wild kingdom.

This morning, while I was at the pediatrician's office with S, M set out onto the castle grounds to clear up some trees and branches that had fallen. When he pulled a chunk of fallen tree, it disintegrated in his hand, revealing what was a completely hollow fallen tree trunk. And there sat an owl. It just stared at him, looked around, and crawled back into the relative safety and darkness of the hollow tree. So, that sucker is staying right where it fell, and we are desperately hoping that its inhabitant will stay there. M has talked about it almost nonstop since we got home, and there is a look of utter awe on his face when he tries to explain how beautiful the owl was. He said it was pretty small, so we're wondering if it's a baby owl...or maybe it has babies in the tree. We don't know, but we love having it in the backyard. I, of course, want to see it but am smart enough to leave it alone. It's probably been scared enough.

He also found what appears to be a small network of mole tunnels in the back yard, which actually surprised me. I didn't expect us to have moles since we have such huge trees and what I'd expect to be a pretty extensive network of tree roots. I was under the impression that tree roots acted as a deterrent to burrowing animals. Oh, well. I guess not.

So, we've got the bunny who lives out front on the tennis court. The owl in the fallen tree. The moles under ground. The neurotic dog in the house. Eight hundred fifty seven thousand of the fattest squirrels ever up in the trees plus their chipmunk cousins. Loads of various bird species hanging out in the trees and the tangly branches of our edge habitat. One neighborhood dog that likes to do his early morning business in our yard. And multiple neighborhood cats that I want the squirrels to breakfast upon. It's practically a zoo around here. That's just the way I like it.

Other than those darn cats.

Also, the garbage can just got fixed, so I think the discovery of the owl plus the fixing of an issue makes this an awesome day at Casa de Ouiser.