Hunter's Choice Read Online Free

3
     
    Jessamine
    I thought they’d never leave. These poor babies are
hungry. I flashed at Charlie. He laughed.
    “Need help catching up on feedin’ ‘em all?” he asked.
    Will it delay the aviary repairs by much?
    “Naw. Let’s get to it.” We moved about the barn comfortable
in our silence, feeding our temporary charges first before I moved on to our
three permanent residents.
    I snacked on a granola bar from my pocket before heading
outside. These birds were work, and I needed as much energy as I could get to
keep up after the feeding and the cleaning…
    Oh God the cleaning…
    The pellets I stored for the local junior high school, we
got enough for the kids in eighth grade to dissect for science class and had
plenty left over for the next two towns over each year.
    When it came to the outdoor enclosures, I had finally
invested in a pressure washer. It was easier to take the owls out and pressure
wash them clean on the regular than to scrub them by hand. It’s why the barn
floor had a drain set in the center of the concrete and a slightly angled
floor.  So I could give it a real deep clean a couple of times a year in
addition to the regular hand cleanings. There was only so much newspaper could
do and we went through bales and bales of that too.
    I smiled at our resident Barn Owl, she was a beauty. Pristine
white front, back and wings frosted golden as if she’d flown too high and had
been kissed by the sun. She was one that had gotten too friendly with humans
and just couldn’t make it out there on her own. I let live critters loose in
Dawn’s outdoor enclosure which was big enough for her to fly around in and went
swiftly the other direction. If it was dead when it got to me, no problem but I
still hated watching our charges go after live prey. Just something about
watching anything be killed disturbed me.
    Yep, I was one of those people that was grateful that the
meat I bought in the grocery store or at the butcher didn’t look like anything
readily identifiable. I had tried vegetarianism, but it had made me too sickly
to stick with it, again, I needed all the energy I could muster to keep up
after my pretty fly babies.
    I moved on to our other two residents, Piper, a little
Northern Pygmy owl that was vivacious and curious was my first stop. She couldn’t
fly. Her wing had been broken and a well-meaning teenager had tried to care for
her. Her wing had healed badly and that had been the end of her flight days,
still I loved her and kept her fat and happy. I opened her enclosure and
offered up a freshly killed smallish mouse. She rocked from foot to foot before
snatching the offering from my hand. I let her finish eating and offered up
another. She took that one too and bolted it. I smiled and put out my hand and
the tinny little owl stepped up onto my outstretched fingers. Piper had been
with us a while and was pretty well domesticated. I helped her up onto my
shoulder. She dug her talons into my thick jacket and preened a bit. Her big yellow
eyes blinked at me.
    Piper was no taller than my hand from the tip of my middle
finger to the lifeline of my palm. Her head was brown in color and flecked with
white, round and devoid of ear tufts. Her beak a yellow two shades lighter than
her eyes. She weighed in around a hefty 2.8 ounces, fat for one of her kind.
Her tummy was stripped similar to a Barred owl’s markings. She was pretty much
an adorable little ball of feathers and she brought me great joy. Her little
toots for a call sounded on my shoulder and I can say with utter confidence, it
sounded exactly like sounding a note on an ocarina. Hoot hoot! Hoot hoot! I
know my smile got bigger as I moved on to our final permanent resident.
    Odin was a grizzled old Great Horned Owl with only one eye,
which is how he got his name. It fit. He was a majestic beast, god of all he surveyed
in his enclosure. I hung a rabbit over the end of his perch inside the door and
got the Hell out of there. He could be