this afternoon i had an unexpected house guest. and if you thought the house was a wreck before you should have seen the after.

let me start from the beginning. we have a small cabinet outside on the carport near our door that we keep shoes in. well back a few month ago we discovered a nest had been built in it. we removed all the shoes and forbade the children from messing with it. there were even occasions when the momma bird would be making such a racket outside that i would have to look and find that the door had been pushed to. so i would go out and open the door a bit and prop it open.
well recently we assumed that the eggs had hatched because the momma and daddy birds seemed to be coming in and out with bugs and other birdy treats feeding the babies. the other day i heard to faint chirp, chirp, chirping of a chorus of babies birds.
then yesterday my carport began swarming with birds. flopping up and down. i couldn’t figure it out until i realised these birds were the babies being scooted out of the nest. time to spread your wings and fly.
and fly they did. but not very successfully. because as i opened the door one flew right in! my mom ducked as the bid careened into the kitchen and under the edge of the lower cabinets.
ok i figured i’ll just scoop him up and set him back outside. well that little bugger scurried along the edge and in between my stove and cabinets!
i live in an older house whose kitchen has been cut up in places to accommodate newer appliances so the cabinets are open to the stove’s edge and there is an area under the cabinets that is open on that side as well. (yikes i just realised how yucky these areas look, cant believe i am showing this 😛 ) i was terrified he would go under that area and remain there and die and start to smell and we would have to cut the cabinets out to get to him…….. oh hey i might get new cabinets that way, maybe its not such a bad idea….. never mind… anyway.
i slid a piece of cardboard in trying to block off the under cabinet tunnel. this made him move behind the stove. great i thought and its gas. i didn’t want to have to think about having to disconnect all that stuff. but he obviously didn’t like that are and quickly found his way behind the fridge. ( ugg dirty there too ).
so i began to pull on the fridge… ugg my back is killing me for it! and we proceed to do-si-do back and forth from one side of the fridge and stove to the back. the refrigerator is right beside the carport door so i opened it a bit in hope she would see the bright sunlight and hear his momma calling. and eventually he did and out he went. all this commotion happened right at around 3 so mom took luke to get the other kids. that and the fact that i was expounding my vocabulary trying to remove this bird and hoping it would go some place i couldn’t get him out of. thanks mom.
oooh and to top off the day on the way to the chinese restaurant we had some kamikaze raccoon… i’m talking big sucker!.. jump in front of the van. ben was talking about some house or something and i screamed “racooooooon!” but it was too late. ka-thunk! he said he saw it running off in the rear view mirror so maybe he was ok. yeah right.
just way to much one on one contact with nature today