A Tale of Lighting Woes

Ah, the Christmas lights. I've mentioned before that my yard...well, you can see it from a ways away. It's one of those. And, seeing as I live in Arizona, we have saguaros in it. For those that don't know, they're these (picture not mine):



Tall, prickly, and looking good when wrapped up in lights. We have one in the front that, this year, is wrapped in red. And for some strange reason, one section about...see the tall arm on the right of this picture? About there...a section about there keeps going out. A fairly large section-two, three wraps around. And it's a pain to get out the ladder and go up there and fix it. Especially because the problem is that the bulbs are falling out. Seriously, they're turning up on the ground. Just three, only ever three.

Two, three nights this goes on. We find them, put them back, the next night they're out again. Loose sockets? Dunno.

But today...today we know. Because today, in addition to last night's unreplaced bulbs, we find three more. And we remember that a woodpecker lives in this particular saguaro.

We look, and sure enough, one of the out bulbs is in front of the hole it's made to get in.

This has never happened before, and these babies have been getting wrapped-and inhabited by birds-for over ten years. Maybe this one's new? Maybe we ticked it off? Or maybe it's like that 'Chicken Roaster' episode of Seinfeld. You know, this one (picture also not mine):



We may never know. We moved the strand and adjusted the bulb by the hole. One bulb, though, never did turn up. I maintain the bird took it and kept it as a trophy of its presumed victory.

Guess we'll find out tomorrow if the bird approves of the new arrangement...

-Lalla