Spring Surprises

The gentleman who built this house around the 1930's seemed to really like doors. This is a smaller house - or at least it was at first - with two, maybe three doors at the outset. When we moved in, it had five entrance doors available. The front door nobody ever used, except to move stuff in, or for deliveries (delivery people used to get particularly vexed choosing which door to get us to come to). What used to be the attached garage had been turned into a laundry room/extra room sometime after the free-standing garage was built, sometime around the 1970's, so another door was added there to cross under the breezeway to the garage. After that a sunroom was added on, which is the way in for everybody who knew the previous owners. There was even a little note pad attached to the wall near the inside entrance door to leave a message in case they missed you. And, of course, the back door to the 'root cellar,' which my husband insists on calling the bomb shelter (60's damage - duck and cover!)

So the door we tend to use the most is the door from the laundry/office/cat litter room out to the garage. It comes out the side of the house, under a covered breezeway, and it prevents some of our lovely springtime (or anytime) mud from coming into the main part of the house. So imagine my surprise when I innocently walked out that door and was 'assaulted' by a bird in the breezeway. Yes, visions of "The Birds" went through my head and I backed up inside as quickly as I went out. I waited a few minutes, looked for the vicious birdy, and then went about my business, convinced that bird would never come that way again and we can go about our usual routines.

Wrong! Last week we were coming home after dark and I noticed something different about our motion-sensor light for the breezeway. It looked different, or dirty, or something.... The vicious birdy had built a nest on top of our light! Pretty savvy - covered, protected, warm - pretty perfect for a mommy bird to hatch her eggs. Not so for us, however, as we are forced to use another, not so convenient door for our entrances and exits. Cannot bring ourselves to remove the nest and hurt the babies.



As far as our other doors... we really saw no sense to the real front door, since nobody uses it, so we walled it off. What used to be the front room with that door in it we now use as our master bedroom, so the opening is sealed, save for the top to put in our air conditioner. We don't use the AC much and I did not want to block a window opening that would allow fresh air in.

In addition to all those, we think there was a separate entrance to the cellar, that has since been walled in. I think the old man was just looking for escape routes!