I got a mysterious email from my husband this morning.
“FYI- The starlings are no longer in the water tower,” the
message states. “I repeat, the starlings have left the water tower. That is
all.”
As you’ve probably guessed, there’s a bit of a backstory
here. First, I have to explain the water tower. You see, there’s one in my
yard.
It’s not a real water tower – it’s more like a lawn
decoration. A rather large one. Back when my youngest son Matthew was little,
he was fascinated by water towers and rather annoyed that the city of Avoca
didn’t have one. He would point them out everywhere we went.
As he started to outgrow that habit, we kept it up, always
with a bit of teasing.
“Wow, look at that, Matthew! This town has TWO water towers!
Too bad we can’t have one at home.”
And no one on else can do the ‘you guys are jerks’ look like
a perturbed 10-year-old. Having fun at his expense a couple years later, my
husband Eric decided to build Matt a water tower using a 55-gallon drum. He
welded legs onto the thing and painted it, having me letter “Welcome to Avoca”
on the front. The fact that all of this was happening just days before our
daughter’s graduation party was irrelevant. To Eric, anyway. Recognizing the
exhaustion that comes with swimming upstream against him, I found it easier to
pick up a paintbrush.
We unveiled the project one morning as Matt wandered
outside. Eric had set it up on the lawn, and when a 12-year-old Matt walked out
the backdoor, he couldn’t help but notice it. He gave us a glare and mumbled
something about us being jerks.
So, the water tower still exists. It’s moved around the yard
a few times, and once had an Avoca native’s ashes sprinkled under it (that’s a
whole ‘nother story). Currently, it is in the side yard by the driveway.
Underneath, Eric and I put in landscaping bricks and planted strawberries.
Despite the evil weather this spring, the plants were
growing well. Then I wandered over to look at them last week and noticed there
seemed to be an inordinate amount of bird, uh, waste in the center of the
strawberry patch. While pondering the oddness of that discovery, I was rudely
squawked at by a starling who seemed quite perturbed to see me so close to the
tower.
Since I was killing time waiting for Eric to shingle around
vents before he’d let me back up on the roof (yet another story for another
day), I obligingly moved away and watched the loud little chirpy. As I stood
by, the bird landed on the railing of the tower and squawked a bit more.
And a bunch of tiny chirps answered her, and a crop of
little heads peeked out. You have to get underneath and look up to see it, but
the original opening of the barrel is still there. Mommy starling built a nest
in my water tower, and the whole gang is dropping bird bombs on my
strawberries.
So, ethically, do you plug up the hole? No! The babies would
die. Sure, they’re annoying poopy starlings, but they’re babies. So my master
plan was to wait a bit longer until they start flying, then go bang on the
sides of the tower until they get a headache and leave.
Eric was more impatient. He said he doesn‘t like starlings
because they don’t make pretty noise and they’re mean to other birds. He said
he was going to evict them or plug the hole. He’s mean.
So, after I got to work today, I got the mysterious email.
Even more so if you are aware he actually left for work about 15 minutes before
I did today.
Right now I’m going to assume something bad happened during
the storm last night, because I’m trying to give my husband the benefit of the
doubt.
I’ll let you know how this turns out. Maybe by then I'll find a darned photo of the water tower, which I just spent a silly amount of time looking for.
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