Anchor Struck

I took the photo above this post a few years after we moved here. By then Jude and I had shed any doubt that we had made the shrewdest of moves coming up here, and a rainbow kissing our property smacked of celestial sanction.

A pair of common ravens visited the apple tree at rainbow’s end every day at 4 p.m. 4 p.m. sharp. You could set your watch by them. The tree has gone barren. The birds remain. I can’t prove it’s the same two, but their species can live up to 23 years in the wild.

They are anything but common. They are smart, playful and have an amazing vocabulary.

The pair that visits us every afternoon — Lee and Annabel — attempt to educate us with a variety of caws, croaks and donks. I try to mimic them, hoping that I’m not insulting. Recently, one perched in a maple tree just above me and bombarded me with catkins.

We leave our compost bin open so they can pick through it. We throw the mice we catch most every night on the roof of our storage shed so they have fresh meat in their diet. They patrol our little valley with a soaring grace that’s central to our pastoral paradise.