2022 Life Logs, Day 317: Dreary Sunday
Date: Sunday, November 13, 2022
Weather: Overcast with Rain; High 55, Low 34 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Overcast, gentle rains turning to downpours, periods of no rain, cool. Yes, it was a much more typical November day. Dreary, but sometimes a dreary, rainy day is good for the soul. I finished packing for Puerto Rico, picked some no rain times to walk with Shadow, turned the outside water off and removed the drip irrigation controller, installed a new carbon monoxide and dangerous gas monitor in the basement, replaced a carbon monoxide alarm in the upstairs of the cottage, replaced the screen with the storm window in the back door, but I didn’t get the hole in the front of the house repaired. That last one needs some explanation. Last week, Shadow and I kept hearing a loud pecking sound on the front of the house. When I heard the noise, I would go out and see a bird flying away. Then on Thursday, I was shocked to see that one of the cedar shingles on the front of the house was missing. And unfortunately, it was one of the shingles covering a two-inch diameter hole that Mass Saves drilled in order to fill the walls with insulation. They had covered the hole with white Styrofoam insulation so no critters could get in and then covered it with the shingle. I taped over the hole and thought it would be fine until I could deal with it. Then on Friday morning, I heard the tapping again and went out to see a very determined downy woodpecker flying away. The tape I had applied had blown off during the night, but I had to leave to go downtown for the Veterans Day ceremony, promising to come home and do something about this. When I got home, that little woodpecker had been very busy. She had drilled out the white Styrofoam and entered the hole and emptied as much of the blown in insulation as possible onto the ground. Unbelievable. I covered the hole with a cork coaster and fashioned a bird deterrent by cutting long strips in an Amazon bag and nailed it over the area. Saturday afternoon Jed gave me a sheet of shingle material, but I still need to cut it and put it in place. It was too rainy to deal with it today, so that is tomorrow’s job.
