A miserable week of dealing with cold, wind, and a Hawk!

Well this has been an unbelievable week….  It has been horribly cold here in old Eaton with temperatures and wind chills far below zero.   I unfortunately live on the lowest spot between hills at or below the level of the Chenango…in other words damp and cold.  I also live with the back of the house facing north and facing a wide-open valley.

I have spent the week trying to stay warm as the woodpile has dwindled to nothing much.  So I am burning pieces of the gnarly old Maple tree that fell on my house this summer and the old wood from my bridge.

My cat Rascal has been a real bother also, tired of staying in but not wanting to go out…and Kitten, the sight impaired stray that has chosen my attic to live in, has been keeping close to the woodstove’s heat in her comfy room upstairs.  (She still won’t come out or let me near her.)

So the other night with the wind and creaking and cat noise upstairs I thought Kitten was getting cold and wanting to be fed.  So I left the kitchen with her meal...(scramble) hearing me coming of course, she then hides until I’m gone.  I went out and up the stairs to her little insulated loft area. (Yes, I made her a room.)  Her room is over the kitchen but you get to it by going out of the house, through the garage and up the stairs.

As I got to the top of the stairs I suddenly heard a crashing, something flying against the window…and banging into the ceiling.   Startled I thought it was a small bird that got in under the roof...But it seemed terribly big...but it was dark!

So I went back to the kitchen, picked up a flashlight and a lightweight blanket to try and catch it with if I had to …and returned to the garage.  To my amazement when I got to the second floor and turned the  light on it…it was a Hawk!  A big beautiful Hawk!  It just stared at me!

I managed to get the window open and shoo it out…it flew swiftly away unharmed…but it left me wondering how it got into my garage area… and how it got to the second floor???? Better yet why????

I have been told that my totem is the Hawk and that the Hawk brings a message….hmmm.   So for the past 24 hours I have been asking myself what could that message could be???

Since there is no birdfeeder in the area…though my back yard does back to a field…he could have come from there...how did he get in…but…never mind.  He was beautiful…and I cursed myself for not bring a camera with me… But how many times do you find a Hawk in February on the second floor of your garage!  Really!

Attributes & symbolic meanings of the messenger hawk: Attention, Vision, Power, Energy, Leadership, and Intensity

For more on a Cooper’s Hawk..from Cornell

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Coopers_Hawk/id