Day 1: About those bricks...

Note, if you will, that there is a chimney on the side of the house. If we left this chimney up it would be right in the doorway of our new bedroom. We decided to dismantle the chimney.

I bought a new mini-sledge hammer and a cold chisel at Lowes, leaned our extension ladder against the house and began chipping away.

Things were going quite well. The bricks were coming apart without too much effort. There were not too many pieces flying into my face.

Once I got to the spot where the chimney met the roof, I had to work from the ground which was not necessarily easier - just different.

You can't really tell from the picture but there is about a 1.5 inch gap between the chimney and the exterior siding. Apparently that is more than enough room for a bat....

I was taking down bricks without a care in the world when suddenly a little brown bat was snarling at me. It was about six inches from my face. I screamed like a little girl, which brought the whole family and our three dogs running to see whether I had finally fallen off a ladder. They were only mildly disappointed to see that I hadn't toppled off a ladder. Their disappointment was tempered by the news about the bat. The whole "dismantling of the chimney" project ground to a halt while we caught the bat.

Long story short, we caught the bat. They're pretty cool little animals. Nasty looking though.

The chimney is down. I didn't find anymore bats - just the remains of one unfortunate starling. Now we just have to wait some more....

By the way, we let the bat go earlier this evening. They are so cool to watch in flight!