My dear Gma
This afternoon Jim came in with his shirt off! Since he is never shirtless, he immediately got our attention. I sputtered, " Where is your shirt?", I thought janell and i would die laughing. At first we could not figure out why he suddenly appeared half naked, but then we spotted the bulging shirt full of chicken eggs. Oh, it was SO funny, but maybe you had to be there :) He keeps tabs on the chicks and horses now that the kids are in school, Well, we here at home all do. And, we love it.
We have been letting the chickens out to roam the front pasture. They just cluck around and seem so happy. Their eggs turned enormous since letting them free-range, and the shells feel so much harder,
so i think it agrees with them. I just hope our way too friendly eagle stays away. Every once in a while he circles the property.
So far they have been locked in their chicken tractor and lived on, but one of these days
i am afraid somebody will become lunch for him. We worry a bit about the two Maltese dogs running free and wild too. Hopefully, if they feel a big shadow overhead they will run for
cover. Chickens do not strike me as being that smart, but the dogs might be. :)
I always had this awe for eagles until i moved to Alaska. Up there you cannot take a picture of the sky and not get an eagle in the background somewhere.
I loved the crows aka blackbirds aka Ravens in Alaska. I liked their family values. lol So, in the winter, I worried they did not get enough food. Saturdays found me putting cookie sheets
of food out on the back deck railing and then i watched them from the kitchen window. One or two would come, and then away they fly to tell the rest of the "family" that would number in
probably the twenties. We had a swing set in the back yard and a long railing on the porch. They would line up and patiently await their turn. Maybe two would take a morsel each and fly off. Smooth as silk, two would replace them at the feeding trough: totally patient and generous. I found it fascinating to listen to them chat the whole time they ate together. I cannot find a picture of the ravens but here is a pretty good one of a Cordova Eagle.
We had this enormous tree beside the house and about once a week it would be filled with crows. We family, and neighbors, called it their Sunday-go-to-meetin day, and i think we
must have been close on that call; although, I found the sheer number of them, and the noise---omg, the noise--- pretty intimidating. I felt grateful so many of them did not come for the Saturday morning pancake breakfast. I figured they must ascribe to some " decency code" though because of watching their manners, and interactions as they ate on the back porch, and also because of the story i heard about a crow that got killed on main street in downtown Cordova.
It seems that ( the rumor is now hundreds) crows lined the tops of the buildings all the way down the street , on both sides of the streets, and they screeched and
carried on for some time over the dead body lying in mid-street. Eventually all the scary commotion suddenly ended, and they all abruptly left. The ppl in town figured they held a funeral for their dead relative. I believe it. I find it very plausible from watching them for long periods of time. They amazed me, and the grandkids, as we watched the Saturday morning pancake breakfasts from the kitchen window.
Once, i decided to clean out the freezer and get rid of some of the freezer-burnt salmon. We caught tons of fish in Cordova. We canned most of it, but the freezer held a lot too. Anyhow, i
cut some up into many chunks, but i did put out one huge filet, from probably a fifty pound salmon. They seemed elated with the change of menu, but so did a Seagull! They would not take him on though, and, and he would not share. He would fly at them when they came close, and they retreated. He pecked away at the whole slab of salmon, as they had been doing but they had taken their usual turns with each other. He did not ascribe to that kind of behavior. All seemed very unfair, and then swoosh............................. an eagle swooped down and took the whole filet then flew off into the
horizon. Jonathan Seagull left dejected. I've not known anybody who ever came out a winner with an eagle. This guy crashed the party and when he left they all departed. He seemed enormous as he flew in for his prize. I had never seen an eagle, before or since, so up close and personal. Here is a picture of Chris, Kenzie and jake about ten years ago in Cordova.
We had a cat when we moved to Eagle country in Cordova, Simba had traveled with us from Oregon, and that young cat seemed to instinctively understand that outside-the-house self-preservation required he immediately run under the seats that ran around the deck when he wanted to venture outside. He never laid out in the sun like he did in Oregon. Of course, we saw precious little sun in the rain forest of Cordova anyway. :) He would run under the built-in seats, as i said, then sprint for the trees where he found protection, and could hunt his own prey in peace, well relatively speaking :( . I believe he instinctively knew that when you live by the sword, you might just might die by it. Eleven year old Simba never made it to Montana because he did not like the way our household turned upside down when we moved to here. Guess he is just like all us old folks who do not think much of change. He moved to the field across the street in Wasilla and he may be there still because, though we had been together for probably eleven, or more, years he would not forgive us for the upheaval in the house. I told the new owner of the house in Wasilla about him, so i hope they will take pity on the old curmudgeon. :( Simba looked and acted like Garfield, so that gives you an idea of his personality. He was a heck-of-a-hunter though, and we could use him here. I try not to think about him now, dang cat! Anyhow, i don't care much for eagles anymore. They seem selfish and only out for themselves and very dangerous. And it seemed like they perched everywhere in Alaska keeping an eye on our lives and planning to move in on any mistake where they could capitalize. I did not trust them, nor should i have, then or now. They seem to answer to no one, and be for no one but themselves. I don't like that in people and i guess i don't even tolerate it in birds!! I learned a lot watching out the back window in Cordova; like when the wind blows a hundred miles an hour and stuff flies through the air with the greatest of ease, if it is Thursday, you call it that, not a hurricane, and i learned that crows care about one another? They seemed more civilized than many ppl i know :)
You know i care for you Gma and how blessed are we to have one another. Oh, on a different slant.... jim and i went to get our Montana Drivers License the other day and they came in the mail
today. Guess what! I look just like you! How did that happen?! I could not believe it was me, it looked so much like you. Usually my hair is shorter, and i think that made the difference, but it really shocked me to know i look like you. But it makes sense i guess. I am my father's daughter. And, i always knew i looked like his sister and you are their mother, so there ya have it. Speaking of Family Trees, we all hope Baby James will look at us with brown eyes in the very near future. We may have a chance. He certainly does not look to be blue eyed at this point. Cross your fingers! Caleb needs a sibling that looks like him! I always thought brown eyes would be dominant, but not in this gene pool!
Well, i must go. You know i love you
ttys
loving you still
your
*j* aka jacqueline
