It was in August, last year, that I was drawn to watching a crow performance in the driveway. It seems so much longer ago than that, but then time feels so distorted lately.
Maybe the August “crow show” is staged by offspring of the May performance. Grant thought there was a little courtship being staged yesterday outside the kitchen window.
But when they spotted the old woman with camera, they soon took to the air.
I’m so scary. Apparently.
Crows have always amused me. They are so cheeky.
Panther was, I am sure, supposed to have been a crow. He had the colouring and the stance of a crow and he certainly had their attitude.
If this is Panther, here, back in crow form, he will be saying to me:
“You the fat-head who threw that carrot in the hedge?”
Yup. That was me. I have rotten pitch.
The ground hogs are so emaciated, and they do love a bit of carrot.
But if they use Grant’s window-well as their toilet again this year, he may be out there with his gun instead. (As if I’d let him.)
Grant practices shooting a paper target. He bought the gun in Washington when we had an infestation of rats. They were attracted by bird food, and were no doubt refugees from the major building project that was underway just up the hill from my place.
I’m not sure Grant ever actually shot a rat and I didn’t like the idea, but I needed to discourage them from hanging out. I went on-line and mostly read of dire ways to deal with the problem.
But an animal communicator had a suggestion, which involved talking to them, or rather communicating with them mentally. I can’t recall exactly how it worked but I had to think of them moving away from the house and convey images of what could happen if they didn’t.
Always game to try anything, I went out to the patio and tried my damnedest to communicate with those rats. At first I thought I had succeeded, but soon they were back. Fortunately, the realtor never saw them, and the house sale went through without mention of rodents.
Can you imagine a self-respecting mouse living in a house full of cats? Well they did.
Space was really tight for animals. It was the major reason I was no longer happy there.
While “shooting” crows, I managed to capture this:
At first when I looked at it, before magnifying it, I thought I had a bird with two eyes. I’ve no idea what happened to this guy, but it didn’t seem to affect his appetite.
Indeed, I seem surrounded by hungry mouths.
But since the weather has warmed (in theory), we have cut back rations. Plenty of natural food out there now.
Which doesn’t stop the crows from yelling for more.
They are probably missing all the scraps they used to scavenge, although around here there are not so many fast-food restaurants.
There was a mini-mall where I lived out West that was full of crows. I wonder how they are getting on.
It’s not that I don’t think of all the out-of-work people who are desperate now, trying to feed their families. They are very much in my mind. Should I be buying animal food at a time like this?
I look at it this way: I got my first job when I was 17, worked continuously until I was forced to retire at age 59 due to disability. I would love to have worked longer, but it was not possible. As a single person, however, I always paid high taxes.
When I was young, I used to drink, but never to excess and since the age of 50, or even before, I have not used alcohol at all. I do not smoke and never did. I rarely went to the movies or ate out. Never bought expensive clothes. I was in uniform most of my life.
When I travelled, I mostly did so using a discounted fare. So, all in all, I have never really spent a lot on myself. I feel entitled, therefore, to spend a little now on my animals as well as on the wildlife that I love so much. Sounds defensive, doesn’t it?
I love reading your blog in the mornings… on the subject of rats your story brought to mind the time we had wood rats under our deck in the woods dining on birdseed and starting a family… not a good thing. The little rats were really cute and played in the trees and chased each other – made thoughts of disposing of them impossible. Told the family to think of them as squirrels with bad tails – and then started live trapping them and relocating them several miles away on a stream bed in a wooded area – took a few months to get everyone (I hoped) and I hope they reunited and had good lives away from people…
On the subject of window wells: After retrieving a few animals from the deep well at the back of the house and bailing water out of another when a downspout clogged during heavy rain, we put clear plastic covers on them all. Worked. And the wells stayed clean…
Looking forward to tomorrow’s missive…
Judy
I love to hear when people think of alternatives to just killing animals that are “inconvenient”. They all deserve to live. We have a cover over one of the window wells. I think Grant’s window is not covered because he needs an air flow….although last Summer it suddenly got dreadfully odoriferous!
I put a live trap in my garden and my dad has evicted two rats so far. He’s taken them to a quiet country lane away from people. I’d prefer not to kill if possible. I’ve also had to be more careful with the chicken’s food, compost, holes in fences etc. Not tried communicating with them yet though. 🙂