird’s Nest back in 2022, affordability was her main concern. Yerian — divorced, mother of two, now 70 years old — was “out of options,” she told me. She lived and worked in Dallas and couldn’t retire comfortably on what she had.
Her problem was a common one. According to the AARP, 64 percent of single, working American women ages 50 to 64 have less than $50,000 in retirement savings. (That’s true for around 50 percent of men.)
So Yerian cashed out her 401(k) and bought a cheap plot of land on a remote stretch of prairie. She charges others just $450 a month in rent. The women of The Bird’s Nest told me they were drawn there in part by that affordability. They were at the end of their working lives and didn’t want to live with family. The tiny-house lifestyle also appealed: A 300-square-foot home has a small footprint, it’s easy to clean and it can be customized.
But what the women really liked about The Bird’s Nest, they said, was Yerian. Cheerful, generous and energetic, she is an excellent baker, skilled with power tools and concerned about every member’s day-to-day happiness. Her vision, which has evolved over time, is now one of “women empowering women.” She sees it as a retirement destination where women can relax with uninhibited ease. As one of the members joked, she has “unintentionally created an intentional community.”
Fast friends
The women of The Bird’s Nest moved from Illinois, Tennessee and Arizona, among other places. They are straight and gay. Republican, Democrat and independent. Religious and agnostic. They disagree, sometimes passionately, over politics. But long lives have given them a similar perspective. “There’s no sense in arguing over what you can’t change,” one member told me. The first rule of the community — unofficially, because Yerian doesn’t like rules — is “no drama.”
My visit there made me think about friendship. I have long had the fantasy of retiring together with my friends from college, buying a big house and chipping in for accessibility ramps as needed. And I know many other people with a similar dream. But the truth is that friends in established groups don’t get ready to retire at the same time. They are differently tied down to careers, partners, neighborhoods, kids. They have different levels of financial need.
It’s far better to think about how you want to live in your last chapter, and how much you can afford. And then, as Yerian did, recruit other people to join you. Just as we made friends in earlier chapters of our lives — high school, college, the workplace, parenthood — we can make new ones for this stage. All the women at The Bird’s Nest would agree. Yerian now says she has “instant friends, best friends at 65. I never saw these people before in my life, and now I can’t imagine them not being here every day.”
Read more about the community.
ICE BY THE NUMBERS
To deliver on his campaign pledge to deport illegal immigrants, President Trump is relying on Immigration and Customs Enforcement. So his new domestic policy law gives it $75 billion over the next four years, which will make it the best-funded law enforcement agency in the country. Evan Gorelick and Lyna Bentahar break down some stats behind ICE’s expansion plan.
$45 billion to expand the detention system. That money could allow ICE to hold more than 125,000 migrants at a time, the nonpartisan American Immigration Council estimates, more than doubling the agency’s current capacity.
14,050 more employees. To recruit them, ICE wants to use social media and digital advertising, according to contracting records.
18-year-old enforcers. The agency lowered the age requirement for all roles, including agents. It previously required most candidates to be 21.
$50,000 signing bonuses. That’s what you can get if you take a job at ICE. The agency is also offering student-loan repayment assistance and other benefits to attract recruits.
$30 billion for deportations. That money will help hire officers, pay bonuses and buy new vehicles. Trump’s goal is to deport one million immigrants per year.
One TV star: Dean Cain, who played Superman in the 1990s TV series “Lois & Clark,” said this week that he was signing up to become an ICE officer.
More on immigration
Trump said that he had ordered a new U.S. census that would exclude undocumented immigrants.
The government deported a man to Bhutan, a country that didn’t want him. Officials there physically pushed him across the border to Nepal. He’s now stateless.
THE LATEST NEWS
War in Gaza
Israeli leaders approved Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to take control of Gaza City.
They stopped short of saying Israel would take full control of Gaza. Speaking to Fox News, Netanyahu said, “We don’t want to govern it.” Read about what that means.
The cabinet also approved five principles for ending the war, including the disarming of Hamas and the return of all 50 hostages.
This military strategy has failed for Netanyahu repeatedly. He’s ignoring that fact, writes Patrick Kingsley, The Times Jerusalem bureau chief.
Education
Trump ordered the Education Department to collect data on the race, gender, test scores and G.P.A.s of college applicants in an effort to scrutinize whether universities are giving minority groups preference in admissions. Universities have debated this topic for years.
Trump’s deals with top universities, including agreements on the public release of data on test scores and race, could give rich applicants even more of an edge.
More on Politics
The Trump administration plans to burn birth control pills and other contraceptives worth millions of dollars. They had been intended for developing countries before the government defunded U.S.A.I.D.
The F.B.I. forced out at least two agents, including one who played a key role in responding to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
A health company scored a major Medicare policy win. All it took was a $5 million donation to Trump and a little face time at Mar-a-Lago.
Most scientists were aghast when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. canceled nearly $500 million for mRNA vaccines. His assault on Covid vaccines, in particular, may have riled even the president.
After speaking with Trump about the New York City mayoral race, Andrew Cuomo told a room of business leaders that his relationship with the president was like a “dysfunctional marriage.”
The National Weather Service is hiring hundreds after sweeping layoffs earlier this year.
Economy
Trump selected Stephen Miran, his economic adviser who is a vocal critic of the Fed chair, Jerome Powell, to temporarily fill a seat on the Federal Reserve Board.
Swiss businesses fear they will be “annihilated” by Trump’s 39 percent tariff, one of the highest rates in the world.
Trump’s quickly executed tariff deals are causing confusion and creating mistakes, including one in Japan.
Other Big Stories
OpenAI unveiled a new flagship model, GPT-5. The company says it is more accurate and less likely to “hallucinate.” (“ChatGPT 5” was trending on Google yesterday.)
Criticism of Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle ad campaign was not a wave of progressive outrage, a Times analysis found. Instead, it came almost entirely from a smattering of accounts with relatively few followers.
OPINIONS
Cameron Stracher helped Trump bury news that might hurt his campaign. He regrets it.
Here’s a column by David Brooks on well-being around the world.
MORNING READS
Congo: In the city of Goma, these teenagers brave bombs and abduction to shoot some hoops.
Ozempic: The drug is shrinking appetites. So restaurants are shrinking the food.
“Fawning”: Excessive people pleasing can trap you in a cycle of insecurity. Here’s how to break the habit.
Social Q’s: “Why is my family avoiding me after I cut off contact with my father?”
Cuteness, corrupted: A popular online creator is being sued over social media posts that put twee toys in scandalous situations.
Your pick: The most-clicked story in The Morning yesterday was about a Delta flight that made an emergency landing in the Azores.
“A real-life Indiana Jones”: Nicholas Clapp was a documentary filmmaker and adventurer whose life was consumed by an inconclusive quest to find a lost city of ancient Arabia known as Atlantis of the Sands. He died at 89.
SPORTS
Tennis: Victoria Mboko was ranked about 350th in the world at the end of 2024. She beat Naomi Osaka in the Canadian Open final.
N.F.L.: Joe Burrow, the Bengals quarterback, had a nearly flawless preseason opener.
Golf: Temper tantrums have long been a part of the sport. We’re just recording them now.
ARTS AND IDEAS
The audience for English-language comedy is growing in Europe as more clubs open in big cities (like Berlin and Amsterdam) and small ones (like Krakow, Poland). In the crowds, you’ll find a mix of foreigners who use English as a lingua franca and locals who spent the pandemic at home watching stand-up specials on Netflix.
“It’s so much fun to go in front of an audience of 17 different nationalities, and you have no idea where anyone’s from,” said Joel Bryant, an American comedian who was performing in Germany. “You have no idea what you’re getting into until you jump onstage in Belgrade, Sarajevo or Lisbon and figure out the common thread that makes everyone laugh.”
More on culture
“Game, Set, Matchmaker”: The U.S. Open plans to host a reality-TV dating show.
On late night, Stephen Colbert joked about tariffs.
THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …
Braise chicken in sesame oil, soy sauce and rice wine to make this Taiwanese dish.
Avoid a poison ivy rash.
Try one of the Well desk’s favorite workouts of the year (so far).
Get into fantasy sports.
Take our news quiz.
GAMES
Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were chocking, choking and hocking.
And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, Sports Connections and Strands.
Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow.
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