In the summer of 2005 I spent a couple weeks at the Andrews experimental
station in Oregon. I had done a load of laundry and hung it out to dry. As I
sat in the shade I watched a pair of ravens fly in to the laundry line and
pull off my clothes pins, dropping my laundry to the ground. I ran over and
scattered the Ravens, each of which flew off with a clothes pin in its beak.
Being a dumb monkey I hung my laundry again thinking I had vanquished the
Ravens. After a bit I went inside to make some lunch and as soon as I had
gone inside, from my window, I watched the pin theft again. By now my
laundry was mostly dry so I took back to the housing area and hung it over
the railing on the porch. I came out of the bathroom to watch a pair of
ravens tugging at a pair of jeans, pulling them off the railing onto the
ground. By the time my laundry was dry, it was kind of dirty from hitting
the ground.

Rob Sandelin
Naturalist, Writer, Teacher
Snohomish County