Our Front Porch Friends

This may come as a complete shock to some of you but, there are several (and I do mean SEVERAL) fears living deep within this Mom.

I can deal with most bodily fluids, squash a bug with my husband's shoe and I do read a pretty good bedtime story. On the contrary, I draw a very big line when it comes with anything happening outside (as in the great outdoors) and most definitely if it has anything to do with something with WINGS!!

So, about the middle of May I started noticing a lot of bird traffic outside our house. At first, it was nice to hear all of the fun chirping and I remember commenting to the kids and Ty that "Spring was finally here in Idaho!" Unfortunetely, the birds liked our house so much they wanted to make one of their own here too. ----------- (that's me, drawing the line.)

No way. Not here birds.

I kept a close eye on them because the last thing I was going to let them do was build a nest on my front porch. They sure did show me. Over a 24 hour time period, Ty successfully destroyed 3 half made nests. Each time Ty would get up on his sturdy ladder, the hose in one hand (to blow it off of the side of the hose) and a tennis racket in the other (to shwack the bird as they dive-bombed him in the process.)

Much to his avail, after we went to bed that evening, they built a bigger and stronger nest.

One week later, we see this.

We had no choice but to leave it alone but to be honest, at this point, I wasn't too concerned because we were getting ready to leave for Alabama for the rest of the summer and I figured by the time we got back, they'd be gone.

Again, those stupid birds sure did show me. After being gone almost 10 weeks, this is what we came home to.

My entire front porch was nothing but bird droppings and what I liked to call the "All Idaho Bird Traffic Pattern" was now centrally located in my front yard/driveway. What this meant wasthat I couldn't even get my mail or take the trash out without being harassed by these terrible beasts. Ridiculous.

So, I called several different agencies and finally spoke to someone at the Game and Fish Department and learned that these little birds were actually Swallows and ...OH, BY THE WAY... Swallows are protected by PETA. The woman told me it would be a Federal Offence to do anything with them or anything that may endanger them. I closed my eyes and imagined God rolling in laughter at this point.
So in the meantime, the kids loved every minute of watching the babies and after I found out there was nothing I could do until they all left the nest, I was able to sit back and enjoy the bird production through our front window. They all finally learned to fly and left the nest about a month later and I remember when I was outside that morning cleaning everything up, I thought to myself... "WOW, my kids are growing up fast but am I glad it won't be THAT fast!"