The autobhan society would be proud

This weekend was a delight.  Kelly and I went camping with good friends and visited good family in the old mining town of Mariposa.  While in Mariposa, Kelly and I helped her parents pick grapes in the vineyard (which you can read about on Kelly's blog).  That being said, I will not bore you by writing about the same weekend that she wrote about, just a certain happening.

Kelly, Val (Kelly's mama) and I were upstairs chatting, I do not recall what about, when Bob (Kelly's papa) shouted to me from the living room.  He said, "Zach I need your help!" a speck of haste in his voice.  I began walking down the stairs and he told me that he found a hawk in the vineyard tangled up in a net.  The nets are used to cover the vines so that birds can't get at the grapes and eat all of them before they have a chance to become delicious wine.  I thought it was quite ironic that, a bird, one that likes to eat bunnies and other small mammals, had become stuck in a net designed to keep grape eating birds away.  I really love irony.  My second thought, after thats ironic was We'll need something to cut the net.  So I turned around and ran back up the stairs to get my pocket knife, pretty clever right.  On the way out Bob asked me if my knife was sharp enough.  I told him I thought it was (spoiler alert, it wasn't).  So we walked out to the vineyard, Kelly, Val, Hannah (Kelly's sister), Libby (Kelly's Mom's bitch (literally, a bitch)), Bob and I.  I couldn't see the hawk until Bob walked over to it, the large raptor blended in with the dirt.  It was stuck hanging upside down with the net wrapped around it's feet (from now on I am going to call the hawk "Hawk" because I feel to connected to Hawk to call Hawk "it").  Bob had obviously planned ahead and had a blanket ready to cover Hawk with so he would not freak out while watching us strange looking humans cutting nets by his feet.  Come to think of it I don't remember seeing Bob pick up the blanket, for all I know he could have sewn it on the walk out to the vineyard, but how he got the blanket is irrelevant.  Bob wrapped Hawk in the blanket, again to keep Hawk calm and to prevent Hawk's wings from flapping wildly, while I began to cut away the net.  I had quite a difficult time cutting the net, as the spoiler alert told you, my knife was/is not very sharp.  It was slow going and I really did not want to slip and cut Hawk's leg or toes.  Val asked if we needed a sharper knife, I replied in the negative, too proud to admit that my knife was too dull.  She (luckily) ignored me though and went back to the house to retrieve her Ginsu knife.  I continued carefully cutting the netting away until she came back.  I was very concerned with one of Hawk's toes in particular.  I think it was the bird equivalent to a human thumb.  This "thumb" was twisted around and seemed to be holding a great deal of Hawk's weight.  Val handed the Ginsu to Bob, who as it turns out is a much better net remover and cutter than I could ever dream of being.  He made short work of the net while I took over in cradling Hawk in the blanket.  While Bob sawed away at the net with a much sharper knife, I noticed how crazy a hawk's talons are.  They are long and razor sharp, maybe even sharper than the Ginsu that freed Hawk from the net.  Bob cut away all the netting and Hawk's thumb was restored to it's normal position.  I held him in the blanket for a few moments, nervous about all the possibilities that may happen.  I'd never released a hawk and had no clue about what it may do.  I released Hawk, he flew away, he landed in a nearby tree and rested.  

It was spectacular, magnificent and stressfully lovely.  And they all lived happily ever after.

PS. this is a picture of a hawk, not Hawk.  You can get this same picture from image googling the word "hawk."