Birth of An Art Piece; and the Tuesday Story: Hawk Sighting

I am very brave, as I show you the beginning of a painting:

It is part of the latest workshop I'm taking called Color, Beyond the Basics and this is a monochromatic background done with acrylic paint.  I am currently adding to it so you will have to stay tuned to see the finished piece. But don't you think it's brave to show it unfinished?? :) haha

Hawk Sighting
36th in the Tuesday Story Series

One of our favorite pastimes as a family has always been camping. That means that we took a pull behind camper, as I outgrew on-the-ground sleeping a long time ago! As our daughter grew older, we often took along one or two of her friends, and they would sleep in a tent, so they could chat all night if they wanted to, and we could sleep. After one such trip with two of Tabitha's friends, we had a surprise waiting for us when we came home. 

We always brought the camper in the back yard and circled around, so we could park it right inside the gate. This time we let the kids out in the yard before we turned around, and after a few minutes I heard "Mom!! Papa!! Look at the porch!! It's all busted!". I stopped the car, and we turned to look where they were pointing and were appalled at what we saw.

Our back porch in Charleston was room size and all screened in, with a ceiling fan to keep the air moving. Now as we looked at it, screen was hanging everywhere, there was not a section of intact screen on the whole porch except at the bottom. Some of it was ripped into shreds, but all of it was hanging. 

"What in the world!?!" we thought as we stood there for a moment, and then we all moved slowly towards what was left of the porch. "What happened Mom? What happened?" the girls were all chattering at once, "We don't know!" we answered in a daze and then suddenly we saw something sort of jump about six or eight inches and we all froze. 

John and I told the girls to stay back, and we slowly walked up to the porch. There in a huddle was a red tailed hawk, staring at us as though warning us to stay away but obviously too exhausted to do anything but gives us dirty-hawk looks. At the house door, we could see our two cats sitting there, very wide eyed and not moving as they stared through the glass. I suddenly got the feeling they had been watching this hawk for some time!

We hesitated for a few minutes, because the talons of any bird of prey are formidable, whether they are injured or not, in fact it might even be worse if they are injured because they would be striking out of fear. As we stood there watching it watch us, I suddenly thought "Camera! NO! Darn, no film left!!!" which annoyed me more than the shredded screens hanging around us. Studying the scene we figured that the hawk had been chasing a bird and went straight through the screen, and then could not escape. The hanging screen prevented it from flying out but it was obvious that it had been trying for some time, hence all the torn screening.

John and I talked it over, both of us realizing that the hawk was seemingly too exhausted to even fly at us. So I went around to the front of the house and let myself in, then going to the linen closet I grabbed the largest towel I could find. I walked to the back, shooed the cats away from the porch door and carefully opened it. The hawk turned just a bit to look at me as John hushed the children who were very excited about the whole thing. I stretched the towel between my hands and slowly walked over to the hawk, dropped the towel over it and picked it up gingerly. I was able to swaddle the hawk so that it could not flair up, and as I picked it up, it offered no resistance. It didn't even struggle, the poor thing was so exhausted. I kept away from the hawk's bill, and held it up for everyone to see. It was so beautiful!! I carried it outside and put it down on the ground, and after a few minutes, it gave a tentative flap, then rose up and soared off to a nearby tree where it sat for a while.

Of course, though we had been gone for a week, the end of the camping trip was the most talked about part of the whole vacation!

Come see my latest postcards I've received on Postcards Buffet!