Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

…and a burning sense of injustice to juice the soul.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

This fight is for everything.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

A consequence of cucumbers

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

The current Supreme Court is a rogue court. Very dangerous.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

“That’s what the insurrection act is for!”

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

You are here: Home / John Cole Presents "This Fucking Old House" / Build It And They Will Come

Build It And They Will Come

by | 75 Comments

This post is in: 

I am very very excited to announce that I HAVE A NEW BIRD NEST UNDER CONSTRUCTION! I was sitting on the front porch this morning and noticed a wee bird flying into one of the ferns with straw and stuff, and when it was gone, I quickly pulled it down and sure enough a nest is under construction! I am very thrilled to welcome my new neighbors!!!

Also very pleased to report that since planting the clover this year and all the perennials the last two years I have noticed a very dramatic increase in bees- the big drunk ones that look like flying minivans, and all sorts of smaller varieties of honeybees.

Reader Interactions

75Comments

  4. 4.

    laura

    The odds of Cole having a nest built in his beard has just increased exponentially….

  5. 5.

    Leto

    Thank you for the arrows, they were most helpful. Now if you could get your damn fingers out of the lens, it’s be perfect.

    Do you have a bird “For Rent” sign posted out front? Are they “neighbors” if they’re squatting on your porch? Is the tree too close to the house? So many pressing questions this morning!

    Edit: jealous of your bees. That’s where the above snarkiness comes from, bee jealousy. ?

  6. 6.

    Keithly

    You might want to check out the ‘minivan’ bees. From the description, they could be carpenter bees looking to set up shop in your exterior wood trim.

  9. 9.

    Wyatt Derp

    Bees love clover. As do bunnies. When we had a garden the bunnies would leave our veggies alone if there were clover heads nearby.

  12. 12.

    kindness

    Do you mean Bumblebees? Are those the drunk minivan ones you are referring to? I thought everyone called them that.

  13. 13.

    Peter

    Planting for pollinators is an absolute good. Equally important, for those of you considering it, is not using any synthetic pesticides or herbicides on your lawn and garden. I’m a huge advocate for edible lawns: dandelions are good! So is clover, and violet, and chickweed, and ground ivy, and more. If you don’t spray poison on them, then you and the bees can all enjoy the bounty without harm.

  14. 14.

    Nicole

    Congrats on your new birb nest. I hope the momma birb hatches several healthy baby birbs.

  15. 15.

    RedDirtGirl

    I may have missed this at some earlier point, but can we get side-by-side photos of the house when you bought it vs. now?

  16. 16.

    CliosFanBoy

    @Keithly: LOL, I was thinking the same thing. I saw some of those and yesterday saw the little scattering of sawdust, looked up, yep, the round hole on the eaves. ARGHH.

  17. 17.

    Achrachno

    Maybe we should buy John a field guide to birds. He seems to need one, what with all the unknowns lurking around his house.

  18. 18.

    C Stars

    The house is looking so lovely. Drunk minivan bees are my favorite kind. I always call them mouse bees.

  19. 19.

    stinger

    Congratulations on the birds, and the bees, and the flowers, and the trees… and the moon up above!

  20. 20.

    cmorenc

    We have a wonderful front porch very much like yours John – amply wide and long enough for several rocking chairs, open-sided but sheltered by a roof – and ours came (courtesy of the previous owner) with a cute man-constructed birdhouse hanging from the ceiling in one corner instead of a bird-built nest. Alas, no birds have taken nest in the man-made birdhouse in the 14 years we have lived here. Maybe it’s time to hang some bird-feeders to make it more worth the birds’ time here.

  22. 22.

    Mary G

    Congratulations, John. That makes all the time and money you’ve sunk into the house worthwhile.

  24. 24.

    bemused

    Love spring with frogs singing, summer birds back, owls hooting, partridges drumming and lilies, bee balm coming up fast. Sadly spring has paused and in the low 40’s today. At least we did not get any snow, just rain but Hermantown MN had 9 inches.
    One of our two kitties passed away recently and now we are on the hunt for a long-haired kitten. If any BJers in MN know of any long hairs 6 months or younger to adopt, please comment. We’ve been keeping close tabs on the shelters but so far no luck.

  25. 25.

    catclub

    @Mary G: I always wished the TV show would tell what the budget was, and how much was given by sponsors. I figure there were mulitple million $ projects there.

  26. 26.

    JoyceH

    I second the caution about carpenter bees and if anyone knows how to get rid of carpenter bees, please let me know. (Bumblebees are fuzzy. Carpenters are smooth.)

  28. 28.

    trollhattan

    @JoyceH:
    Carpenter bees are also comically large.

    FWiW I’ve never had them tunnel into painted wood, but firewood and fence posts are happily excavated and occupied. The holes themselves are too large to miss–darn near a half-inch diameter.

    Leafcutter bees are fond of my rose leaves, leaving scalloped holes as they haul off the bounty to pack smaller nest tunnels. They’re small and nondescript, much tougher to spot in flight.

  31. 31.

    cleek

    be careful watering that fern…

    (or so i’m told by the ghosts of the dead baby birds we found in one of our ferns)

  34. 34.

    joel hanes

    @kindness:

    bumblebees. I thought everyone called them that.

    In parts of Great Britain, they’re called “dumbledores”.

  36. 36.

    Humdog

    John, if you and Gerald come upon some rocks that are too round for pathway use, consider placing a row of them in the planting area on each side of your front walk. It may reduce the amount of dirt or mulch on the path. Very nice front view.

    I know you are trying to do the path inexpensively, but please consider removing the sod and soil and using heavy duty landscape fabric under your path. Otherwise you will curse the grass you need to pull out many times per year, rucking up your laid stones. Voice of bitter experience here.

  37. 37.

    Kristine

    I have a couple of pussy willows in the backyard. They exploded with flowers a couple of weeks ago–they gave off a very soft, pleasant scent and attracted 3-4 different types of bees as well as red admiral butterflies. The flowers didn’t last long, but is was a pollinator Grand Central Station while it lasted.

  38. 38.

    NotMax

    Front page post about (*gasp*) the birds and the bees?

    Think of the children!

    :)

  39. 39.

    Amir Khalid

    @kindness:
    In some parts of England, bumblebees are also called dumbledores. Hence the name of the Harry Potter character.
    ETA: joel hanes got there first. Pout.

  43. 43.

    Tata

    Carpenter bees strafe me whenever I’m working in my garden, but they leave everyone else alone. It’s like they’re all born with my picture in their wallets.

    So two geese have been guarding the bike rack and the front door of the building in which I work. I use that bike rack. Today, the female laid at least four eggs in a bad spot we know floods. Everyone is so upset! The goose is now named Connie. I’m pretty sure I’ll be tartared by the gander when I try to leave here.

  44. 44.

    trollhattan

    @joel hanes:
    Brits also call ladybugs ladybirds, for whatever reason. More than one pop song had me wondering why they were singing about Mrs. Johnson.

  46. 46.

    trollhattan

    @Tata:

    I’m pretty sure I’ll be tartared by the gander when I try to leave here.

    He must be saucy.

    My p.m. cycle commute home is along a levee path that is currently overrun with Canada geese. I try to make sure they know I’m coming because startling them sometimes puts them into flight and even right in my path. My closest encounter so far was a wing dragged across my face; which was amazing considering I thought I was going to collect the entire bird at 15+mph.

  48. 48.

    ruemara

    Sounds like you’ve made a home for more than just yourself. I got to see the female Teddy Bear bee. They’re large and black. I’ve only seen the golden male once in 7 years. It’s really exciting. Maybe you should set up some hives too?

  49. 49.

    Death Panel Truck

    I wish we had bumblebees. We have paper wasps instead. They’re fairly docile until you try fucking with their nests. I found a nest under the lid of one of the dumpsters we use for yard waste, with a single wasp guarding it. She wasn’t too pleased to be discovered. I waited until nightfall, then went out with a flashlight and a can of wasp killer and evicted her the hard way.

    I actually feel kind of bad killing them. They’re beneficial creatures, because they keep the spider population in check. But the pain of their stings is high on the Schmidt scale, and I’m not eager to experience it.

    https://www.terminix.com/blog/science-nature/the-insect-sting-pain-scale/

  51. 51.

    catclub

    @Death Panel Truck:

    But the pain of their stings is high on the Schmidt scale, and I’m not eager to experience it.

    I don’t know if I would recognize a bullet ant, but I know to avoid them.

  52. 52.

    catclub

    @catclub: Paper Wasp (3.0)

    Paper wasps are another common species, and these territorial pests’ gray, honeycomb-like nests, can pop up under eaves or around porch areas in the summer months. Luckily, the pain of their sting can begin to fade after 15 minutes. Regardless, expect a pain that is “caustic and burning” with a “distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of hydrochloric acid on a paper cut.”
    Bullet Ant (4.0+)

    The good news? You’ll have to travel to some fairly exotic tropical locales in Central and South America to encounter this large black ant. The bad news? According to Schmidt, the pain of its sting is literally off the charts. Schmidt describes the bullet ant’s sting as incapacitating — it maintains its intensity for at least 12 hours, and often twice that. “Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like fire-walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail in your heel.”

    That 4.0+ is doing a lot of work. Sounds more like 8+ to me.

  53. 53.

    TenguPhule

    Trump and Xi’s conflicting views an obstacle for U.S.-China trade talks

    Is there some kind of award for really terrible headlines?

  54. 54.

    TenguPhule

    @catclub:

    I don’t know if I would recognize a bullet ant, but I know to avoid them.

    The first hint would be their size.

    The second, their aggressiveness.

    The third would be the pain.

  56. 56.

    Martin

    @Death Panel Truck: Oh, and props to Justin Schmidt who allowed himself to be systematically stung/bitten by all of these things in order to document and categorize the toxins and pain.

  57. 57.

    TenguPhule

    @catclub:

    That 4.0+ is doing a lot of work. Sounds more like 8+ to me.

    It goes to 11, from what I understand.

  58. 58.

    TenguPhule

    Pelosi says she agrees with Nadler that U.S. is in ‘constitutional crisis’

    Okay, at this point the only logical reason I can think of to explain Pelosi digging in against impeachment is that she is the one next in line once Trump and Pence are gone and she doesn’t want to be President. Because once you admit that yes, these fuckers are shredding the Constitution, there isn’t a lot left to be said.

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that she agrees with House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) that the country is in a “constitutional crisis” due to President Trump’s stonewalling of congressional investigations.

    “Yes. I do agree with Chairman Nadler, because the administration has decided that they are not going to honor their oath of office,” Pelosi told reporters at her weekly news conference.

    Democrats and the White House are locked in a battle over executive authority in the wake of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

    On Wednesday, Nadler’s committee voted along party lines to hold Attorney General William P. Barr in contempt of Congress for ignoring a congressional subpoena. The vote came hours after Trump asserted executive privilege over Mueller’s report, rebuffing Democratic efforts to review the underlying evidence the special counsel gathered and hold congressional hearings with key witnesses.

    “There can be no higher stakes than this attempt to arrogate all power to the executive branch, away from Congress and, more important, away from the American people,” Nadler said Wednesday. “We’ve talked for a long time about approaching a constitutional crisis. We are now in it. We are now in a constitutional crisis.”

    Pelosi signaled Thursday that lawmakers may vote to hold more Trump administration officials in contempt.

    “In terms of timing, when we’re ready we’ll come to the floor,” she said when asked about the timing of a vote by the full House on whether to hold Barr in contempt. “And we’ll just see because there may be some other contempt of Congress issues that might want to deal with at the same time. And he wants to do it as soon as possible, and so do we.”

  59. 59.

    trollhattan

    @catclub:
    Sounds like competition for the Japanese giant hornet.

    The Japanese giant hornet is large and can be very aggressive if provoked. Its venom, which is injected by the 6.25 mm-long stinger, attacks the nervous system and damages the tissue of its victims.[1] Tests involving mice found that the venom falls short of being the most lethal of wasp venom, having an LD50 of 4.0 mg/kg. In comparison, the deadliest wasp venom (at least to lab mice) by weight belongs to Vespa luctuosa at 1.6 mg/kg. The potency of the sting is due, rather, to the relatively large amount of venom injected.[5] Being stung is extremely painful and can require hospitalization. Asian giant hornet stings can cause anaphylactic shock in allergic people but can still be lethal to people who are not allergic, provided the dose is sufficient. In China, where the hornet can also be found, the conventional wisdom is that people stung more than 10 times need medical help, and emergency treatment if stung more than 30 times. The stings can also cause renal failure.

    Apparently the bastards are also aggressive honeybee predators and make it very difficult to have domestic hives in Japan.

  60. 60.

    Death Panel Truck

    @TenguPhule: We don’t have roaches, but we have plenty of black widows here in the desert. They spin their webs in my garage, behind the heat pump, and under my rhododendrons. They scare the hell out of my wife, and I could do without them as well.

  62. 62.

    Cacti

    @TenguPhule:

    Judge Amy Berman Jackson has ordered the DOJ to produce the full, unredacted Mueller report in connection with the Roger Stone criminal case.

    And unlike Congress, she can readily have people jailed for contempt for willful failure to produce documents.

  63. 63.

    TenguPhule

    @trollhattan:

    Apparently the bastards are also aggressive honeybee predators and make it very difficult to have domestic hives in Japan.

    Japanese bees can kill the hornets if they’re lucky, but all other honeybees are defenseless against them. Four hornets can literally slaughter an entire hive of bees.

  64. 64.

    TenguPhule

    @Cacti:

    And unlike Congress, she can readily have people jailed for contempt for willful failure to produce documents.

    As we’ve seen so far, Judges are very reluctant to use harsher measures against the GOP dudebros in government.

  65. 65.

    chopper

    @catclub:

    a friend of mine was bitten by one of those bastards during a year-long teaching stint in costa rica. needless to say he was not chuffed.

  66. 66.

    Martin

    The least they could have done is invite Obama.

    More than 1,000 guns were found Wednesday in a home in the upscale Los Angeles neighborhood Holmby Hills.

    Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and Los Angeles police officers served a search warrant in an investigation of someone suspected of manufacturing and selling illegal firearms, Los Angeles police Officer Jeff Lee said.
    The property resembled “a hoarder’s house” and it took 30 law enforcement officers more than 15 hours to clear the house and remove all the weapons, a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation told CNN.

  67. 67.

    joel hanes

    @TenguPhule:

    the only logical reason I can think of to explain Pelosi digging in against impeachment is that she is the one next in line

    So in your estimation, it can’t possibly be because the best whip-counter the Democrats have ever had is keenly, even painfully aware that a resolution to impeach will currently fail in the House, and she needs some time to bring the Manchins and Lipinskis into the fold.

  70. 70.

    trollhattan

    @Martin:
    Ho-lee-fuque!

    Protests in defence of the poor defenseless guns to commence in 3…2…1… “They didn’t do nothin’ wrong!”

  72. 72.

    burnspbesq

    @Cacti:

    unlike Congress, she can readily have people jailed for contempt for willful failure to produce documents.

    The Marshals Service is part of DOJ. it’s not hard to imagine Obstructor General Barr telling Judge Jackson precisely where she can stick her bench warrant.

  74. 74.

    debbie

    I hope there are no territorial skirmishes with the already established bird family. There have been such wars in the bushes outside my window, and once they get going, they do not let up.

  75. 75.

    debbie

    @Tata:

    Oh, you will be.

    Geese nested a couple of feet from my apartment door one spring. The scariest and longest two weeks of my life.

Comments are closed.