I could've slept a little late today--my wife's working but all I've got ahead is my kids' swimming lessons this morning. But no--bizarre noise wakes us up at 6:30. My wife actually guessed what it was--a woodpecker working on the metal cap of our chimney. There's a reason she guessed it so quickly...
Flashback to before our kids were born: We'd been married about six months, in our first house about a month, and we came home from work together. We walk in and flip on the lights--I go one direction, while my wife heads into the dining room--then I hear her scream.
I run in to see blood all over our dining room window and the vertical blinds. There are no windows or doors open in the house--yet there's the blood. I go into the living room, and notice the blood on the window and blinds there as well. I flip on a light and immediately something begins noisy movement on the floor behind the couch.
It's a woodpecker--a big one. It was tangled in the chains of the vertical blinds. Between the two of us, my wife and I managed to get the bird untangled, and it flew into the kitchen where it perched on a rolldown blind. That was when we got a good look at it. The beak on it was about an inch and a half long--something I'd noticed as I had been trying to hold it as we untangled it and it went crazy.
We turned off all the lights in the house except for the one at the back porch, left the door wide open, and herded the bird out of the house. We saw it around the neighborhood for about the next six weeks--I was up on the roof the next day fashioning a cover for our chimney; the ash pattern spread in front of the fireplace made it clear how the woodpecker had got in.
It was kind of freaky though--for just a minute you imagine all sorts of crazy things that may have gotten blood all over the place while you weren't home.
We had to replace the blinds--total bill for the cleanup was just over $1000--but interestingly enough, the insurance adjustor didn't need any photos or proof. He figured there was no way we'd make up a story like that...
5 comments:
wow! what a story. It's like the time (although not costly or scary) when my cat Jasmine brought me an injured bird. She set it down at my feet jumped up on the stairs to watch her kitten (me, I suppose she thought) catch the bird. I was a poor huntress. She never tried again.
I used to live in a hunting town, and I actually am hunter myself. So during the fall, my dogs will bring me the sawed off legs of deer, moose, and elk, as my neighbours skinned their kills. The rest of my family are all non hunters, and my sister is a vegetarian, and by legs I mean that there is still hair, meat, and blood on the legs, so you can guess who gets to clean all appendages?
mmmm, appendages...
(quietly motions to CSI team standing near body parts from shallow grave and points to Lauren...)
hmmm--
R., I begin to think your dysfunctional relationship with the feline race predates Igor--and maybe the blame for your hatred of him is rooted in some traumatic snake experience. (there's another joke here I just cannot in good conscience follow through on)
and what's more, the stupid woodpecker was back at it again this morning...
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