SHUTCHER BEAK

So, late this afternoon I'm out there in the garden getting the last of the day's work done, manning the hose in this case, and Crow settles in one of the cedar trees - he drops by now and then to check me out, see if I'm setting out any selectables for his royal delectation - and seeing me doing what I'm doing he commences to chuckle that big cawy guffaw of his, laugh-shouting to his buddies here and there on the mountainside carrying on their dark arts (I'm in a bit of a hurry at the moment so this is a rough translation, I have to leave out the deep rhetorical flourishes that make Crow the cryptically eloquent language that it is) "Hey guys, check this out, you know the human I told you about, cuts trees into pieces, chops them into smaller pieces and stacks them up here and there outside of his house for up to a YEAR, keeping them covered from the rain, then BURNS THEM? Well, he's got other logs here now that he just made holes in with a machine, then stacked up, leaving them uncovered, and now he's watering them!! Do you believe these people? And those comical wings! What craziness! Haw! Haw! Haw!"

I have no trouble withstanding such feathered mockery - apart from the rude noise - as Crow's fellows crowd in from around to collectively watch one of their human subjects water the shiitake logs I've just inoculated; Crow's opinion isn't worth a black feather anyway, since he never did a lick of work in his life, just stands around in trees looking cool or hassling hawks up in the sky, doesn't have to plant anything, start fires to keep warm,or make shiitake logs for a couple years down the line; all he has is today, and gets everything handed to him on a natural platter, like roadkill. What does he know about the difficulties of higher intelligence confined to two legs and frequently a desk?

I told him and his buddies my opinion straight out, but they didn't hear a word I said in all that beaky laughter.