It was a slow and slightly disassociated weekend. I am still feeling like crap, kind of a low-grade motion sickness, and can’t tell if it is an effect of an over-ambitious social schedule or delayed reaction to the cautiously good news about the state of my general health.
I came down to the farm after organizing more than a hundred photos of the 50th Anniversary Naval Intelligence Dining In at Fort Myer on Friday night. I remember my misspent middle years when those events cascaded into a late night on the town in formal garb, but that is no longer the case.
I am apparently not alone. I got notes from two highly recognizable former Intelligence Community seniors- you would recognize them if I used their names- who said they liked looking at the pictures of the event, but conceded that it was for the active-duty crowd and they felt a little weird attending with all gold braid on display.
I think I agree, but we can worry about that next year. If the tuxedo still fits, that is. That was the good news about this year- the last thing you need the afternoon preceding a black-tie event is whether the closet gremlins have magically shrunk the formal garb. I am looking forward to a tux-free life-style beckoning in the middle distance.
Which is just where Edgar passed the sunny fall day, in the space between the barnyard and the back pastures at the farm. Naturally, I had patrolled the grounds on arrival and was pleased that none of the four Buzzards who have (illegally and without documentation) set up shop on the property.
I was cautiously optimistic that they had decamped for warmer climes, but with the rising dawn I discovered that fifty percent of the buzzard fleet was very much with me, two of them being perched on the fence that separates the pastures from the farmyard.
I poured some rich Russian-blend Dazbog-brand coffee and ladled some honey produced next door and went out on the back deck to utter an appeal to reason.
“Listen up, Avian-Americans,” I shouted, rapping the handle of the big industrial broom on the railing. “You are not documented, and the cost of hosting you is not in the budget. Hence, I must request resolutely that you collect your belongings and get out. Shoo!”
I was moderately pleased that one of them reacted to my entreaty, and did that odd rotation of the neck by which they scan for their daily diet of road-kill and fixed me with a beady salubrious gaze. I am getting familiar enough with them that I suspected that one was Edwina, and she was obviously not impressed with my reading to her of the raptor riot act.
Dismissively, she turned her head skyward, extended her magnificent wings and leapt into the air from her perch on the top rail of the fence.
I have to tell you that the sound of powerful sweeping motion of her wings as she rose was impressive and clearly audible from my own perch. She arced in a graceful path to one of the Loblolly pines that divides Refuge Farm from the Dacha next door and glared at me with reproof.
Then I spent most of the day on the couch, watching football and looking at Edgar through the glass of the back door. He remained resolutely perched on the same fence post most of Sunday. I wonder if he is OK?
By cocktail hour, I discovered that he had relocated to points unknown. I have no idea where the Buzzards take their respite for the Hour of Happiness, or even if they do. Given their mournful visage and close association with recently departed wildlife, perhaps that is not one of their traditions.
I decided that the opportunity to do anything constructive that day had passed- aside from watching the Lions beat the Redskins- and I could pour a drink and go back to waiting for the election to be over. The whole riotous affray strikes me as being about as much fun as listening to someone drag their fingernails down a blackboard.
Of course, no-one who is actually going to pay for our Social Security actually knows what blackboards are anymore, so maybe this is self-correcting problem.
I know that the Buzzards are not. Accordingly, I sipped and planned my next steps in the battle of the Birds. I decided to take the campaign up a notch, from sweet reason, assorted whistles and banging on metal pots to something higher up the electromagnetic spectrum.
Once the sun was well and truly down, I played with the external lighting on the farm. There are a number of external lights that I rarely use, preferring to conserve energy and minimize the lights that advertise I am home. I alternated between illuminating the mercury vapor security light, the Gnome with the lantern on the porch, the deck lights and the floods attached to the barn itself.
If I managed to confuse Edgar as much as I did myself, it might have worked. I was still here in the morning and he wasn’t. I will keep you posted. I would hate to have to escalate this minor territorial dispute into playing really loud heavy-metal music. This is terra incognita, this epic Battle with the Buzzards.
Hell, for all I know, Turkey Buzzards might like tunes and their own private light show.
More on that sensitive topic from Up North in Blue Arlington tomorrow where things are starting to get interesting.
Copyright 2016 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com