Tuesday Tidbits - The Squatters and Room Progress

Not long after we moved into our house, Hubs wanted to see what was underneath the lap siding. He took two small pieces off of a corner of our back porch. Why he did not put the siding back is beyond me.
*You can click on any of the pictures to enlarge them.


Last fall, we noticed bits of insulation and the heavy brown paper covering it laying on the floor of the porch. Something was making a hole where the siding had been. It was not long until there was a nice size hole in the insulation.


Then we discovered the culprits. A pair of Carolina wrens made there home in our back porch all winter. I call them The Squatters, Winnie and Will.

This past week, there has been a lot of activity around that hole. One of the birds coming and going every few minutes. It was Will bringing food to Winnie, who is sitting on their nest.

If you look closely, you can see Will sitting at the opening of the nest giving Winnie some food.

In the above picture, you can see Winnie with some food that Will just left with her.

Watching how hard Will has worked this week has made me think that female birds know the secret to having babies. Just lounge around at home and make the male do your bidding.

But then poor Will can not even get a good night's sleep. In the picture below, you can see poor Will with his butt hanging out of the nest trying to sleep. Shortly after I took this picture, he fell out of the nest and ended up spending the rest of the night clinging to the black tar paper beneath the nest.

On Monday, I noticed both Will and Winnie carrying food into the nest. I took a quick peek inside and found four tiny beaks wide open. Stay tuned for pictures of the Baby Squatters next week.

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If you are a regular reader of my blog, you know of the challenge I have facing me cleaning out an upstairs room. If you missed that post, you can see it and the pictures here.

I have made some progress in this room, but not as much as I had hoped. Part of the reason I have not been able to make a lot of progress is I'm not sure what to do with all the stuff stuffed into this room. I thought what I did not want would just go to Goodwill but there are a lot of things I no longer have a need for that are just too good to donate. So I decided to put a little more effort into the clean up and mark things for a yard sale.

Here are a couple of pictures of my progress so far. Like I said, it does not seem like much but you can see more floor.

Now I know you are wondering what wonderful treasures I have found while digging in here.

I found this vintage print and hung it in our downstairs center hallway.

These picnic baskets have found a home in my laundry room/kitchen.

I discovered this vintage lap tray.

It now hangs in my kitchen along with another lap tray that has been on my kitchen counter.


I knew my collection of vintage mirrors was tucked in one corner but I had to clear a path to them. Hubs and I spent Monday evening hanging them in our downstairs center hallway. I am so pleased.

There will be more...

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Hubs has been busy painting some of the outside of the house. I am so pleased with the new colors and I can not wait until it is complete. Probably not until 2011, but...