This morning in the middle of our hour plus long commute to school/ work, Emma let out a Monday morning yawn which in turn caused me to yawn. Emma decided it was a funny game and I guess nothing is funnier than starting a yawning war in the car because that's what happened for ten minutes straight. I am not exaggerating. My eyes were watering so much from yawning and laughing by the end of it. It was a glorious little moment.
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Several weeks back, on a glorious sunny weekend day, as we were about to head out on an errand, Thomas pointed out two large "crows" perched on our shed in the back yard (the shed is visible from our drive way). I looked over and gasped, "Um those are not crows! They are huge!" Thomas just looked at me and back at the birds and that was that. They were gone by the time we got home. We resumed our normal weekly routine and then the next weekend came. My family was visiting and we ventured into the back yard to get bikes for Emma and her cousin to ride in the driveway. There the birds were again. Large, almost statuesque, black birds, perched on our shed like they owned the place. My sister was the first to utter the word…vulture. "What?!?!?! No, they can't be." I thought. They seemed unfazed by the kids and the dogs at the time and I was trying to decide if that was a good or a bad thing.
We ended up walking to the park and didn't see the birds the rest of the day. Thomas announces later that according to his research, they are turkey vultures and non-aggressive. I shrug my shoulders and move on until…later that day…I see one of them jumping into the hole in the top of the shed. Let me pause here to say we have been in this house only a few months and have spent a fair bit of our free time fixing things and unpacking boxes so the crumbling shed in the yard, while on our "to do" list of things to fix was high, but we had higher priorities…until now. I ran to Thomas horrified, we had vultures living in our shed! All I could think of were my dogs and Emma and vultures possibly nesting and baby vultures and well you get the idea, full on panic set in.
I did what any freaked out person would do and consulted Google only to find out to my horror that what we had were black vultures, the more aggressive kind (turkey vultures have red heads in case you need a quick lesson on that.) I also found out that they are hard to get rid of once they roost and they are of course protected wildlife. I felt so helpless, like I was being forced to relinquish my backyard to protected wildlife that would never leave. Finally, the saga came to a head when on Sunday morning, I peeked out back to make sure the coast was clear for me to let the dogs out. After deciding all was well and letting the dogs out, one of the vultures jumped out of the shed and perched on the roof. Picture me on a cold Sunday morning, in my pjs, clutching a rake, waving it in the air, and screaming at my dogs to get in the house. I just know our neighbors think so highly of us :). I was a complete wreak at this point and Thomas agreed to cover the holes in the shed to see if they would move on. Long story short, he did and they did but not after coming back to survey the scene. They looked genuinely confused and maybe I felt slightly sorry for them but we could not cohabit the same yard. Thus ended our domestic despite with the vultures.
I feel like this post is so long already and I haven't even gotten to the ground bees. So almost within the same week, the backyard saga took a turn from birds to bees, literally. We had noticed some small holes in the dirt under the addition to our house when we toured it the first time but of course I was so taken with the place I bruised it off as something we could deal with later. Well, it's later, and we have a swarm, I mean probably 50 or more ground bees living in the dirt mound in our backyard. So far, they have been non-agressive but they are intimidating for sure. And once again my moral obligation for the environment is guilting me into stressing out over a solution to get rid of them. They are pollinators and of course we need to save the bees but so far, every bee keeper I've called has said the only thing to do is keep the ground wet and maybe that will discourage them from living there. I haven't tried this yet but somehow I doubt this place will be vacated. It's like the Palm Springs of bee colony homes, like premium real estate in bee terms. It's always shielded from the elements under the addition and it's a big pile of dirt. What more could a bee ask for, I guess. Sigh.
This brings me back to Emma's birthday party. Here I was so excited to finally be able to have people over to the house for a bbq and party in the yard and the bees have other plans. So now I'm left with having to plan a party at another location again. I know a first world problem but dang it all I want is to be able to hang out in my back yard! So for now, the Pattersons versus nature saga continues. Stay tuned.
