Thursday, on my way home from speaking at the Spiritual Formation Forum in Milwaukee (more about that later), I got a frantic call from our home from a man who is working on our windows. Cliff Peterson informed me of a “disaster.” A large tree had fallen on our neighbors’ home. Norm, his son, promptly went over to make sure Mrs. Kruckman was OK, and she was.
Here’s a picture of the tree … which had another — less important — interest for us.

I informed them and the workers who eventually came to the home that there was a Hairy Woodpecker family in that tree.

They said they’d do their best to save that portion of the tree, which they did. We asked them to lean it against our fence, but I’m now wondering where best to put it. Here are a few pictures of the shank they saved, and within one hour Mrs. Woodpecker was swiping food from our feeder and heading back to her frightened little nest of three woodies — sorry for the blurriness.