Who knew crows make such noises in the spring? Aside from the usual raucous cawing, they do this little cooing thing that made me think there was an owl nearby. It wasn’t though; it was two crows in a tree. Must be a mating song.

Crows are all over the place. That’s all you hear when you go outside now, and their nests are all over in the bush around the farmyard. Crows, and magpies. This morning, a flock of geese in the field south of here, across the road. Yesterday, when Manful and I went for a walk (he’d seen me leaving the yard as he was coming in after his evening chores, and came with me), the two cats that followed us scared up a couple partridges from the ditch.

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Barney and I were sitting on the couch Sunday night, watching one of the "North of 60" made-for-tv movies, Dream Storm, when I felt a light hand on the back of my head. I swivelled and looked, but no one was there and Barney’s arms were at his sides. So I figured it must be some sort of middle-aged strokey thing happening, a nerve riot or something, and forgot about it.

But today I do wonder what the hell that was all about.

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Later I watched the news, where Coalition soldiers were seen ordering Iraqi civilians out of their house. A woman and a young girl stood outside with their arms in the air. The little girl was crying, nearly hysterical with fear, and my heart wrung at the sight of her.

That image stayed in my mind long after I’d crawled into bed next to Manful, in our little house where we feel as safe as safe can be. No enemy soldiers around here; no government executioners coming in the night. It’s a million miles away from us, yet that might as well be my terrorized child, I was so sickened by it.