Photo Challenge #402- Just a Fairytale

Use the image as inspiration for a poem or short story.
https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2022/02/09/photo-challenge-402/

Photo credit Claudia Weijers

Once upon a time…
There was a man, named Sidney, who hated crows!
They’d wake him up with their incessant squawking… they’d pilfer seeds from his garden … and they’d overwhelm his yard driving his favorite songbirds away! He took this all quite personally.
So, Sidney took every opportunity to throw things at crows. He also enjoyed swerving after them when they fed on carrion in the road. But his worst assault came when he fired his BB gun at them and finally killed one.
The crows had watched.
AND
The crows remembered.
A few days later, he ventured out on his dog walking route. All was eerily quiet.
“There we go. Hide you sumbitches! Good riddance.”
Sidney felt extremely satisfied and confident on that sunny morning.
But two minutes along, he was bombarded by acorns from above followed by at least one hundred black birds swooping and driving the dogs wild. The dogs got tangled in each other’s leashes and tripped Sidney to the ground, finely pulling loose and running off in four different directions.
After spending 2 hours rounding up his charges, he returned them to their owners, and then angrily limped home.
That’s when he found every flowerpot on his patio upended, all his line-drying clothes on the ground, and his skylight cracked!
Sidney found new property damage and encountered swooping harassment every time he left his house for the next week. His anger turned into fear… then his fear became regret.
When he finally had had enough there was no doubt that he needed to be the one to seek forgiveness.
After dark, he set up a large crow-friendly feeding station in the center of his yard. Then he disappeared, becoming a recluse, only peeking out-now and then-from behind drawn drapes. He’d been defeated and was hopeful that his surrender would be understood.
The usual ten crows cautiously returned in a few days. Then, his moment of redemption became available when an eagle swooped after the feeding crows and, without hesitation, he raced to their rescue waving his arms and cussing at the top of his lungs!
“Git outta here you sumbitch!”
Immediately, the predator left, and Sidney wasted no time putting up a pop-up canopy over the feeding station to deter any more aerial assaults. No stinking eagle was going to get HIS crows!

I’ve heard they all lived happily ever after.

Image result for crows recognize human faces


Before you think this is just a fairytale, you may be interested in this article:

https://theconversation.com/never-cross-a-crow-it-will-remember-your-face-2121#:~:text=Crows%20can%20remember%20human%20faces%20associated%20with%20stressful,tools%20to%20dig%20food%20out%20of%20tight%20spots.




Mason Wants to Know 4/12/21

What’s your favorite animal?


That’s as challenging as asking me my favorite book!
At the moment, I am very much interested in crows. I actually purchased a t-shirt saying, “My spirit animal is a crow.”
They are fascinating clever creatures.
I’ve witnessed them collecting seemingly out of nowhere in answer to a distress call from one of their own!
They remember individual people who have been kind or cruel to them and use tools as well as any primate to solve problems.
I wrote a piece about them for a recent prompt.
d’Verse Poetics Prompt- Confidence Is A Crow – Sillyfrog’s Blog (sillyfrogsusan.com)
{sorry that I missed your prompt on Monday, Mason! I’ll try to remember from now on.}
Mason Want’s to Know – Masons Mind Menagerie (wordpress.com)

Build an Artist

BeFunky_003katpaintingMy 7-year-old granddaughter presented me with this wonderful watercolor painting. Her mother told me that Kat had labored over it for a long time.

According to the artist, it is a self-portrait in a green field on a sunny day. She added a flock of crows for her bird-loving grandmother. As she explored the watercolor medium, her smile “bled” downward. Kat’s mom told me that she was not at all discouraged by that event. As all artists do, she embraced the “accident” and exclaimed, “I like that. Now, my clothes look brighter.”

Katherine had originally planned to give her masterpiece to me for my birthday but April would be just too long to wait. I will be buying a frame for my Kat Original this weekend and have already reserved a spot to display it above our TV. Of course, I insisted that she sign and date her work.

The sparkle in her eyes is something that I’ll never forget. She gasped when I showed her where her work would hang. This reminded me of how important it is to marvel at the artwork kids produce. First, it’s just plain beautiful. Secondly, it is the building of an artist … our way of showing them how wonderfully unique and precious artistic expression is.

The TV show Everybody Loves Raymond was a comedy that drew its humor from poking fun at a family’s “dysfunctional” moments. I noticed one thing, that I hope you will look for, if you had not already noticed. Children’s drawings were framed and displayed on the walls of their home. I loved seeing that and this blog post seemed a good place to bring that up. 🙂