The Task At Hand

At last, the rain has stopped!  Two days ago, I nearly drowned trying to work on the new herb garden I want to install.  The moment I stepped outside, things intensified from a light drizzle to a steady rain.  Ten minutes later, it was bucketing down with such ferocity that I fled indoors and headed for a hot shower!

All those little pots need to be planted today.  It shouldn't take very long, and the herbs will be much happier with their feet in the soil.  What will take longer is clearing all the field grass out of that other bed ...

The extra picture is today's mystery.  What, do you suppose, has decided to chew/gnaw/peck a fairly substantial hole in the side of one of our barns?  It's way up near the roof, so it couldn't be an entryway for a squirrel or a mouse or (gasp!) a rat ... is this the work of a woodpecker, perhaps?  Any ideas?