Roof, birds, contractors and success

It started with a “hmm,” and ended with a “wow!”

“Hmm, why is that kitchen windowsill warped?”

This white painted wooden windowsill is lined with plants including my newest addition, the carnivorous Sundew. The Sundew has sticky red hairs growing out of its green leaves to attract and capture flying insects to consume slowly over time.

An interesting adaptation of the Sundew is its purple flowers grow on a tall stalk above the sticky leaves and the flowers are not sticky, so it won’t adhere to pollinators which it requires for survival.

The Sundew likes to live in a watery bowl so I thought at first perhaps the windowsill was warped because I’d spilled water?

Further examination revealed it wasn’t just the window, it was the wall, too. This was December.

This house is more than 25 years old and, as much as I didn’t want to admit it, it appeared we may have a leak so we opened up a small patch of the ceiling. A couple of days later and just before Christmas (also my husband’s birthday), suspicions were confirmed when water poured from the sky.

By Christmas Eve our biggest pot — the one we use for lobsters — was barely enough to contain the onslaught coming in through the roof and down from the wall.

It was clear after four bids and another rainstorm — as if the first wasn’t enough — it was time to bite the bullet and get a new roof.

There’s this thing I always knew was a thing but I didn’t know it had a name until the other day.

I was listening to one of my favorite books, James Clear’s “Atomic Habits,” and he talked about what’s called the Diderot Effect. It’s named after 19th century French philosopher Denis Diderot who needed money to pay for his daughter’s wedding, so he sold some of his personal art collection and, with that, also acquired a fine dressing gown.

But that wasn’t enough. Following the dressing gown, he felt his wardrobe needed an upgrade, chaussures to chapeau. Then his furnishings and, so on, until he was out of money altogether.

So the Diderot Effect refers to that social and economic phenomenon where obtaining something new spirals into a cycle of purchasing.

Well, if we were going to get a new roof, we’d need a HELOC — home equity loan. And if we were going to get a HELOC we may as well get something I’d dreamed of for nearly all of the 20 years we’ve lived here: new floors to replace the old carpet and new tile for where the wood stove sits.

And we’d need a new wall, so that would require a handyman proficient with drywall. And proper sequencing was required: floors last, wall in the middle, roof first. The roof would take a week or two, a day or so for the drywall and another couple of weeks for the flooring and tile.

That part would require a delay while we packed up the whole house — 20 years’ accumulation — into boxes and then loaded those into a rented pod.

This was becoming a big deal.

Meanwhile, someone else was making our house their home. That’s when the “wow!” came in.

One day on the way to feed my chickens, I noticed a feather in our faux-floral wreath on the front door.

“Why is there a feather in the wreath?” I wondered. On closer examination I was pleased and amazed to see a bird’s nest newly built into the wreath with a small single, pale blue egg. It was real, not an accessory.

Wow! A bird laid eggs in a nest on our wreath. Pretty little light blue eggs.

By this time it was April and one day before the roofers would start. So we did what anyone of you would likely do — we taped off the front door and for the next month every contractor had to step into our home through an alternate door.

People sometimes like to talk a little smack about contractors here in the foothills — “mountain time,” you know. This is the point at which I say every single contractor was excellent, from the roof to the drywall, floors, tile — all of it. Efficient, professional, friendly, and not one of them complained about the birds.

The birds, meanwhile, turned out to be house finch with the prettiest little warble.

I didn’t think the delicate eggs would survive the roofing and I was scared to check on their status, but I stood on tip toe and was disheartened to see what looked like mold in the nest.

“They didn’t make it, they’re moldy,” I said, disappointed.

“Mom,” said our daughter, “that mold has a heartbeat.”

One nest became two, two eggs became four, four became eight and they all survived and fledged successfully. Then, they did it again. It turns out house finch can multi-task with two clutches at different stages of development.

Sometimes we could hear them singing through the front door, which remained taped off throughout construction.

And it turns out, house finch take the “house” part of their name very seriously.

Now, basically, they own us. I’m not talking about the nests in the eves or even the nests they continued to feather on the front door. A pair of them built another two nests in an entirely separate plastic wreath on the garage door and they’re adding on as I write this.

It’s July now and we still aren’t using the front door. I’m just hoping our apparently long-term tenants will pay that HELOC when the bill comes due.

And if you’re looking for a good contractor, hit me up — I’ve got their names and numbers.

Kellie Flanagan is a staff writer focusing on Eastern Madera County and can be reached at kellie@mariposagazette.com