"A Pecker Woke Me Up!"

"A pecker woke me up!" That is a direct quote, spoken by me last Saturday morning.  I was in bed, and it was still early.  7:30.  8 a.m. at the latest.  I was sleeping in, as I tend to do on Saturdays, but DH had been awake for hours, I'm sure (I don't even try to keep track of when he wakes up.)

I came out of my slumber slowly, aware of noise outside near the driveway.  I knew that DH had plans to plant some rhododendrons.  It seemed early, but sometimes he likes to make subtle noise to get me out of bed without angering me (sometimes it works.)

So after listening to noise for at least 10 minutes, I get out of bed and put on my glasses to see what he's doing.

But when I look out the window, there is no DH.  Instead I see the biggest woodpecker I have ever seen in my entire life (I've only seen a few, mind you) pecking on the tree stump right outside of our bedroom window.

He was having a field day.  This is a long dead, rotting stump, exploding with nasty bugs that are causing it to fall apart.  He barely had to work to get a feast from the thing. 

So I go out into the hallway, to find DH quietly folding his laundry in the office.  I can't believe I was accusing him of trying to wake me up.  He was being so quiet.

"A pecker woke me up," I said.

"What??" was his understandably confused response.

"There's a woodpecker working on the stump outside of our window. I thought you were working outside."

And then he joined me to look at this woodpecker, who was so big he could kick Woody's butt in a second.

Have you ever seen a woodpecker up close before?? Are they all this big???  Do they all have red "hats" like that???

I know that woodpeckers can cause quite a bit of damage to live trees, but his big guy is welcome to come back any time and help us to get rid of that stupid stump.