In situ …

I moved into the house at Jokers Hill a couple of days ago (Monday), and I’m feeling pretty settled. Although I’ve forgotten things—my binoculars and bird books, the butter…  But since I’ll be going back and forth to the city I can gather them up. I’m making a list. Add Kleenex after the butter, also my house shoes. I’m crediting the Jokers effect for my forgetfulness. His presence is pervasive, reminding me, as Heraclitus noted, that it’s important to expect the unexpected ... like this sign I’ve never noticed at the front entrance.

The house has no internet connection, and—a positive unexpected—I’m surprised at how little I miss it. I can walk about five minutes to the Research Barn when I need the internet, and I hope not to need it more than once a day. What the house does have is two wonderful working surfaces—a long and solid desk in the office and a large pine table in the dining room. I’ve already made use of both of them.

After I unloaded my goods and chattels on Monday I went for a walk. It was mid-afternoon, overcast, chilly. Snow lay thinly here and there. The water in the pond beside the driveway had congealed but not quite frozen, its surface gelid and unreflective except for one small patch of open water still mirroring the surrounding trees.

I walked the driveway leading to the 19^th Sideroad. It dips and curves and the land around it rises and falls more steeply and more often than the land beyond the Research Barn. The trees are bare and dark, the fields a mix of gold and straw, as if Rapunzel had managed only half her work.

                       

Many trees beside the road have broken branches. I was contemplating that brokenness when I heard an unusual bird call, a kind of trill, followed by nothing. Then it was repeated. A sudden motion and a flapping noise at the base of a tree—a  hawk, richly brown, was on the ground, one wing extended, its bill wide. Both startled we stared at each other. I snapped a picture that’s not very clear though you can see the wing.

Wondering if the hawk was injured or trapped I stepped forward and it seemed to roll sideways. Suddenly there were two large birds, the hawk, and an owl, grey and slightly smaller. The hawk flew, its red tail flaring, swooping across the fields and uttering its alarm call, to land in a row of trees some way off. It kept up its cry at intervals for a long time.

The owl--I think it was a barred owl--flew up into the tree beside me and perched for several minutes. Then it took off, short tail fanning wide, towards thicker woods and in the opposite direction to the hawk.

I went on with my walk, thinking what a wonderful encounter for my first day in the house.