Mr. and Mrs. Peep have 3 babies this year. The Peeps come back to the same nest every year, which is located in the barn loft. Every day I would climb into the loft to drop hay for the horses and check on the Peeps. As I passed by their nest, I would warn them about Bad Ben and how he and his gang would scoop up baby birds just learning to fly and take them away, never to be seen again.

Perspective is a funny thing and the original reason our head raven got his notorious name, Bad Ben. To the Peeps family, Bad Ben and his gang were the bad guys. There were always a good six to eight ravens in Ben’s gang perched on the fence and hanging out by the automatic waterers at the far end of the arena. They especially favored the waterer on the far northeast corner, which came to be known as The Bloody Basin. That’s where Ben and his gang would wash their ghastly goodies and leave all kinds of left overs ranging from cat food to rabbit feet to feathers and entrails floating as a lovely present for whomever happened to check waterers that day.