Ground War

In the part of Iowa I live in the Red Wing black birds are many and they nest in the ditches along the roads. They sit up on the high wires and they watch over their young in the nests. Often if a biker rides by they will swoop down and try to scare them away from their nest. Unfortunately they are on the food chain of the hawk. The big graceful bird that flies’ over our state eating small animals and small birds out of their nest. It is a unique sight to see two or three black birds trying to chase a hawk away from their young.


These are the things of nature that happen around my home. Speaking of food chain it reminds me of a time when I was a young teacher back in the 1980’s; I lived in an old medal trailer home right on the river. I was just substitute teaching and coaching and didn’t have a lot of money. I would eat air popped popcorn and pancakes at the end of the month just to get by. The place I lived did not have an outside light and I lived in the timber about 200 feet from the river. On nights where there was no moon it would be pitch black. It was wonderful to sleep at night but other times it could be extremely frightening.

One particular dark night close to Halloween I was sitting in the trailer watching television in the dark when I heard a large bang against my trailer. I had not heard a car pull in, and my driveway was almost half a mile long and deep in the country so few people would walk out. I quick shut the TV off, grabbed a bat I kept next to the door and snuck out the back door. Actually I fell down the steps onto the ground and rolled behind a pine tree. If they didn’t know I was out of the house they did now.

It was so dark and I could not see the bat in front of me. I could here four or five of them moving around on the gravel of my drive way. People had been going up and down the river stealing things put of cabins and I do not know if they didn’t see the light from my TV or just didn’t care but I was scared witless and I was going to greet them with a Louisville slugger.

I could hear them walking toward my front door and for some reason they didn’t know I was creeping toward them. When I got within thirty feet of them I could hear five of them breathing very hard like they were as frightened as I was. I said “Tell me who you are or I am going to hit you”. I worried that it was some friends just pulling a joke on me and if I hit them I would kill them.

They didn’t say anything, I took three steps toward them and I could hear them breathing as if they were having a panic attack. Now I was within swinging distance away from them. I pulled the bat back like Hank Aaron and I prepared for battle. I said listen if you are a friend you better say something or I am about to beat you to death.

One of them stepped toward me and just as I was about to swing I heard “bah, bah, bah.” Five of the neighbor’s goats had got out and could not find their way home in the dark. I almost had a heart attack. They had found the greens of what was left of my flower garden and they were in heaven right next to the trailer.