It struck me today (ouch!! Hey!!) that woodpeckers really ought to know the difference between wood and say…metal.

This past weekend, I was sitting on my reclining sofa enjoying a good recline, and a better cup of coffee.

Suddenly, my reclining was disturbed. I almost did one of those TV spit takes, where the actor sprays the beverage he is consuming, to howls of laughter from the studio audience (if I ever tried that here at home, it wouldn’t be howls of laughter that would come from my wife…).

The reason for that overreaction was a drumming sound, coming out of our furnace room, where I can confirm we keep no drums.

I thought maybe I had imagined it, which is something I find myself considering awfully frequently, truth be told. When it happened again, and much louder, I sprung (so to speak) from my recliner, and went in to investigate.

Looking at my furnace, which is conveniently located right there in the furnace room, I waited for the invisible beat-keeper to get rhythm once again. And then it did. Rat-a-tat-a-tat-tat. It seemed to be coming from a metal box, close to the ceiling.

Pulling out my old ladder, I got closer to this box, and thought for just a half a second about getting my tin snips, and cutting it open. At that close proximity, when the noise happened again, I could tell it was coming from above said box. I had to go upstairs, which was OK, because my coffee needed a refill anyway.

Entering my kitchen, the noise was even louder than it had been downstairs, but this time I could clearly tell it was coming from outside. I went out on our deck, and that’s when I discovered the source of the drum solos. A dumb-ass, half-blind woodpecker - rooting for bugs in an aluminum furnace stack. Only in my house…

And again, I find myself hoping that nobody on the board of directors of PETA is reading this, but I threw a lawn chair pillow at the idiot bird, which did make him decide to move along, but now left me with having to haul the ladder upstairs, to get my pillow off of the roof.

Ugh…

Chow for now!!