Saying Goodby

It has been a very difficult time the last couple of weeks.  Our beautiful retreat of Redwood House has sold and we will be moving to a rental next week while our new house gets ready for our occupancy.  I have been saying goodby to all my bird and animal friends.  The ravens will be fine as other neighbors do leave treats out for them and there are several compost piles that they visit with regularity.  Yesterday I found a chicken egg almost completely buried in a pile of redwood bark pieces.  Mr. Raven was saving it for another day.  It has been such a treat to know Bold and Shy.  I am not sure if the ravens that come every morning are Bold and Shy but a pair does come every morning and make racket for food.  They do not come as close to the house as Bold used to do.  They sit in the redwood trees above the spot on the path where I have been feeding them for the last month or so.  They sit and talk, and knock and canoodle- I can always tell what is going on by the sounds they make.  It is so wonderful to hear the raven sounds each morning- I will miss that so much.  I am hoping there will be ravens at my new house.  It was built in 1986 and has very mature landscaping and big trees and is next to a creek.  There should be lots of birds and there just may be a raven pair in the big redwood trees by the house- I certainly hope so!  I will miss Mr. Fox who comes every evening and of course the piliated woodpecker who makes such a racket pecking away on the telephone poles.

We have had a lot of buzzards flying around the house lately.  When they come all the other birds scatter, including the ravens.  They are so big and must be frightening and look like a raptor in flight.  They have discovered the spot where I feed the ravens so they come looking every day to see if there is anything big enough for them to consider eating.  A steak bone perhaps?

I was over at the rental house the other day and two perky crows came and sat in the tree right over my head.  I guess I will have crows to talk to for the short time I will be living there.  I would like to know a crow.  I wonder if they eat raw chicken eggs?  I don't believe they could pick them up like the ravens do and fly off with them but I will put some out and see what happens.

I will tell the new owners of Redwood House about the raven pair.  I hope they will take an interest.  I have not had good luck with this sort of thing.  My last house had two types of orioles that came each spring to nest in the palm trees.  We lived there 16 years and they came every year.  I told the new owners about it and then they cut down EVERY single tree on the 1/2 acre lot and then parked trucks on my beautiful lawn and tore out all the flower beds.  Had I known I never would have sold to those idiots.  Who could tell?  The ladies who are buying Redwood House do seem to love nature and flowers and are buying it as a second home so I think they will appreciate what nature has to offer.  One of the ladies did ask me- "does the fox bite?"- how to respond to that????  It has been wonderful to live in these mountains in synch with nature and the seasons.  I will miss it so much.  Life will be easier in the flat lands of the valley but so much less inspiring.  It is too bad we got old and find it difficult to deal with splitting firewood and hauling it and all the rest that goes with mountain living- it is time to leave it and hope that the new owners with treat it with the kindness and love it deserves.