Ravens And Jam

 Well I must say that today was an odd day.

I'd stopped off at Jacobs Family Berry Farm for some locally-grown raspberries and blackberries for jam making.

Yum!

Family sternly warned to leave them alone until after I'd measured out what I needed for jam, after that they could lay into them.  I must say, that was difficult because they smelled amazing.

But a small batch of each jam was made, yay!

Even better, I got to talking with Jack, the owner, and he and I have a 'swap fresh eggs for berries' agreement!

Later on that day, we got a visit from a neighbor, who used to work for a local pizza joint and had delivered to us in the past--he remembered Nadine yelling 'Hello!' at him when he had been here.

He told my husband that he had a very tame raven in his yard and was worried that his dogs were going to get it, and asked my husband if he'd take a look at it.  My husband suspected that it was the same tame raven that had wandered into our house back on August 18th and when shooed back outside, had allowed him to hand feed it.  So he grabbed a small birdcage and went back to the guy's house...low and behold, same bird.  The neighbor calls the raven into his pickup truck, then they are able to pick it up and place it in the cage.

My husband brought the bird back here, where we all take turns scratching it on the head and feeding it goodies--it's completely tame and was obviously someone's pet.  We decide to post some notices online, husband gets on Facebook and I get on Craigslist.

After about an hour we get two calls:  one from a very nice licensed wildlife rehabber/falconer in Yerington who offers to give the bird a home, the other from a guy named Joel a few blocks away from us, saying the raven is his--kinda.  Seems it was an orphaned baby that he raised and released, it's been hanging around for months.

Joel invites us over to his house, a 5 acre spread, so we grab the raven and go--we figure it'll be pretty obvious if it's his bird or not.

Well, without a doubt he raised that bird, they know each other well.  I ask Joel if the bird has a name and he tells us, 'None that can be pronounced in mixed company.'

Sounds like a raven owner, all right!

Ravenbuddy is released from the cage, and he walks around the yard begging from everyone as we stand there talking, Joel eventually giving him a Ritz cracker from his pocket. Ravenbuddy immediately goes over to a planter and caches it.

He's still a youngster and loves attention and messing with people, but is clearly healthy and able to hold his own, so we don't worry about him.  We suspect he will continue to hang around.  While we all talk the bird takes off and makes a beeline for the neighbor's yard, who Joel tells us own dogs that Ravenbuddy loves to tease--he sits in the trees and barks back at them.

We spend about an hour visiting with Joel, who is a cool dude with an awesome house that he partially built himself and has decorated with stuff from his travels around the world.  The kid is fascinated with his fish pond, and he tells her that she came back and fish in it for catfish and the like any time she wants.

I tell him I'll be back bearing fresh eggs and we say goodbye.

I'm sure we'll see our raven around again, and we let the pizza guy know that we found the bird's owner and that he should expect to see the bird around, too.