Tricksters and Tattletales

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

Time is a trickster.

Especially when modern humans get their grubby paws on it and try to manipulate it for their own ends.

Yeah, yeah, I know; we're supposed to love the extra light. Trouble is, it took an hour off the front end of my day, the time when I can least afford to lose it.

I don't think the trickster up in the photo likes it much, either.

He landed on the tallest latilla pole and squawked at me for a good ten minutes. To call him "exercised" would be an understatement; he was so wrapped up in his complaints that he rocked back and forth with every utterance, tailfeathers involuntarily parting and closing like a pair of scissors in constant motion.

When I finally got back inside and got the camera, he waited just long enough for me to aim, and the moment I tried to focus, he split — still raising holy hell at the top of his little corvid lungs.

He landed in the willow, and I managed to get off three shots in between his enraged hopping from branch to branch. This one showed him to best, most representative effect, beak wide open.

I'm not entirely sure that he was tattling on the time change; I rather suspect that Coyote may have been lurking out in the chamisa, in which case, he was trying to do us a favor and warn us to keep the chickens safe from his fellow trickster. Fortunately, I'd already rounded all dozen of them up and gotten them back into the coop just seconds before Raven landed.

Of course, the whole day was one warped by the clowns of the spirit world, sacred and not. Time, winds, wild temperature fluctuations, snow not far off on the peaks as the last of it melted into rivers and rivulets of mud down here. All playing hell with my joints, all seemingly of sinister design, made for the express purpose of sending my autoimmune symptoms into orbit.

Maybe tomorrow will jack them back down to their usual level, which is to say, lousy but manageable. If the winds show their faces, though, that possibility is off the table entirely. I won't know the answer to that until afternoon.

Unless, of course, the trickster returns in the morning . . . with another warning.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.