The Shadow of Crows

The fruit of our cherry tree is ripening. It's an old tree, so old that the arborist we hired told us it should be cut down in the next 5 years or it will fall either on our house or our new fence. We hate to see it go. The wide expanse of the branches and the thick, green leaves offer the perfect shade in the heat of summer. It's the biggest tree in our yard and to replace it means we lose that balance it provides by taking up so much space. When we remove the tree, we will be left with a large hole not only in the ground, but in the sky as well.

Of course this morning I was ready to chop it down myself. The fruit the tree produces are cherries we never get to eat. Pie cherries. Ann once tried to make a pie out of them, but struggled gathering enough of them to fill a shallow pie crust. It's not that there aren't enough cherries, it's that everyone else gets access to them first. Squirrels, starlings, and crows bounce on the branches and peck and claw away at the just ripening fruit at all hours of the day. Their favorite feasting time is just as the sun pushes up on the horizon.

This morning, just past 4:30, the crows groaned, moaned, and complained. With my pillow on my head, I can generally sleep through their fruit orgy, but a new problem has surfaced.

Rubin.

During these warmer nights, he often leaves his soft nest on our bed to cool off on the floor, stretching out to his fullest length, his paws slightly crossed both front and back. As the sun rises, the shadow of the cherry tree fills and expands in our blinds creating a tree house effect throughout the room.

And then the crows arrive. Loudly. Their heavy bodies bouncing on the long limbs of the tree. They peck at the cherries and if awake, we can watch the fruit dangle from their beaks and their wings flutter in the morning sun. But the crows aren't normal crow size. They are three times larger. They are in Hitchcock numbers and as broad and black and wide as any bird on any horror movie ever made.

When Rubin, from his cool retreat on the floor opens his morning eyes, he does not see simple crows on a bent branches. He sees the shadow of monsters with weapons of fruit dangling from their beaks.

And he barks. Not a woof, not hint of caution, but a full-on warning and protective bark. If the crows have yet to wake us, Rubin's guardian stance -- back legs outstretched, his head thrown forward -- and his deep and dangerous bark rattle us from our slumber.

At first we laughed. From his perspective the shadow of crows is frightening. He is simply protecting us. If only Tippy Hedrin had such protection. But morning after morning of the early and fierce warning system is getting very old very quickly.

We call Rubin back up on the bed. We turn his body away from the window. We hold his head down and attempt, in our best Dog Whisperer voice, to enforce silence. But we do not have a blindfold and this is exactly what he needs. And earplugs, too. The shadow cast on the blinds enlarges itself on the wall opposite the window. And after repeated mornings of seeing the large, black monsters in the window and on the wall, Rubin quickly associated the sound of the crow with the threat of the shadows. The caw caw caw opens his eyes. The movie of monstrous crows sends him into a full-throttle attack, defending us from certain death.

And we are left to groan and moan and complain.