Christmas Eve Morning

 

Pip warm and safe - Christmas Eve morning

Pip and I were engaging in our morning rituals of working in the office this Christmas Eve morning. It was cold outside (+4°F), as it had been for few days. I read Stave One of A Christmas Carol a few nights prior, and am always struck by how Dickens illustrated the callousness and greed of Scrooge. When asked for a donation to provide the poor with a meat, drink, and means of warmth, Scrooge flatly declines, eventually adding, “I can’t afford to make idle people merry.” Scrooge cannot even provide a little extra coal to his decidedly not idle assistant Bob Cratchit to help keep warm in the office.

The wind and the cold were seeping through the window of the office. I rolled a towel and placed it on the windowsill to help keep out the cold. Not wanting to be Scrooge to my Bob Cratchit, I provide a little more “coal” for Pip’s fire this Christmas Eve morning. Yes, a heating pad to place on his office chair while he kept me company during my writing session.

Cratchit later describes Tiny Tim, “As good as gold, and better…” a description that fits my buddy Pip as well. If he could speak, I am sure that Pip would share Tim’s sentiments often, “God bless us every one!”

#spoiledcats #spoiledpeople #achristmascarol

The Challenges of a Hawk

 

A Cooper's Hawk in Our Backyard

Angie called up to the office, “There’s a hawk in the backyard if you want to see it.” I scurried down the steps, grabbing my camera near the backdoor on the way. Just at the tree line was beautiful cooper’s hawk probably scouting the birds who frequent ours and our neighbors’ birdfeeders. I snapped a few photos through the window, which were not good. I opened the sliding door to the backyard, using my leg to prevent Coco from going out. I indicated to her that she was likely too big to be a target of the hawk, but any interaction with it would not be good. I took a few more pictures, each time I did the hawk instinctively turned its head to determine the source of the sound. It was patient, but as I approached the edge of the porch it sensed I was potentially dangerous and flew away.

About an hour later, when I was walking the neighborhood, the cries of crows caught my attention. In the middle of the field between the houses and the grocery store parking lot, I saw two insistent crows badgering a hawk in a lone small tree. Whether it was the same bird that visited our backyard a little while before was impossible to tell. As the hawk took flight, the two crows took turns nipping at its tailfeathers. The poor hawk: looking for a little subsistence on a cold day and finding only intrusion and interference.