leaving my ‘pet’ crow

back in the beginning of may i had to stop eating wheat. we had to break up because it just wasn’t working for me anymore. in a fit of housecleaning, i pulled all of my open containers of wheat based products: crackers, granola, pretzels, cookies, cereal and emptied them into a brown paper grocery bag with the intention of dumping it in the compost bin. but then i felt a pang of guilt. while a good portion of this food was completely inedible (stale and old) i felt a pang of guilt about throwing it away. the bag was filled 6 inches deep. i went back and forth with myself in my head over whether it would be a good idea to feed it to the birds and squirrels that came to my turret roof to eat the birdseed that i scattered there, and i made my decision. for a couple of days, i threw hands full of this on the roof, but then one morning i just cut the top of the bag off and set the whole thing out on the roof.

a few timid sparrows were the first to visit. then came the squirrels. about a week or two in came the crows. a noisy murder of crows cawing and the choked squawks of the young crowlets drifted in through my kitchen window at promptly 8a every morning. they would fly away quickly if they saw me in the window. then they would perch on the telephone wire and caw reproachfully at me for interrupting their breakfast.

after a month and a half the animals had managed to decimate the pile. i was able to put actual birdseed out again (with a few pretzels for good measure; the crows love pretzels). and i noticed without noticing that the same crow has been coming for the summer. he was a young crowlet. you can tell the babies by their croaky voice. he comes by and is brave enough to approach the window, and leerily peek inside. he is still timid, but he will hang out on the wire outside my window, and we will look at each other for a little while every morning.

now i am about to leave for a week, and my cat is taken care of, but what about my crow. i have grown very fond of this crow, and i would be sad if he didn’t return to my roof for pretzels and corn kernels anymore.

(sorry i have no photo, but maybe brent will take one for me when we get back.)