The Man Who Feeds Crows

The Man Who Feeds Crows

                             -Joy S. Barefoot     

 

My husband is lodged in the fork of an old spreading Mulberry tree.  He is trying to secure himself from the vision of the crow family high above in the White Pines along the property line.  His balding grey head doesn’t appear to work with the camouflage, nor does his white and blue striped golf shirt, but that doesn’t seem to bother him and the crow family is in a frenzy tonight.

 He points the crow caller skyward and lets out a squawk, sounding much like the crows.  The more he calls, the wilder fly the crows, back and forth,’ round and ‘round, trying to determine what manner of odd sounding crow is hiding in their woods.

 A new family appeared a couple of days ago in the backyard where this man breaks crackers and leaves them for “Chico” to gather and eat.  He calls to Chico and he comes, religiously, to gather his cracker pieces, waddling from one piece to another as he stacks them in his long beak and flies away.  He has been observed hiding them in the soil if he cannot carry all the pieces of the crackers in one trip. 

Upon more than one occasion Chico has carried a hard piece of bread to the bird bath and dunked it in the water to soften it for his indulgence.  If his crackers are not out fairly early in the morning, Chico starts to screech and holler for his treat. 

This evening, however, the golfer has decided that he wants to play with Chico and his family, so he is out in the Mulberry, annoying the birds.

What profiteth it, a man, if he feeds the crows and cannot play with them!