Crow Chat and My Unlovely Sewing Room

Today I stood transfixed by unlikely bird sounds....crows.  Two were perched high up in the old birch tree, one of them making three distinct caws, pausing then repeating the calls.  What held me in small wonder was I could hear perfectly clearly three caws answering back from somewhere deeper in the woods.  They called to each other for five minutes or so before my crows flew away.  What was this bird communique; what information was being transmitted.  Because I know crows are amazingly smart, I have no doubt it was something of import.  They were stationed above one of the bird feeders so perhaps it had something to do with food; but perhaps they were receiving news of food.
Though I see and hear crows all the time, what their sounds mean is so foreign to me it may as well be the language of elephants.  This little incident made me think of all the communicating in nature, all happening around me and yet I am so ignorant.  This approaching season, spring, is the most important one for all the birds; they claim their mates and nesting sites, raise their broods and keep all fed and of course communication is vital to achieving this.
I was outside thinking we need to put up our two beautiful wooden birdhouses we bought last year.  I want to have them in place well before the birds need them.  This is a two-person job but when I tested the snow I could tell it was too treacherous  for either of us to be out walking through the woods.  We'd had odd snow/freezing rain overnight and just like that all the trails are crusty and slick.
Meanwhile, back in the house, it is vital for me to get down into my basement sewing room.  Unlovely as it is, I am missing my happy hours spent there trying to fashion something or other out of fabric. It has been too chilly to work comfortably down there but with the temperatures creeping up to single digits minus, and a small heater, I can now manage an hour or two.
 And no, I am definitely not a hoarder, though these photos would belie that notion.  Told you I have been running in and out, rifling through various containers for one thing or another and dropping off fabric or sewing notions I've been buying now and then.
Just look at this...

 It's a real state, as we say at home. So a massive tidy-up is the first thing on the agenda.