Our First Visitors

I keep telling friends and family – just wait, we’ll have a guest room soon. But for some, soon isn’t soon enough. They’ve already arrived! Our first visitor was polite enough to knock. Although knock isn’t really the right word – it was more of a pecking sound. A very LOUD pecking sound that reverberated through the walls of the empty house. Our crazy red-headed guest made his initial presence known on a beautiful Sunday afternoon while we were picnicking in the yard with friends – he even let me get a close-up of him bashing his head against our bedroom windowsill. But when this sapsucker came banging at 5 a.m. the next week, we politely told him it was time to go.

Sound on!!

Our next visitor did not knock. It actually took us a few days to notice she had arrived because she let herself in through the roof. I mean, really, who does that!?! Our guest flew between the trusses before Tache had a chance to sheath them. She built a sturdy nest and by the time we spotted her, she’d laid three incredibly gorgeous, bright blue eggs. Unfortunately, we were now the suckers making all the noise. She would disappear most of the day, leaving her eggs unattended, only to return at night after the ruckus abated. When Tache finally sheathed the house – leaving the area closest to her nest open so she could still fly in – she never came back.

Therefore, we are now incubating Mama Robin’s three eggs in the trailer. We have them safely nestled atop the heater at a cozy 100 degrees, which is what google says mama would want. No signs of life yet… but we will continue to be hospitable to our guests!

Our final visitors were nothing less than royalty – future kings and queens! We should have known they were coming, given Prince Paddy’s prolific singing all spring. For new readers, Prince Paddy is the Pacific Chorus Frog who’s been trying to entice the ladies up to his mud puddle next to our house, rather than join the hundreds of other frog minions in the pond. And for those of you wondering, yes, this is the same mud puddle that matches our mesa buff-colored floors.

Well, Prince Paddy’s singing worked, and we became the proud hosts of HUNDREDS of tadpoles. Unfortunately for this up-and-coming royal family, the puddle started to shrink with the warm weather. The irony is that all winter and spring, I looked forward to our driveway finally drying out. Now with Prince Paddy’s offspring in peril, I found myself dumping buckets of water into the mud puddle to save their precious lives. Alas, this past weekend with our 70-degree heat wave, it was time to make a rescue plan.

Naturally, I borrowed Meg and Jodi’s turkey baster and sucked them out of the puddle and relocated them to the pond. Tache says (with absolutely no sarcasm, of course) that I deserve some sort of humanitarian award, but I say wouldn’t you all do the same for these royal polliwogs!?! Spending hours in the blazing sun, crouched next to a mud puddle, slowly sucking pea-sized amphibians three or four at a time into a tiny tube, then lightly squirting them into a mason jar so as to not kill them… and then slashing through stinging nettles and thorny blackberry bushes to release them was truly the only choice!

Hopefully our future visitors aren’t as high maintenance as our first few. But, if you are thinking of visiting, we’re making good progress! The roof is on, the windows are in… next up, plumbing and electrical.

Here’s a video outtake of the tadpoles if you’re interested and/or want a good laugh. Technically, they are the larval stage of my spirit animal… so I just love them!