After being in Leominster helping Bart with the greenhouse business, coming home for good means I am never leaving South Road again. I would go home to do things like take care of the lawn. Cutting it after it got as high as a hay field, was no easy job. One day I had to cut it twice, simply because it just laid down. It was a real hack job. I had to cut it one way, to just turn around to cut it over again, going the other way. When I got done. I swore I would never let the grass get so long again.
While I was gone, I had a lot of eyes watching the house. Most of these eyes belonged to my four legged friends. Deer make their way through the yard on a regular schedule. They did not care if I was there or not, except for three years ago, when the snow was so deep, my friend Steve Salem told me the deer were in trouble. He asked me if I would feed them, so they would not starve. I asked Bart if we could buy deer food, and he said yes. It did not take long before we had six regular deer in the yard, at night just before it got dark. The deer were not the only critters to take advantage of free food. We had the biggest crow I had ever seen, come to visit. It did not take me long to know who this guy was. Johnny had told me he had heard a raven in the woods, when he was working in the field the spring before. I started listening for him when Sedona and I would go for a walk. He would fly through the woods, all the way to the town line, watching to see what we were doing. His squawk sounded like he was calling GRONK, GRONK, GRONK. This guy wanted to eat the corn so bad that winter, but it was not easy for him to be so trusting. Slowly he made his way across the field on sunny day. He walked, all the way from the barway to the place Sedona and I fed the deer. For a few minutes, I was kind of worried! What was wrong with this guy? Was he hurt? No, I guess he just wanted to walk. This big boy was so proud. His jet black feathers glistened in the sun. I could tell his body was so much bigger than the regular crows that kind of hung around the same area. This big guy watched over his area with out fail, for a good long time.
Yesterday Bart and I decided to pick grapes on the stone wall that runs along the road across from the house. The best ones were where dad's rhubarb grows. I picked those first, then went to the area behind the barn. Some of these were not ripe. I think there are a couple of different kinds of grapes growing there. When grapes get ripe, they tend to fall off the stem real easy, so you have to hold your hand under them or they will get lost in the grass. The smells were so wonderful, I cherish the smell of the grass, and the trees more than I ever did. After living in Leominster, I know what I missed, and value things so much more. At any rate Bart started picking on the wall that separates the field we planted the raspberries in from the field we used to plant potatoes in. Soon enough Bart had more grapes than I did., so we started walking down the edge of the field toward home. I saw some real nice grapes, and when I went to get them, I tripped on a grape vine, and went flying. What is new, I have no balance at all. When I went to pick myself up, I looked down and my friend the raven was laying on the side of the grass, only inches from where I landed. His beautiful strong beak, and feathers shined in the sun. He had not been gone long. I turned him over to see if I could see what had happened, but I did not see any reason that he had died. Maybe he just got old. Bart helped me bury him, with some wild daisies to mark his place in my field and in my heart. There are so many things that I have experienced that no one else will ever have a chance to have. Some may be for the better, but deep in my heart I know how lucky I have been. I hope my friend was lucky enough to have left some other raven behind. Maybe I will hear GRONK, GRONK again. Time will tell.
