DEDICATE

This post was written for Five Minute Friday

Word prompt--DEDICATE

Five minutes to free write about it

----------------------------------------------------------

It's March, and there's a lot of noise coming from the water tower across the way. Loud, raucous, quark quarks as the ravens dedicate themselves to getting their nest ready for the babies soon to be born. 

This particular raven family first arrived in town quite a few years ago, and built a nest on the water tower across from my balcony. They became very dedicated to the spot and returned to it every year when it was time to lay their eggs. again 

At one point their nest got removed due to some major maintenance work to the tower, including a much needed paint job. I wondered what would happen when they returned to find it gone. 

They just surveyed the situation and built themselves another nest on the temporary tower that had been erected behind the original one to house all the cellular carrier antennas and telecommunications equipment while the work was going on. 

When the work had been completed, the temporary tower was dismantled and their second nest removed along with it, but it did not seem to put a damper on their dedication to returning to this location one bit. They just built another (third) nest on the original, now spiffied up, tower. 

Disappointlingly  for me, this nest is on the other side of the tower that is not visible from my balcony, so now I just hear them but cannot watch them the way I used to be able to do.

For any of you who might be interested, the first year the ravens arrived and chose the water tower to be the site of their abode, I spent many hours on my balcony taking pictures of them and their babies learning to fly. which became the inspiration for my first children's picture book--THE WATER TOWER RAVENS.  It even made the front page of our local newspaper at that time. 

Alas, I am not very dedicated to marketing, and so sales have dwindled since then, but maybe when and if I ever have more time to spare, I will try and spread the word once again.