The island is gorgeous right now! Garden is growing. Birds everywhere. The Hummingbirds are back in droves. Even the Orcas have been around more often. And, of course, we have our Ravens!

OMYGAWD!

They’ve had their offspring, fledglings now. Everyone is in the air. And the instructions delivered to the young are unbelievably ear-shattering. Some teen-aged doofus sits in a tree and his mom and dad sit nearby just a-hollerin’ and squawking as loud as they can until the youngster ‘does as he is told’.

You can call that anthropomorphizing if you like but the sounds, the delivery and the resultant reactions pretty much proves it. Raven parenting! They are pretty funny. And not just a little loud!

The Ravens have trained us as well. Normally we feed them as we see fit. On our own time. On our little square feeding platform. At our discretion. Not so at hatching and fledgling time. When the new family is present and accounted for, Liz and Jack come flying over and just bloody squawk until they are given something for the babies. Then, when the chicks fledge, they bring them over to our house to show the young úns how it is done.

“Just yell at them and stand on that little square. Do it loud now! Louder! That’s it. They’ll come. Bloody slow sometimes but just keep it up. You’ll see. After them, we hit up the neighbours. Come on now!”.

Sometime in the near future the elder Raven delivers the hard news: “OK, now about that little square – that square is mine. NOT yours. You have go get your own little square. So, get off the square. Now! And stay off all the little squares in this immediate neighbourhood. I am not telling you twice!”

Sorta like me and my chair!

And that is the beginning of the end for the family. By late June, it is back to Liz and Jack only. The kids have flown the nest.

And it is quiet again.

But still active. This is the year of the ant! Quiet, yes. But the ants are still thriving and multiplying like, well, ants. We’ve had big ants, medium ants and itty-bitty, teeny-weeny ants (I didn’t even know they came in that size!). We’ve had red ants, black ants and I am pretty sure I even saw a red and black ant, some kind of ‘play-it-both-sides’ colouring.

And they are all over. We have managed to keep them out of the house but that is due more to the good weather than good security. They prefer the outdoors but, in a pinch, our kitchen is a reasonable alternative. For them.

Not for me.

I confess that I have softened my revulsion for bugs over the past few years. Somewhat. They used to make my skin crawl. Especially when they crawled on my skin! But, as I have aged, I have become more tolerant (plus my skin is less sensitive and so I don’t always feel them – which is pretty horrible in itself). I still kill ém, of course. Mans gotta do……..But now I feel a bit of regret – like maybe I should have carried each one outside and ‘set ’em free’ or something incredibly time-consuming, difficult, pointless and likely to result in killing them anyway.

So now I just kill ém with guilt rather than pleasureful revenge for crimes unknown but strongly suspected.

That new-age respect for life does not extend to mosquitoes, of course. We know their crimes. They deserve to die. No doubt about that.

Other than the above-described mayhem, murder, infant abuse, threatening behaviour, house invasion and blood-sucking, things are great out here these days!