We have new visitors... Of the winged kind.

My husband is a wise soul who decided yesterday to check the chimneys to see what kind of clearance they have, any down drafts, any debris etc. The fireplace in the living room is in working order. It has a down draft, the cob webs flutter, you can feel cold air coming down and a small kindling fire showed the smoke going up, which is the proper direction, and not out into the house. Excellent! Except... It shrieks at you. That was clue one that we were in for an interesting ride, clue two was the skeletal remains of a creature.

Moving on to chimney two... The parlor has one of the most amazing fireplaces I have ever had the privilege to lay my eyes on. However... It's filled with debris of all kinds. Leaves, sticks, you name it. We need it cleaned and a cap installed. Worse? We found another creature of the same variety as the first fireplace... Deceased...

Chimney Swifts. It seems that we are harboring at least two colonies of the bat-like birds and now comes the question of how to remove them without harming them because they truly are remarkable little things. I'm open to suggestion since I like winged squatters a lot better than the creepy crawly kind and would love to save them in some way. I will be putting out feeding stations for the area songbirds this winter and I plan on obtaining a colony of finches in a large flight cage in the living room or parlor... Maybe even the library. They'll be somewhere.

In other news... The garage is going to be reworked as well and will become a mancave/studio. Hubby needs a place for his toys and I need a private place to write, sculpt, and paint. It appears to be set up already to host a wood burning stove and the plan is to finish the ceiling after replacing the roof and installing infrared heaters to keep things toasty for the winter months. Hubby will have a ball decking it out with high tech security gadgets so I have no worries about anything out there. Plus it'll give me another place to move weather sensitive plants.

Slowly but surely, the plan is coming together. I think I may have a cleaning party complete with wine and cheese offerings at this point. We'll see.