Hawkeye

Rachel, Miriam, and I took Phoebe for a walk this afternoon and came across one of our neighbourhood hawks. I actually have no idea what kind of hawk it is—the kind that likes to sit out in the open and then fly across our path while we're out walking. So some sort of show-off variety of hawk, as it seems. 

It has flown directly across our path more times than we can count.

Not too long ago, I was walking with Benjamin and Phoebe, Alexander and Zoë having run up ahead (the big girls must have been at Grandpa's house). We stopped to watch the hawk when we saw it torpedo out of the sky and into a thicket of twigs up high in an oak tree. 

A squirrel chattered violently and ran mindless circles around the branch under what we determined was its nest while the hawk pecked and clawed its way inside. I wasn't aware that was a thing hawks did—rip open the nests of squirrels and fly off with their young clasped in their talons. Seems like a rather sportless way of hunting, if you ask me. 

But we stood there and watched while the hawk cracked this tiny home open, we listened to the young screaming in terror, until they screamed no more, we shook our heads at the poor momma squirrel running her wild and pointless laps of protest around and around the branch propping up what used to be her home, what was now only a site of carnage.

It was tragic...but interesting. We could hardly tear our eyes away. 

By the time we got home, Zoë and Alexander had seriously begun to wonder what had become of us. Nothing; we were fine. We were just as we were before. Or perhaps witnessing this merciless attack changed us. Or maybe it didn't. It's hard to say. Nothing became of us. We were fine. We were home. And nothing had happened to us. And yet...

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Here's a picture of Phoebe from our walk this afternoon. She was sad that we didn't leave her behind to play with the kids, so to cheer her up we helped her collect leaves. She liked that.

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This has nothing to do with anything, really, but as I was thinking about a title for this (somewhat random) post (but that's what you get during NaBloPoMo), the phrase "Hawkeye" came to mind.

Apparently Hawkeye is a superhero in the Marvel universe.

Apparently Hawkeye has his own miniseries. 

Rachel and Miriam liked to watch Hawkeye and while they were watching it they would frequently talk about Hawkeye this and Hawkeye that and...it took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to realize they were saying "Hawkeye" and not "hot guy."

That is all.