This means war

We're at constant battle with nature.

Battling the ivy that creeps through our foundation into the living room. The hornets nesting in the barn eves and the pergola. The rodents scuttling in the hayloft. And the never-ending procession of ants, flies, silverfish and spiders that call our home, "home."

While we win a few skirmishes, we're losing the war.

So I don't know why I'm hanging onto some glimmer of hope that we'll keep our new porch clean and pristine...and poop-free.

That last one's the sticking point. I'm determined to keep the front porch free of waste. Yet two cheeky, stubborn barn swallows are foiling my plan.

Normally, I have no beef with barn swallows. When they dwell in the barn.

I've already surrendered that structure to animal waste. There's a well-established bird colony in the barn rafters and they leave plenty of calling cards beneath their nests. Besides, the horses poop in there -- and so do the cats, visiting foxes and God knows what else. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised to see the kids trot out there and drop their pants.

But the porch is different. It's new, it's barely paid off and it's relatively clean. Or it was clean until our little swallow pals quietly settled atop our renovated, snow-white porch columns. They perched up there and defiled them.

We chased the birds away but they came back and hastily slapped together a nest, which Martin unceremoniously knocked down. The birds went postal; they retaliated the next morning, angrily chattering and swooping down on Martin until he retreated indoors.

But before seeking shelter, Martin placed a hefty block of wood on top of the column to prevent future nest construction. That worked for a couple of days but miraculously, the little birds managed to knock the block off and return to the perch....after defiling another porch column.

So the birds are up a match point. And I'm back on the internet, trolling for a solution and plotting our next move.