Going Batty

Again watching the bats at dusk last night, I thought of the line I should have used when Clay was here:  He brings out the bats in me.  (Oh well, it makes me laugh.)  I was standing by the goat pen enjoying the last rays of the sun competing with the glow of the newly risen moon when a really large bird silently swooped past to land on the power pole at the corner of the pen.  Still light enough to see the silhouette, I could tell it was an owl, a very big owl.  During the day, that pole is the hunting perch for redtail hawks.  It evidently does double duty for owls at night.

For days now, two mother turkey hens have brought their babies grazing through the property in the morning.  They cluck softly to the little ones; a pleasant sound.  Not quite so nice is the raucous cawing of the flock of crows that has returned in large numbers.  Twenty-plus were in the side oak in the afternoon as I watered deck plants.  I wish I understood them better.  They would all sit mute in the tree for moments at a time and then would all take off together, yelling at the top of their lungs, only to quickly return and start over again.  To what purpose, I wonder.

Cleaning out the closet in the spare bedroom was like an archeological dig.  I gave away the crossbow years ago, but unearthed the arrows that should have gone too.  Long unused clothing went into bags for charity, except for the red-lined black satin cloak for the Count Dracula costume that Taylor likes to wear when she's here.  Why a box of .22 shells was in that closet is anyone's guess.  Cleaning the closet was the easy precursor to approaching the Black Hole, the "work room" where everything gets shoved.  I'm going to have to gird my loins before going in there.  Another job for another day.