Oh, the Shame

I put the burr under my own saddle.  It irritated me until I planted the crab apple tree on my way down to the barn yesterday morning.  Putting one's deficiencies down in print is a terrific goad to get-'er-done! 

Finishing with the goats, I sat in the sun and finished Shantaram.  It took the author thirteen years to write the book, and I think we were both glad when he was done.  There were moments of absolute glory, and then times when I felt I was drowning in a sea of similes.  Fifteen or more "as" or "like" on a page will do that.

Another gorgeous day, so back to the garden...trip after trip taking the mountains of pulled weeds out to the burn pile, and then pulling more.  There was a sense of smug satisfaction as I passed The Tree time and again, and then looking back at the cleared ground.  Today I'm looking for the liniment bottle.

Entering the barn at dusk last night, I heard loud banging on the roof.  There are several clear plastic panels as skylights amongst the corrugated metal sheets, and a hawk had come into the barn, probably after a small bird or perhaps finding the mother lode of mice, and was beating itself against the clear panels, trying to escape.  Why is it that wild things can't remember how they got into such a pickle in the first place?  I didn't want the poor thing to get injured, nor did I want to be scalped as it swooped overhead, talons extended.  It landed on a feed bucket and we both took a moment to consider our options.  I pulled out my ever-ready camera, although the resulting photo is a little blurry as I knew Bird wasn't going to sit there posing for long and I didn't take a lot of time to focus.  We weren't much more than four feet apart.  Moving very slowly with arms extended, I herded him from stall to stall toward the open door, until he had that Eureka moment and flew out to freedom.  Tucking the girls in and coming back to the house, I checked my bird guide book and, as near as I can figure, this was a Cooper's hawk, much smaller than the magnificent red-tail hawks that frequent our skies.  It was a pretty dramatic ending to a most satisfactory day.