Wayne and The Crow
It is raining cats and dogs this morning so I thought I would write this West Coast sonnet. To Wayne and The Crow.
We had a day of brilliant sunshine in the midst of our last blast of winter and post Olympic west coast rain and almost rain. One of those days where even bundled up against March's cold wind one had to be outside. My friend Jude who lives part-time on Cliffside called to say, “Lets go for a walk”.
We drove to Winter Cove and skipped along the gravel trail constructed by Parks Canada last summer which is highly criticized by local denizens as too high, too narrow, not following the old path and no longer has access to the shore. We looked at the cattails, checked out the Goldeneye ducks floating near the shoreline as we walked along talking about the impact of a national park on our island: What started out as a good idea to save Dry Douglas Fir habitat, hold off loggers and developers has become a burden for islanders resulting in higher property taxes, fewer services, more bureaucracy and wardens with guns. With that resolved, we sat for a few minutes in the cold sun by Boat Pass, looked at the only Cypress trees on the island snuggled down on the south facing rock, talked about music, films, The Olympics, all the while gossiping about our neighbours and how puffed up we get about change in our community. Getting cold we decided to head to a warm fire and a glass of wine.
Knowing a good place to go, we headed to Melanie's who always has a cozy home and good cold white wine in her fridge. Melanie is my dear friend and “Sista” who, as another friend calls her, is The Real Queen of Saturna although there are various pretenders and wannabes to the throne. She certainly is the Mother Superior of the Gaines family and because she, her husband and kids and their spouses are very involved in island activities and various community projects, she knows more about what is going on here than anybody else I know.
Melanie, like me, is one of Wayne's four permanent employers and in addition to having him help her once a week, looks out for him in terms of his relationship with The Rec Centre, another of his employers. Not surprisingly the subject of Wayne came up during the first glass of Pinot Grigo. Despite all his crankiness, no apologies, aberrant behaviour, recent tardiness, excessive drinking, smoking and drug abuse, Wayne is a good worker when focused, honest, smarter than most people know, and looks out for us in his way. Similarly, we look out for Wayne because in addition to the grief he brings on himself and others because of his various addictions, he provides us with great stories. This is one of them.
It is well known folklore on the island that Wayne loves animals of all kinds. Actually, that isn't true. At present he is having a small but on-going war with the pigeons which are eating his chickens' scratch and a couple of raccoons which are eating his chickens. Those two sets of varmints aside, Wayne cares for stray cats, moves snakes away from where he is mowing, saves abandoned bird eggs to hatch, transports spiders to a new home from a nook of a downed Arbutus tree. And, his Trailer Park Chickens are the best fed chickens I know. He feeds them canned corn along with discount greens he purchases from the Upper Store and special expensive dry feed he buys from Buckerfields, an off-island feed store. I am convinced that his chickens eat better than he does.
Two years ago, when Wayne was still driving his truck (that is yet another story) and before he had a phone he arrived one rainy Monday announced by a broken muffler, late as usual. As I approached he was smiling. Unusual for a Monday morning. Getting out to light a cigarette, Wayne motioned me over to the passenger side of the vehicle with a "Susie, come here, come here, come here". Looking in, I see riding shotgun on the seat is a very large smelly crow in an even larger cage covered by a dirty blanket. Underneath were once clean towels and some half eaten apples and carrots.
Now for those of you who don't live on Saturna, crows are very common on the island. They also are noisy, messy, chase song birds away from our feeders, eat the baby birds, fight with the Glaucous-Winged Gulls over carrion after the eagles and TVs are finished eating and more generally are a pain in the ass at 5:00 a.m. in the summer. In the winter they have a roost in the trees down by Lyall Harbour. There must be at least a 100 that congregate there by times. A convention of sorts. Perhaps it is one giant mating dance or a time to caw where the best food can be found. One year they played host to a Crimson Rosella which must have flown in from one of the cargo ships that lumber up and down Boundary Pass. That was cool but the Rosella was never seen after that winter so who knows what happened, they probably ate it.For those of you wanting a more scientific version, here it is:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/science/26crow.html?scp=5&sq=crows&st=nyt
But, I digress.
“Wayne, what are you doing with that bird in your truck” I stupidly asked.
“Thought you might know what to do with this crow” said Wayne. “It's got a broken wing”.
"So" I say.
“Can't leave him or the coons will get him”.
“I better get back to the kitchen” was all I could muster as I retreated to the warm comfort of the house muttering to myself....where is Ian, wait until I tell him, where is he...what the fuck is that madman doing with a fucking crow....I'd put the creature out of its misery...Ian can shoot it....Melanie....I'll call Melanie, she'll know what to do.
“Tell Wayne to stop by here on his way home” was the word that came down the line from Mother Superior.
A couple hours later Wayne honked a happy goodby as yet again he spun his wheels up the driveway. “Wayne put it in first gear and you won't tear up the driveway” yelled Ian who had been hiding in his lair in the garage as our putative helper put the pedal to the metal on his way to see Mother.
Shortly after arriving in a skid down the Gaines' driveway, Melanie tells me that she directed Wayne to the Animal Rescue folks on Salt Spring. They are known for rescuing seals, porpoises and other kinds of sea life so I am certain that Wayne paused as he absorbed this information but he dutifully made the call from Melanie's phone and arranged a pick up at Winter Cove for the next day.
Mid-morning was the scheduled hand-off of The Crow. Wayne, always late, rounded the drive to the parking lot and scanned the shoreline expecting to see a motor boat at the dock. Instead a helicopter was hovering overhead and eventually settled on the old helicopter pad by the baseball diamond. I am told by a couple of islanders who witnessed the a la M*A*S*H rescue scene and crow hand-off that all Wayne could say was “Jeezus”.
Later that day, after the crow was transferred to a new cage and installed in the helicopter for a ride to its new home on Salt Spring, Melanie calls to tell me that she got a call from Wayne. “Well it is done” he said explaining to her in great detail about the pick up. As he finished the story, he offered up his Newfie moved to BC-Style analysis of the situation: “Jesus, fuckin A man, they send a fuckin helicopter for a bird with a broken wing but they sure wouldn't send a helicopter if I broke my leg”.
Truer words were never spoken.
We had a day of brilliant sunshine in the midst of our last blast of winter and post Olympic west coast rain and almost rain. One of those days where even bundled up against March's cold wind one had to be outside. My friend Jude who lives part-time on Cliffside called to say, “Lets go for a walk”.
We drove to Winter Cove and skipped along the gravel trail constructed by Parks Canada last summer which is highly criticized by local denizens as too high, too narrow, not following the old path and no longer has access to the shore. We looked at the cattails, checked out the Goldeneye ducks floating near the shoreline as we walked along talking about the impact of a national park on our island: What started out as a good idea to save Dry Douglas Fir habitat, hold off loggers and developers has become a burden for islanders resulting in higher property taxes, fewer services, more bureaucracy and wardens with guns. With that resolved, we sat for a few minutes in the cold sun by Boat Pass, looked at the only Cypress trees on the island snuggled down on the south facing rock, talked about music, films, The Olympics, all the while gossiping about our neighbours and how puffed up we get about change in our community. Getting cold we decided to head to a warm fire and a glass of wine.
Knowing a good place to go, we headed to Melanie's who always has a cozy home and good cold white wine in her fridge. Melanie is my dear friend and “Sista” who, as another friend calls her, is The Real Queen of Saturna although there are various pretenders and wannabes to the throne. She certainly is the Mother Superior of the Gaines family and because she, her husband and kids and their spouses are very involved in island activities and various community projects, she knows more about what is going on here than anybody else I know.
Melanie, like me, is one of Wayne's four permanent employers and in addition to having him help her once a week, looks out for him in terms of his relationship with The Rec Centre, another of his employers. Not surprisingly the subject of Wayne came up during the first glass of Pinot Grigo. Despite all his crankiness, no apologies, aberrant behaviour, recent tardiness, excessive drinking, smoking and drug abuse, Wayne is a good worker when focused, honest, smarter than most people know, and looks out for us in his way. Similarly, we look out for Wayne because in addition to the grief he brings on himself and others because of his various addictions, he provides us with great stories. This is one of them.
It is well known folklore on the island that Wayne loves animals of all kinds. Actually, that isn't true. At present he is having a small but on-going war with the pigeons which are eating his chickens' scratch and a couple of raccoons which are eating his chickens. Those two sets of varmints aside, Wayne cares for stray cats, moves snakes away from where he is mowing, saves abandoned bird eggs to hatch, transports spiders to a new home from a nook of a downed Arbutus tree. And, his Trailer Park Chickens are the best fed chickens I know. He feeds them canned corn along with discount greens he purchases from the Upper Store and special expensive dry feed he buys from Buckerfields, an off-island feed store. I am convinced that his chickens eat better than he does.
Two years ago, when Wayne was still driving his truck (that is yet another story) and before he had a phone he arrived one rainy Monday announced by a broken muffler, late as usual. As I approached he was smiling. Unusual for a Monday morning. Getting out to light a cigarette, Wayne motioned me over to the passenger side of the vehicle with a "Susie, come here, come here, come here". Looking in, I see riding shotgun on the seat is a very large smelly crow in an even larger cage covered by a dirty blanket. Underneath were once clean towels and some half eaten apples and carrots.
Now for those of you who don't live on Saturna, crows are very common on the island. They also are noisy, messy, chase song birds away from our feeders, eat the baby birds, fight with the Glaucous-Winged Gulls over carrion after the eagles and TVs are finished eating and more generally are a pain in the ass at 5:00 a.m. in the summer. In the winter they have a roost in the trees down by Lyall Harbour. There must be at least a 100 that congregate there by times. A convention of sorts. Perhaps it is one giant mating dance or a time to caw where the best food can be found. One year they played host to a Crimson Rosella which must have flown in from one of the cargo ships that lumber up and down Boundary Pass. That was cool but the Rosella was never seen after that winter so who knows what happened, they probably ate it.For those of you wanting a more scientific version, here it is:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/science/26crow.html?scp=5&sq=crows&st=nyt
But, I digress.
“Wayne, what are you doing with that bird in your truck” I stupidly asked.
“Thought you might know what to do with this crow” said Wayne. “It's got a broken wing”.
"So" I say.
“Can't leave him or the coons will get him”.
“I better get back to the kitchen” was all I could muster as I retreated to the warm comfort of the house muttering to myself....where is Ian, wait until I tell him, where is he...what the fuck is that madman doing with a fucking crow....I'd put the creature out of its misery...Ian can shoot it....Melanie....I'll call Melanie, she'll know what to do.
“Tell Wayne to stop by here on his way home” was the word that came down the line from Mother Superior.
A couple hours later Wayne honked a happy goodby as yet again he spun his wheels up the driveway. “Wayne put it in first gear and you won't tear up the driveway” yelled Ian who had been hiding in his lair in the garage as our putative helper put the pedal to the metal on his way to see Mother.
Shortly after arriving in a skid down the Gaines' driveway, Melanie tells me that she directed Wayne to the Animal Rescue folks on Salt Spring. They are known for rescuing seals, porpoises and other kinds of sea life so I am certain that Wayne paused as he absorbed this information but he dutifully made the call from Melanie's phone and arranged a pick up at Winter Cove for the next day.
Mid-morning was the scheduled hand-off of The Crow. Wayne, always late, rounded the drive to the parking lot and scanned the shoreline expecting to see a motor boat at the dock. Instead a helicopter was hovering overhead and eventually settled on the old helicopter pad by the baseball diamond. I am told by a couple of islanders who witnessed the a la M*A*S*H rescue scene and crow hand-off that all Wayne could say was “Jeezus”.
Later that day, after the crow was transferred to a new cage and installed in the helicopter for a ride to its new home on Salt Spring, Melanie calls to tell me that she got a call from Wayne. “Well it is done” he said explaining to her in great detail about the pick up. As he finished the story, he offered up his Newfie moved to BC-Style analysis of the situation: “Jesus, fuckin A man, they send a fuckin helicopter for a bird with a broken wing but they sure wouldn't send a helicopter if I broke my leg”.
Truer words were never spoken.
Good local colour, Mama!
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