What the...???

Ahhhh... the joys of being a homeowner...

I remember when I first moved in. I'd hear some sound in the night and wonder what the heck was that? I'd get up and hunt it down. And then it would be only the furnace or sump pump or twigs brushing against the side of the house or a branch rubbing against the phone wire.

Kind of like how mothers are huh?Ones with babies at least.When there's the slightest sound in the night, they're up.Was that the baby? What does he need? Is he okay?Stuff like that.

Well... today..There I was, laptop set up at the kitchen table, hot cup of sugary coffee there at my left hand, all set to start working on a part of a story when I hear what sounded like a jackhammer noise coming from the south side of the house.

Not a continuous jackhammering. Just a staccato. Like bursts of fire from a machine gunner. Like the guy is just warming up and getting a feel for the thing until the real busting apart of the concrete begins.

So I get up and look through the blinds and... hmmm... nothing happening across the street. Maybe there's something farther down. Like maybe a guy is busting up a driveway or a water main broke. But this IS Elgin.. and this IS the west side. Maybe it IS a machine gun.

So I'm looking out the window and then I hear it again.

Hey, that doesn't sound like it's outside. It's coming from my house!

First thing I thought was that it was the sump pump trying to run but maybe the bearing had, over the years, gone bad, and it had seized up.

So I go downstairs thinking, "Oh shit. I do not need this."

I jiggled the wires to the sump pump and... It started up.

Thank God that's not broken.

Oh, maybe the prongs of the power cord just weren't making contact. Maybe the vibration just worked them to a point where they weren't touching perfectly. I could fix that. At least the pump isn't seized. So I go back upstairs and sit back down at the computer.

Then the noise happens again.

And five seconds later again.

So now I look out the bedroom windows. Maybe the sound is coming from the front of the house and, like a cricket's chirp, is just bouncing off something else and appearing to come from the south.

Nope. Nothing out there. So then I go outside. And while I was standing on the back porch, I heard the sound again. This time it appeared to come from the west. So I go and look down the street.

Nothing. Some parked cars and maybe a couple of garbage cans that haven't been wheeled into their back yards, but other than that, nothing that could make a jack-hammer sound.

But hey, at least it's not something wrong with the house.

So I go back inside. Sit back down and...

rat-a-tat-a-tat-tat-a-rat-a-tat-a-tat....

I could swear that is coming from my house. Damn. I gotta find out what's going on.

Then I thought, I've been hearing raccoons on my roof, or large squirrels on steroids, or testosterone, romping around after 9:00PM. Maybe it's one of them up on the roof, doing I have no idea what. Trying to break in? Having wild squirrel sex? Wanting to get in on some of the ten pounds of almonds I just bought at the Fisher Nuts Outlet?

So, I go outside again and, right as I was about to go get the ladder and investigate, I hear the noise.

I look up at the top of the house and I see... perched atop the chimney like he's playing snare drum in a band and waiting for the conductor to point to him..

a woodpecker.

He's just sitting there, hanging on to the side of that grating kind of thing and using the top part as a drum.

I went to get my camera but when I came out again, he flew off into the neighbor's tree. But it was this guy. The Flicker.

What he wanted with my chimney, who knows. There's no wood up there to peck on.

Maybe it was the almonds...