Angry Birds

Remember my last post? About how God had been sending all these beautiful little birds to our yard and how happy it made me? Well.... this is  quite the follow up post! Go ahead and get ready to laugh (at my expense!)

It all started around 7am. This incessant knocking that sounded like someone was on my roof trying to get in.

Now let me just say, that if this knocking woke me up - it was LOUD. Friends, I can sleep through just about anything.... tornadoes... earthquakes.... a train coming through my living room. In college I almost missed a midterm one semester because I slept through 4 (yes FOUR) alarm clocks! So trust me when I say that anything that can wake me up and keep me awake at anytime before 10am is pretty flippin' loud.

You should also know, since this story starts at 7am, that I am NOT a morning person. I've tried numerous times to change that, as apparently only "morning people" are celebrated in our culture... but to no avail. God wired me to be incredibly creative and productive in the afternoon and night, and to groan and mumble and stumble around in a haze if I'm woken up early in the morning.

This morning was no exception to the rule... it was actually even more important that I NOT be woken up early. I'd had 4 late nights in a row already (because I was prepping for a trip down South, and we had a lot of work to be done before we left) and a very early morning Sunday, because we spoke at both services at our church. Sunday night I was up again till 3am, working on emails and starting to pack for our travel days.

So you can imagine my joy (please note the sarcasm dripping off that word) when something or someone woke me up at 7am after only 4 hours of sleep.... and that something would NOT STOP knocking on my rooftop!

It's May, so I knew it wasn't Santa or his reindeer (though it has been cold enough to feel like Christmas lately in Michigan). In my half-awake early morning stupor I wracked my brain to try to think of what it could be. My only conclusion was (A) A crazy weirdo man who thinks it's cool to crawl up on people's roofs at 7am in the rain or (B) Some psycho animal that is eventually going to find a way to get IN my bedroom via the roof and attack me. Exhaustion mixed with confusion mixed with fear sent me stumbling down to the bathroom where my husband was in the shower.

"Rusty.... RUSTY... RUSTY!!! There's someone on our roof!"  I think he was almost as freaked out about the fact that I was awake and downstairs at 7am as he was about that weird statement. "What?!?!" he said out of the shower curtain, "what are you talking about?" I quickly explained the situation and the fact that there was either a crazy man on our roof or a psycho animal trying to get in.

"Well, Arlene (our landlady) said someone was going to come by and look at our garage and maybe do some repairs sometime this week.... maybe that's him?" - I looked at him as if he were nuts, as again it was 7am, 40 degrees and RAINING outside, but I thought I should check out that theory. A quick run to the dining room window proved that there were no cars in our driveway, so that explanation was no good. (And if it was a person on the roof now I was even more freaked out, because they apparently WALKED to our house instead of drove. SO WEIRD!) I went back up to try to go back to sleep, hoping the knocking had stopped. No luck. Another trip downstairs to get Rusty, and this time I was in tears. I was exhausted, and I had so much to do today to get ready for our trip. I desperately needed sleep, and this bizarro knocking was keeping me from it!

He finally finished his shower and headed upstairs so I could prove to him that I was not crazy, and that this knocking was real. Sure enough, he heard it. And sure enough, he couldn't explain it either. He checked out the whole "man on our roof" theory again, and declared that it must be an animal. "Maybe it's a woodpecker?" he said. I had already thought of that... but why would a WOODPECKER attack our roof? There are shingles up there! Woodpeckers peck wood, right? Why would they be going crazy on our nasty, wet shingles when we have about 10 big beautiful trees in our yard?

"No... no... wait a minute.... it's coming from the attic crawl space. They're not on the roof - they're in the attic!" Oh great! Now these crazy birds (who sounded HUGE from their pecking) were in our attic. I wanted to go back to bed, but all I could think of was them pecking through the wall while I slept, and then going crazy through our house. "What if they get in and they attack our beautiful wooden antique BED!" I whined. But my husband couldn't help me... he had to go to work.

We tried to beat on the wall a few times to get the birds to stop (if they were birds - we still weren't sure), but they were undeterred. As Rusty gathered his things to leave for work, I grabbed my pillows and blanket an headed down to the couch. Right now my 'hours of sleep' count was sitting at 4. If I was going to get anything done today, I really needed that to be a more reasonable number... like maybe an 8. So, I collapsed on the couch only to hear Rusty run back into the house shouting - "I SAW THEM! They are the BIGGEST WOODPECKERS I'VE EVER SEEN! Seriously, these things are HUGE! They're like the size of a turkey! And they're red-headed!"

Great. The mystery is solved. We have 2 giant red-headed woodpeckers attacking our house. And if I remember right, red-headed woodpeckers are protected by law and you can't kill them or hurt them. Super. At this moment I felt a lot like Kit in "Failure to Launch" with her mockingbird problem.... *sigh. "Well," I thought, "I guess I'm going to sleep while they attack my house in search of worms".... and so, I did.

When I woke up a few hours later, Rusty told me the news. Apparently, woodpeckers don't just peck things looking for food (ie - worms and bugs). They were actually trying to get INTO our house, and they had done some damage! The landlady had already been by to take a look, and would be sending someone over to fix everything ASAP (if things weren't repaired, then the birds would be successful and would get inside the attic!)

I couldn't believe it... I had to see for myself. I grabbed my camera and went outside to find this...

Those #@&! birds had PECKED A HOLE through our WINDOW! I was in shock! I mean, they are WOODpeckers for crying out loud... how on earth were they able to do this to glass!?

They'd also put several holes into the siding of our house, some that looked pretty deep. I just couldn't believe it! I mean - these were a couple of very large, very angry birds to do this kind of damage! What did I ever do to them?

*sigh. Just another day in our crazy life, and reason #1,023 why we are home renters, not home owners. But someday, when that home ownership season finally does come, you better believe we'll be looking for an insurance policy that protects against woodpecker damage!