and other Halloween creatures…
When I grew up (not going to mention when that was), my parents gave us kids a wonderful comic book, called “The Witch’s Handbook”. It is a terrific, tongue-in-cheek guide for any aspiring witch (which I was of course, being the only one that actually WANTED the be the witch in the school play 😉 I was so taken with it that it even inspired me to copy / draw the witch on the cover on to our black board, enlarged to live size, in a 6th grade assignment (great success)…and I sourced a paperback version last year in the UK, had it shipped to Switzerland, and from all my books, it became one of the two that I chose to bring with me to Vancouver…
Besides lots of food recipes for Halloween (→ see my recipe section) and other fun craft stuff, e.g. skull & bat tea cozies, knitted skull cap etc., it features important insights about a witch’s daily routines, preferred housing as well as pet companions. You might ask, where I’m going with this…well, it seems that I have envisaged this (unknowingly, over years) to such an extent that the universe has finally given in and delivered it (although it did resist for about 25 years). There I was in my cute flat underneath the roof, where the wind blows through the cracks of the windows, the walls and lamps shake when someone on the lower floors walk around, sitting at my office/dining/one table, when I suddenly heard a “miau-growl” next to me.
Needless to say that I almost jumped out of my skin, whereas the “tall” dark stranger just jumped on to my lap, purring and obviously wanted some attention, before taking up his observation position on the table! I named him Ron, and it seems that he has adopted me (as he took possession of my bed), appearing whenever he feels like it. Ron has completed the circle of interesting creatures surrounding me, including the spider(s) everywhere, the squirrel on the roof (I had a true E.T. encounter moment with that – I was screaming & the poor thing must have been too), and the two crows stationed in the trees lining my avenue.
Did you know that there is a flock of approx. 6’000 crows that spend their days spread all over Vancouver, only to return at dusk to Burnaby (a suburb of Vancouver)? It is quite a sight when they gather in my neighboring street, on some small trees and in a very orderly, organised fashion, all crows from the area start gathering. It is believed that the Burnaby roost has been there since the 1970s, and they are more like us than we might believe. They mate for life (not like us 😉 and apparently they can communicate with each other (again not like us 😉 Their offspring support the parents to raise younger siblings and live in loose family groups with complex social structures (obviously, how otherwise do they know when to pre-gather, fly to/from Burnaby etc). In short, we can learn a lot from them! If you are in Vancouver I can only recommend to take the time one day and watch the spectacular…
As for me, I cherish all my companions (the only one missing now is an owl, I guess) and ask you this, what is the morale of this story?
Be very careful & SPECIFIC what you wish for, the universe delivers
(following its own timing 😉
Happy Halloween everyone!
Credits & Reference: The picture of the crow is by Gerry Kahrmann and the insight about the crows of Burnaby comes from the online version of The Province.