Ravens

It’s snowing again this morning. We had 4 inches yesterday, after the 2 feet we got last week. We’re not expected to get much today, maybe an inch, but who knows. Colorado weather forecasting is apparently difficult. 

There’s a lone raven flying high above the hills around me, flying toward and over my place, snow falling softly around him. It’s a beautiful sight and I’m privileged to see it. 

Bixby and I went to the grocery store a couple of days ago and as we were getting in the car, he heard a squawking and asked me what that bird was. I looked up and a raven was perched on the top of a light pole. They’re a huge bird and unless you see one close, sometimes hard to tell from crows. Strangely to me, a group of crows is called a murder but a group of ravens is called a kindness. 

We had ravens at the ranch in Texas and I’ve written about them before. They sometimes nested on the ridge behind the cabin and we named all the males Edgar and all the females Lenore. Along with wild turkeys, they were our favorite birds, intelligent and loyal. And if you talked to them, they would talk back. We would sometimes be in the cabin and hear them and go outside to talk with them. 

When Sarah and I were driving over so I could close on the house and move in, ravens met us on the road to Santa Fe, as we turned off the interstate, and we saw them all along the trail, each group of 2 or 3 passing us on to the next. As if they were saying “come on, we’ll stay with you until you’re safely home, don’t be afraid. We’ve been waiting and watching for you.”

And maybe that’s why they’re called a kindness.