Christmas Eve Story
On Christmas Eve I went in to work for a few hours. Matt came at noon to pick me up and when we got home we heard a strange rattling noise coming from the gutter. I remarked that it was probably an animal of some sort, a rat or a bird or something. Our gutters are strangely designed- in the northeast, gutters curve out from the house and spill into a concrete drainage flow way directing them away from the house. Our gutters shoot straight down from the house, get really narrow at the end, and go straight into these pipes that go into the ground. We were flummoxed as to how to get something alive out of them. The whole time we thought and wrestled with the problem, we heard this tiny creature struggling inside the pipe. We were finally able to unscrew the bolts fastening the gutter to the house, lift the gutter from the pipe, and pry the end open with a wrench. When we did, a ton of leaves fell out, and on top of the leaves, a small wren fluttered out and away!! She would never have been able to get out otherwise... she would have been trapped forever and drowned or starved. We were so glad we were able to get her out!