I WIN!!... Thanks to the Sandbag Showercap!

I have been a woman obsessed for the past three days... ever since the return of "the woodpecker." I was so completely annihilated from exhaustion yesterday that I didn't even really start my Islamic Law paper, and instead I sat at my desk staring wanly into my computer screen while dreaming up MacGyver-style tactics to be rid of the bird forever.


Whether real or imagined... he is the man, the myth... MacGyver

Since the professional bird trapper at Desert Wildlife Services never called me back, and the $15 plastic owl I purchased at Home Depot was pathetically ineffective, I decided that I truly needed to take action myself. After talking to several friends, Miguel, and my mother for some quality advice, I solidified my plan... AKA the sandbag deterrent.

It works like this: I took approximately 25 large cupfuls of sand and dumped them into a small plastic grocery bag. I then put this bag of sand inside an old pillowcase, tying it up tightly. Then I wrapped another larger plastic garbage bag around the other two bags. This triple-layered bag of sand would then be placed on top of the tall pipe so the woodpecker could not land on it and peck downwards, which is his usual M.O.

The problem was that my apartment manager's husband, Igor (another good story right there, BTW... but for another time), was not home to climb onto the roof for me. Seeing as he is about 21 years old, approximately 110 lbs, and nimble as a Cirque du Soleil gymnast, I quickly discovered that I could not quite as easily heave myself up onto the roof as he could, using only a kitchen chair. After huffing and puffing and making a total mockery of my upper arm strength, I decided to turn to Plan B.

This Plan involved me climbing onto the roof using my neighbor's bar stool, the fence around our building, and my sense of balance.


As you can see, I did get up. The hard part was getting down...

I had Shauna help me balance the chair and assist with handing up the sand bag.

Shauna also acted as official photographer...

Here I am on the roof with the useless plastic owl and the sand bag.

I couldn't reach the top of the pipe -- or Silver Saguaro, as I've been calling it (it must be over six feet tall)...

So I had Shauna hand me up a folding chair that I then stood on to put the bag on the pipe... (Uhhh, I suddenly just had thoughts of bagpipes...)

Shauna thought the whole thing was pretty hilarious, as she was cackling away while I was trying not to slide off the folding chair on the slanted roof. Luckily I didn't end up breaking anything.

And here's what it looks like now...

Even though the owl is worthless, I still like him up there. He's kind of sinister.

As for the bag, it seriously looks like the pipe is wearing a shower cap now. It's also slightly jellyfish-like.

However, despite its homely appearance, the bag worked like a charm this morning... NO WOODPECKER!

Yaaaayyyy!!!!

(As a sidenote, you probably noticed that I changed the "look" of my blog. I kept getting these weird blank spaces in the blog entry sections, plus I thought the font was hard to read. I like this clean look better with the bigger font...)