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blizzard warnings - 13:52 , 03 October 2013

heelerless - 21:32 , 18 August 2013

Red Coat Inn in Fort McLeod - 11:38 , 23 June 2013

rushing into the waters - 09:53 , 21 June 2013

choosing a spot - 17:43 , 27 April 2013

2001-04-04 - 9:26 p.m.

rendezvous

Boy, it's easy to get in trouble in a small community.

When I got home this morning, I noticed the back door was ajar and the storm door open. My guess was the wife and boys were late getting to work and school, and just forgot to close it as they left. If it had been burglars, the 3 heelers would have driven them off, or else there would be burglars hiding in our closets.

But just to be sure, I phoned the wife. After chiding her about leaving the house open and the dogs free to come and go as they wished (they didn't), she asked me about why I didn't tell her about my "rendezvous."

Rendezvous? Now, I know I'm innocent, but how do I ask without sounding guilty?

What rendezvous?

"The one on Monday."

The brain replays Monday's events. Ohhhh. You mean the hawk!

Monday evening, while wife and sons were at a school board meeting, I got a call a little before sunset from the gal who runs the main historic site in town. Some hikers had reported seeing a hawk or "something" in one of her buildings. I asked her if she would mind checking to see if it was true before I drove into town. She was glad to, but wanted assurances that a hawk wouldn't attack her and maul her if she went in the building.

Yes, you'll be ok. Call me if you find anything.

Well, 10 minutes later she calls. There's a hawk looking out a window on the second floor. So I and the masked heeler head into town.

She meets me at the gate, in the good, heavy rain, to let me in. It's almost dark. There's the hawk on the second floor, watching us through the window. Looks like an accipiter. As we cross the driveway and enter the door, I hear a sickening "thump", the sound of a bird hitting glass. Hard.

I trot up the steps expecting the worst, but there's the bird on the window sill, looking fine and scared. It's a Cooper's hawk.

Now as I recall, I have only seen Cooper's hawks twice before. One was out in the sage eating a mouse, at least 10 miles from any forest where it had any business being. The second Cooper's was rapidly dying after trying to fly through a neighbor's picture window. I didn't want that to happen here, so I rushed over, pressed the bird down on the sill and slowly grabbed both legs and tucked in the wings. Then we walked out.

I gave the bird a quick once-over on the stairs. Legs OK, wings OK, pupils not dilated (mad, in fact). Since it was raining and almost dark, I stepped right out into the middle of the driveway and threw it up in the air. The Cooper's immediately flew off towards the trees in the cemetery.

I turned around and saw the caretakers face. She was totally in awe about the whole thing.

I should have let her touch it.

I mentioned in an earlier entry about being jaded about exceptional events just because they happen so often. I blew it.

Anyway, the school board meeting went really late, and all the wife and I visited about that night was the meeting. Getting a wild animal out of a place where it's not supposed to be is usually no big deal anymore. Then the next day I took off for River Town and didn't get back until today.

Well, it seems the curator ran into the wife at lunch on Tuesday, and raved about her "rendezvous" with me. Then she raved about me and the hawk incident on her half-hour radio show this morning. And she raved about it again at the historical site luncheon meeting (of which my wife is a member) today. And wife has to sit there with a dumb look on her face because she knows nothing about it.

We need to find more time to talk.

And I should have let her touch it.

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