When we first moved to the farm, the coyotes kept me up at night. Their yips and howls made me get out of bed, go outside and tell them to quiet down.
I've since learned that smaller critters can wreak havoc on everyday life.
This fall, tiny creatures have left me cold.
When I turned on heat in the workshop a few months ago, the clatter of clanking metal made me hit the off button. Something was seriously wrong with the heater.
The culprit?
A mud dauber had built a nest on the fan blade. The weight of the nest threw the blade off balance, causing a racket.
At a young age, I learned the difference between the friendly and mean wasps. The black ones, or mud daubers, meant no harm. The red wasps, with their honeycomb nests, required a wide berth. Their stings hurt, itched and caused me to swell like Popeye.
Yet, somehow, this innocent mud dauber had caused the heating woes.
A few weeks later, as the temperatures hit freezing and the wind blew, I lit a fire in our wood-burning stove. While we have a geo-thermal heating system, there is nothing quite as cozy as a fire on a cold day.
After lighting a fire, smoke began seeping out of the stove and stove pipe and filling the house. Something was seriously wrong.
The culprit?
A bird had built a nest in the stove pipe. We don't know what kind, but it was one small enough to climb over the dislodged wire netting.
A new stovepipe cover with sturdy wiring was installed.
We now have fire in the wood-burning stove, and I can sit by it at night, listen to the coyotes sing, and just return to my book.
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