Mysterious Wood

A couple days ago, after the second crow arrived and their coos and grooming finished, something changed.

I was inside and missed what happened, but when I came out the crows were on different branches.

Not sitting together, not muttering to each other. Separate and silent. Like they’d had an argument. They stayed that way the rest of the evening until I went up to the house.

The new day, the first crow arrived as usual and waited on the branch. It waited a long time, periodically calling for its mate who didn’t reply.

Finally it started searching and evidently found the other in a tree somewhere behind the garage where I couldn’t see.

There was a horrible exchange. The first would bark a single, angry “Caw” and the second would scream it back, like trading punches. Back and forth for at least 5 minutes. Then they went silent.

They never reappeared at the tree and I eventually went inside for the night.

Tonight they showed up at the tree again, sitting on different branches with their backs to each other, like in the photo.

I put food out before I went home.

Every day, around the same time, one crow lands on a branch and waits for me to feed it.

If I’m working and don’t notice, it goes, “Caw!”

It’s less afraid. Flies down sooner after I put the food out. Lets me watch it eat and drink, as long as I stay still and don’t talk.

The other crow doesn’t arrive until later, just before dark. When it does, the first crow is overjoyed. They burble and coo, nuzzle necks, and lean on each other like a couple of teenagers.

If it’s getting late and the second crow hasn’t come, the first will caw and listen for a reply. If there’s none, it waits a while and tries again. Eventually from some distant tree the reply comes, then a few moments later, so does the second crow.

Sometimes the first crow will get no reply for a long time. Its calls get more frequent. Eventually it will fly away, calling and searching.

Later they’ll both show up at the tree by my shop again and I’ll put more food out  that the second will only eat once I’ve walked back to the house.

I started feeding the crows cat food.

In the late afternoon, one crow lands on a branch near my workshop and stares intently until I notice it. Then I take a handful of kibble and put it in the driveway.

After a couple minutes, it flies down and eats very cautiously, ready to fly at the slightest sign of danger.

The other crow will not come down.

They are extremely afraid of me. If I wave or say hello, they fly away.

Being a rural area, a lot of people grow food and shoot guns. I wonder if they shoot crows?

Weeks pass, I put food out every day. One crow will fly down and eat, the other will not.

There’s a bird bath nearby and after it eats, the crow hops happily over and drinks. It’s dainty like a cat, wipes its beak clean in the grass. Carefully, both sides.

Since the other will not fly down from the tree while I’m there, when I finish for the day, I put another handful of kibble out, close up shop and walk up to the house.

Once it sees me arrive at the house, the second crow flies down and finishes the kibble.

Due to a fear of hantavirus, I’ve got mousetraps in my shop.

Yesterday I tossed a dead mouse from the trap onto the driveway. A few minutes later, a crow hopped cautiously up and snatched it, flying to the highest branch of a nearby tree.

It cawed loudly several times, and then its mate landed beside it. They shared the mouse as a meal.

Afterward, they sat on the branch happily, rubbing beaks and nuzzling each other. A sweet, charming couple.

Late October is tarantula season. Male spiders leave their burrows in search of a female. It’s a dangerous time for them. They wander uncamouflaged, black against the dull yellow of summer’s dried out vegetation.

If he finds a female and she doesn’t like him, she’ll probably kill him.

You’d expect this would make these autumn wanderers twitchy and skittish, but they are calm. Deliberate in their movements, and unaggressive.

When they feel threatened, they stick their butt in the air and freeze, as if to say, “Look, I’m a giant hairy spider. You don’t want any of this.”

One afternoon, my dog and I were sitting on a path up a hill. A tarantula was at the bottom, walking up, and we were blocking its path.

When it got about 6 feet away, it stopped and looked at us for a few moments, deciding what to do. Finally, it turned, walked in a wide half-circle around us and returned to the path.

What courtesy!

Now, whenever I cross paths with a tarantula, I stop and say, “No, please, after you.”

Three of the most interesting trees in the Sierra foothills are Oak, Manzanita and Buckeye.

Oak is like a blue-collar dad, working in the factory every day to send his kids to college, sturdy and reliable. But when the tree dies, interesting things begin to happen. Microorganisms work their way into the wood, changing the color and texture. Normally light brown, the wood gets whorls of yellow and streaks of black. Yellow means decomposition, the wood becomes softer, eventually useless. Opening a decaying branch is exciting, like uncovering treasure. An unseen world revealed.

Manzanita is born in fire, its seeds requiring flame to burn through the tough outer hull, allowing them to geminate. Its wood is flame-like, swirling yellow and red, and as it ages, it darkens. Ancient pieces are almost black, like charcoal. It is a weird and extravagant wood, full of twists and hollows, delicately-colored patterns only millimeters thick. Cut too deeply and they disappear. It’s a regal wood, refusing to conform, humbling the woodworker and demanding reverence.

Buckeye is a beautiful tree with broad green leaves and thin silver bark. In summer, long conical bunches of flowers emerge, filling the air with a honeyed perfume that stops you in your tracks. The trees seem to be eternal, neither dying nor dropping branches. As the tree ages, it curls and becomes warty. Inside, the wood becomes more beautiful. Like a watercolor painting, translucent and pale. Yellow and blue, grey and brown. One color bleeding into the next.

Natasha has a compost pile near my workshop. There’s also a birdbath,  continuously filled by a leaky faucet. In summer especially, various animals come by to eat or drink.

Last spring, a deer and her fawn started coming by. Spring is lush and green and they were very plump. But summers are hard and last four months here. It never rains and everything green shrivels, except the trees. Deer come by with increasing frequency, drawn to the birdbath, a rare source of water in the dry, unending heat.

Mama deer and her fawn come by multiple times a day. I sit outside in the shade, carving wood, and when they come, call out “What’s up deer?”. It lets them know that I’m not hunting them. That I’m not lying in wait.

Over time, the distance between us narrows.

Mama deer’s ribs become increasingly visible. The fawn gets lankier, but still looks healthy.

It’s October 18th. We just got our first big rain a couple of days ago, but nothing has started to grow yet. Mama deer and her fawn come to forage in the compost pile, and she’s practically a skeleton. The fawn is thinner, but still healthy looking.

At the compost pile, Mama deer lets the fawn poke around while she acts as a lookout. I realize that the mother is so thin because she’s been taking the fawn to food and letting it eat first. She’s eating whatever’s left over.

In this way, her fawn survived summer.