The Joys of Home Improvement

A few weeks ago, the garbage disposal began making a dreadful noise when I turned it on. At first I thought I'd dropped a spoon down it (something that infuriates me every single time I manage to do it, which is approximately every other week). But fishing around inside the disposal led me to believe that there were no spoons there. So I told Craig to take a look at it.

This is what he found:
The most beat up penny you've ever seen. Poor thing. I shudder to think what it did to the blades of my garbage disposal.



And while we're on the topic, my dryer stopped working this week. Well, let's just say that it stopped actually drying clothes without needing to use two or three cycles to do it. I find this unacceptable in a dryer. I noticed it the first time a couple days ago but hoped it was simply a fluke. But when it happened two more times, I had to face up to the fact that we had a problem.

Minor home improvement projects tend to get a bit backed up when Craig is consumed with a major one (such as the entire downstairs). That's why I've had light fixtures sitting on my kitchen counter for several weeks now. But not having a dryer is a big enough deal that it got moved to the top of Craig's chore list. Poking around looking for ideas as to what could be wrong, Craig decided to take off the outdoor vent for the dryer.

And a bird flew out.

We think this may be the root of our problem.

Upon further investigation, this is what Craig found inside the vent:

Yes, that's a nest, complete with tiny eggs (3 or 4 of them, actually, although they're hard to see in this picture). I can't decide how much I should be horrified by all this and how much I should be fascinated. But I will say that if removing this doesn't fix my dryer, then I don't know what will.

I bet those birds hardly needed to sit on the eggs at all to keep them warm, though! I hope now that Craig has moved the nest to a tree that the mother bird will come back...