I pulled apart the hay, spreading it out in the donkey feeder, Fanny next to me nibbling at the pieces that fell to the bottom. In the cloud-spotted blue sky above me, I heard the crow. I always answer them now with a simple “Hi Crow” as they fly by.
But the crow wasn’t saying hello.
She was chasing the hawk, one of the two I saw last week in the woods. I could hear the woosh of their wings as they flew over my head, the hawk almost leisurely, the crow menacing. A minute or so later the crow was back flying in the opposite direction, the hawk gone.
But as I made my way back to the house, the hawk landed on the top branches of the big birch next to the apple tree. Much too close to the chickens who were hunkered down between the trunks of the lilac bush by my studio.
I pointed at the hawk, wagging my finger. “You leave my hens alone,” I said. The hawk flew away.
I hope that’s the end of that story.
