Something Worse...
Have you heard of the swallows of Capistrano? We have the swallows of New Glarus at our house and they are driving Al crazy!!!! If you aren’t familiar with swallows, they build their nests out of mud, which they generally decide to plop on a protected ledge such as the decorative trim we have over the windows on our front porch. They are quite messy, leaving a trail of mud, grass clippings and other “stuff” they use to build their nests. Of course, they can also leave a trail of poo…..
Allan has hosed the mud off the window trim before the swallows had a chance to get far in their building process but it’s kind of a continuous vigil because they just start all over again once the hose is put away. We put a couple of small wind chimes up hoping that suggestion by someone might actually work. Instead, we looked out to see the swallows sitting on them. While looking on the Internet for solutions, I learned that swallows are a protected species. I casually mentioned that again to Al the next night when I came home to a bb gun standing next to the front door. I won’t repeat what his response was but am happy to report, NO swallows lost their lives. What is a guy to do?
As I drove in the driveway last night when I came home from the shop, I noticed these lovely, plastic, flap things hanging over the two porch windows and the trim over the door. They are Al’s solution to the swallows, kind of a plastic “visor” for the trim, too slippery for the birds to build a nest on. He says he’s leaving them up until he’s sure those swallows have found somewhere else to roost (like the barn down the road) or until summer is over, whichever comes second.
Are they ugly? Heck yes, they’re ugly! The saving grace is I will actually be able to put my wicker out, sit on the clean porch and not have to worry about Al coming up with something worse….besides, you can, only, kind of, see them from the road…k
Note: Our swallows have now decided that a nest under the overhang on our storage shed will work but are continuing to hang out on the porch rail just in case Al takes the plastic down sooner rather than later.
June 16, 2015