Cuteness and its many forms

If you recall from this post, Thirteen our screech owl is going through the atypical feather molt that seems to be the bane of captive screech owls everywhere.
A week after I took those photos, I went in to get him again.  Things are looking up....but little dude still has a long way to go.


At least his ear tufts are coming back...
No matter how many feathers he loses, I still think Thirteen is cute.
Sort of like a Jim Henson creation.  Think about Animal.  That's one weird looking thing.  But we all love him anyway, right?

If he let me, I would love to help him preen off all of those feather sheaths....



A few things to point out, since it's not every day you get to observe a screech owl so closely:

The nictitating membrane:  (from the Latin nictare, to blink)
This is a membrane present in many animals such as birds, reptiles and sharks.  Some mammals have a vestigal nictitating membrane (We humans have it...the pink bit in the inner corner) while some mammals have a fully active, controllable membrane.


They are either transparent or translucent....in the above photo, we can clearly see the disapproval and embarrassment through the membrane.




Another cool thing:
The ears of an owl are set near the face, close to the sides but facing forward.  In the Tytonidae owl species (such as Barn Owls), and the aperture is rounded and asymmetrical (the left ear is set higher than the right), but in the Strigidae owls, the shape of the aperture varies.
An owl's range of audible sounds is not dissimilar to ours, but their hearing is so acute at certain frequencies they are able to hear the slightest movement of their prey.
The facial disc that every owl species possesses funnels sound waves right to the ears, acting like a satellite dish.  And they are able to manipulate those feathers to calculate where their prey is.  Barn owls' hearing is so acute, they can find their prey in total darkness.


And when the satellite dish falls off, we can see right in there.
If you can see the hole in Thirteen's head, behind and just under his eye?  This is the ear canal. 

I love this photo just for the glint of sunlight in his eye.    And that pitiful ear tuft, still half wrapped in sheaths:




A completely different type of cuteness:

School begin this week and the girls are excited to be back.
A big thing around here is that Lorelei is cheerleading this year. 
And boy is she good at it.  It comes to her naturally, this whole ra-ra thing.

This beautiful and good-natured child has been fun to be with since birth.  Shoot....even delivering her was EASY.


Today we got to watch her do her very first cheerleading gig, complete with football game.



Now, I did the cheerleading back in the day, just for a year.  I don't really know why.  I ended up being one of those ironically sarcastic teenagers who quietly sneered at cheerleaders.
So along with it being amazingly expensive, I had to struggle with my inner conflict....

But when a child really really wants to do something like this, a good mom just bites her tongue and writes the check.



(We won, too.  It was a scoreless game until the fourth quarter, when out of the blue, one of our boys had the ball and somehow outran everyone down the field for a 60 yard touchdown. 
I broke a blood vessel in my finger, I got so into it.  It was awesome.
(Maybe I didn't completely leave the cheerleading behind?)


Check this out....it starts EARLY, the whole football player/cheerleader thing:

That boy does NOT have his mind on the game.

An impromptu song about a vulture

Lorelei is always singing something. Whether it's a song she knows, or one she makes up on the spot....it's kind of like living with an opera singer.

We spotted a turkey vulture above our street, and it inspired her to make up a little ditty:



I think Lynne will like it.

Happy 5th Birthday, Lorelei!

A post chock-a-bock full of ooey, gooey goodness

It's not often I do a post full of warm and fuzzies. But yesterday and today, they were everywhere I turned.



I truly believe Lorelei wants to be Elton John when she grows up. Her old sunglasses broke and since this girl is all about fashion, it was traumatic. We found her some rad blue shades and all is well with the world. They cost all of 75 cents at our favorite consignment store. This is all it takes for her to be happy.



Here's the new license plate (if you can see it through all that cuteness.)
The car feels like it is really ours now. That, and we made our first payment on it. Feels a bit too real.
: )

Random goodness...
While grocery shopping today, a group from the Loveland Food Pantry was handing out lists of food items that they needed to help people make Thanksgiving dinner this year. I could choose something from the list, buy it and then donate it.
So I did. That tiny thing made me feel so good...and someone who is down on their luck will benefit. Loveland is for the most part an upper-middle class town, but there are still those who will appreciate what the rest of us can do to help.


Lorelei "stole" my camera from the front seat of the car and took random photos. Many of them were of the sky.

I can't explain why that pulled at my heart strings.

This morning, I did a program in Mason, a nearby community. Why, may I ask, would anyone do a nature program at 9 AM on a Saturday? I needed toothpicks to hold my eyes open.

Their new nature lodge has a "porous concrete" parking lot. Storm water runs through a foot or so of concrete and then through a few feet of gravel. When the water hits the stream nearby, it is cleaner than when it hit the ground. All the salt, oil and grime is filtered out.
Is that cool or what? I was suitably impressed. We need things like this.

When I got home, the house was empty. And cold.
I turned the heat on a bit, started a fire in the fireplace.
I also made a big pot of homemade chicken noodle soup.

I like a little soup with my noodles. I used a potato peeler to make nice thin strips of carrot, and put in way too much chicken. We had it for dinner with fresh French bread and it was fabulous.
Did I mention that this was from scratch? I think Geoff will soon tire of all the chicken soup I have been making lately, so if anyone has some good soup recipes, I'd love to see them.

So. Twenty four hours of happy moments and cozy comfort.
Tomorrow, back to the smut.
: )

happy endings

A random wind blows through the blog tonight....

It's Autumn, that time of year we give pumpkins to captive animals:

I don't know if Earl is enjoying these or just staring at them all day. I will check back often.


A "pearly" beak for Lynne.

Fall, a time we bury our kids in bright red, freshly fallen leaves:

(That's Lorelei under all that)


*slurp*...."you taste like leaves and cookies, Little Human"

The sun is nearly gone by 5:30 pm:

This is what is called the "Mile Marker 14 Bird", a red-tailed hawk seen at the Ronald Reagan Highway exit off I-71. It always seems to be here, and this is the first photo I have ever been able to get of it...and I have been trying for 3 years. I was on the phone with Geoff while waiting at the light, and when I saw it, I yelled, "The Mile Marker bird! Call you back!"...and hung up on him. He understands.
Is this the same bird that everyone has been seeing for so many years? Maybe, maybe not. Choice hunting grounds like this are filled quickly when a resident hawk disappears. And highways are choice hunting grounds...if you take away the traffic. Lots of perches, wide open spaces (in between the cars going 70 mph). A good place to look for injured birds, too. I've gotten into the habit of glancing at medians since discovering RAPTOR. Most of the time, it's long-dead piles of feathers, but I check anyway.

A sign spotted the other day....


"Happy Endings Nailz"? WTF?
A nail salon that gives happy endings? I don't even want to know...

Great big ball of fun!

It's a bit early to have an "International Rock-Flipping Day" post, but this was just too cute to wait.

Lorelei gets credit for finding this utterly cool pill bug.
Call them sow bugs. Or rolly-pollies. Or lawn shrimps (who came up with that one?). The technical name for them is terrestrial isopod, which makes them sound more interesting (and makes them crustaceans!). I've seen their marine cousins at the Newport Aquarium...well, their really honking LARGE cousins:

An isopod that is about 18 inches long. I thought I was hallucinating.

So, Lorelei showed me the "big pill bug!" that she found, and I have to say, it was the most interesting pill bug I ever saw:

It wasn't a drab gray like the other ones we have around here. A very snappy, bright yellow pattern...and it was at least an inch long.

He unrolled his cute little self and realized he was on his back, and the legs started flailing...


I set the camera to "video" and we helped him on his way, with a High Five (for figuring out what he was) and a song:
(If you can't understand her, Lorelei is telling me that pill bugs "eat their own poop". Good Lord. What other tidbits is she storing in that adorable little noggin?)