Musing

The Trouble With Magpies

After our usual morning greeting I left four of the guardian dogs each with their respective bowl of food while I went off to feed the fifth who is situated with the rams. When I returned I watched with some amusement as this scene unfolded.

livestock guardian dog with magpie birds

It just so happens that the dog in the photo is named Birdie; a name that has nothing to do with Magpies by the way. She’s a terribly picky eater and skips as many meals as she eats, which has nothing to do with her name either. As such she will often lie down nearby while other dogs eat and then leave to catch up with the sheep. But whether or not she wants to eat it, one thing that annoys her is Magpies diving in for her food.

The trouble with Magpies is their persistence.
The trouble with Magpies is that I like them. The guardian dogs do not share the sentiment.
The trouble with Magpies is that once you get to know them you kinda have to admire them. They’re wickedly intelligent and equally determined and they have become a dependable presence in this prairie solitude. They have raucous call that drives me nuts when there is crowd of them. Then again it’s a marvel how silently they fly and how effortlessly they float on the wind or glide into a landing. In the winter they are quiet for the most part, as though they hold some regard for the hibernating state of the place. On the contrary in the summer months I’m often pleading at them to be quiet already. More often than not a gang of Magpie’s hopping about in the air in the distance is the first indication of a death that we see. With their daily presence Magpies act like a constant reminder. A reminder of how you said you would do a thing and you haven’t yet done it.

I don’t recall ever paying much attention to the birds in my youth, or even in my adult years prior to moving here. Perhaps the noticing of birds is a measure of how deeply I’ve grown into the solitude here and the length of time I have been living it. I’m now a bona fide feeder of birds throughout the winter season. I believe it all started with Magpies.

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Coyote, Wild and Free

What kind of world is created upon me deciding the coyote belongs or does not? That he is right in his choice to hunt lambs or is wrong because it wrongs me. What kind of world is created if I do not stand up, listen to my intuition, and take care of my own?

In the natural world I live in and witness here on the prairie there is no blanket answer. No answer that will satisfy the whole, no one kind of world to create, no one flavor of safety within that world. What is safe for one is often deadly for another. In Mother Nature’s world diversity is necessity and every life is precious but no life is so precious it shall not die. So there is only the individual’s choice to be acted upon. Intuition and instinct are the answer, the authority and the freedom.

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Pastoral Revisit

The land, the flock, the dogs and I. I wish to expand on the last blog post, which was titled pastoral ease. Moves with a lot of animals are not easy but they do have a feeling that is hard to replicate elsewhere.

The word pastoral is described as land or farm used for or related to the keeping or grazing of sheep or cattle; associated with country life. The origin of the latin word pastoralis is ‘relating to a shepherd’.

I seldom use the word but when it comes to mind I think it is this that the dictionary might also mean but missed out on:
Pastoral is one of those times when no other personal or worldly problem exists.
the drought is not here, the imminent sale of animals is forgotten, your next move is not a concern. With each step along a move with livestock you slip deeper into existing right here and now and you know the world is right for right now. Therefore it’s a good time to be alive and present.

I do not think or feel pastoral thoughts when I am out and with the dogs and the flock on a move. But instead the activity of moving across a landscape with a group of livestock is rich with pastoral nature and thus I become infused with it. When the moment is shattered or the move is done the feeling is too, however, it always, always leaves an indelible mark upon ones soul, because that is the nature of Nature. That is to be pastoral.

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