7/26/18

I have no blogged for a couple of days, having  been working late a few days, and clearing away weed trees and bushes like buckthorn. I had the latter wiped out, but 2 more just appeared among the purple lilacs on the north side of the house.

For 10 years the down woodpeckers have been drilling holes into the house on the north side. It got so bad a year ago as I battled to respackle and repaint, and they would tear out the dried spackle, that I reluctantyl called an exterminator to have them extirpated. I love woodpeckers but we were exasperated.

The DNR protects woodpeckers, so there are many steps to be taken and documented before the exterminator is allowed to take the birds out.

So we ordered to life-size horned owls and put one at each end of the north side of the house as suggested by experts. It spooked the downy woodpeckers away but also eliminated nesting birds on the north side of the house.

In May of 2010 I broke my right ankle and was home for over a month. I thoroughly enjoyed the lively birds nesting and feeding through the juniper, cedar and apples trees on the north side. Blue jays, nuthatches, woodpeckers, chicadees, cardinals, house finches and robins lived there or made their way through. It comforted me at a time of great stress and anxiety (worrying about the bills).

Now, the owls are there, and the birds are not. I did hear a male cardinal there last night, but that is a rare occurrence.

Now our house appears to be safe, but the birds are gone. It demonstrates to lessons in life that we all need to learn, and heed.

First, the law of unintended consequences. You change one thing, and then something else unanticipated occurs. We drove out the woodpeckers, and all the birds that we enjoyed too. I notice that the south end of our lots has much more bird activity now.

Second, we try to make things better, and our efforts make be complete successes, partial successes, slight failures or total blow-outs. We try different things, and then we learn our lesson, and try again, making needed corrections.