Photo of a black crow that is looking out at the viewer. Photo by Dimitar Donovski on Unsplash

Here is a true story that I wrote on Tumblr. It is about the crows that live nearby.

Yesterday, my husband had the opportunity to start clearing out the shed. It isn’t a huge shed, but just big enough to stow away boxes, Christmas ornaments, and other stuff.

Then, the COVID-19 pandemic started, and he later suffered an injury to his ankle which caused him great pain. It took a long time before he could get an appointment to get that fixed. Obviously, a person experiencing pain from an injury should NOT be trying to clear out a shed.

And so, things simply sat there for a while.

I decided to help him de-clutter the shed. There were a lot of a cardboard boxes, of various sizes, that we had no more use for. Some had styrofoam, bubble wrap, or cardboard “spacers” for lack of a better word.

To make things go faster, I decided I would carry the flattened cardboard, and the fillers that were inside it, to the trash and/or recycling bins that were in the mobile home park.

After making a few trips, I noticed that a couple of crows had started flying in that direction. They circled around in the sky ahead of me, but I didn’t see anything there that they could be chasing,

There was an unintentional pattern I was following. Pick up the cardboard and other stuff. Walk to the dumpster and recycling bin. Repeat.

After doing this for a while, I noticed there was a crow nearby. At the time, I was struggling to put a very large, heavy, flattened box into one of the dumpsters.

The crow flew over me and landed on what once was a line of wires that people would hang their clothing on to dry. The wires had rusted over the years. A small structure near it had coin operated washers and dryers.

The crow landed on the post nearest the dumpsters and looked back at me. It had some kind of food in its beak, which might have been parts of a shelled peanut, or perhaps a reasonable amount (for a crow) of bread.

And it waited.

“Hello, crow,” I said. “I see you. I’m okay.”

The crow sort of nodded, and then flew off with the food in it’s beak.

We have occasionally fed the crows that appear at the end of the driveway. Sometimes, one would calmly and quietly sit on top of the neighbor’s house and wait to be fed. Other times, they arrive and scream for food.

We don’t feed them every day. Their other sources of food include restaurants that are in a plaza headed by a supermarket. The crows know exactly when to go there and wait for a human to bring out a bag of “trash”.

I guess what I’m saying is that we make sure that we aren’t their only source of food. They get a handful of cashews, or stale Cheerios. Just a little bit of food to help sustain them. Snacks.

Eventually, my husband and I decided to call it a day. We can pick up on the de-cluttering of the shed again and keep working. Little by little will do.

We went back into our mobile home and sat down and rested a bit. I started telling him about the crow that had food in its beak.

My husband thinks that the crow, who could possibly be one we fed, thought I was hungry. As my husband explained it, the crow saw me walk down to the dumpsters and recycling bins, open the lids, put things in – but not take anything out.

To paraphrase what my husband thought: “Animals that are hungry sometimes open dumpsters hoping to find food. The crow saw you looking into the dumpsters and putting things into it. You left empty-handed. So, the crow brought you some food.”

It is a magical thing to realize that the crows we fed have decided we are part of their flock. I wear a lot of black clothing, and am small for a human. This crow thought I was starving and wanted to give me food.

True story.

This is a true story I wrote on Tumblr. It is not allowed to be copied.

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