Owl Be Darned

Apparently, we are not the only creatures in our neighborhood noting the extensive number of rats, rabbits and mice around our house.

We have three adult screech owls hanging around our house every night now looking for prey. On the one hand, Hooray!! Kill the bunnies!! On the other, ummm, is there a downside? We can't think of one! Both we and our neighbors are enjoying the nightly owl show in our back yard.

First, the owls are frickin' big. They fly low and they think we are not worthy, so they have no fear flying over our heads or watching us from low branches. Second, they love playing on our outdoor furniture and our car. We suspected owl activity from the massive bird poop we were finding on our deck and cars, but this week they've decided to truly make themselves known.

Dave came to get me one night to show me the owl on our car. We were standing at our back window watching the owl on the car while the owl was watching us, too. Then we decided to turn out the light so we could see the owl better. The owl thought that was bizarre behavior. He could still see us through the glass (those big owly eyes and such) and he was still quite curious at our behavior. So he started bobbing and weaving his head at us, I'm guessing just to make sure he could still see us. Then he apparently got bored of that and started looking around at different things around the car. Once his gaze was directly opposite of us, he all of a sudden whipped his head around and stared directly at us! He was trying to catch us doing! It was so obvious what he was doing, we laughed out loud.

By that time I think he trusted us enough to fly back and forth between the cars and walking around.

I just love having our owls in our backyard even if it makes me a little nervous to go outside and do something once the sun has gone down. They are REALLY big. And we can now recognize their screeches which lull us to sleep when we sleep with the windows open. However, now that we are all owly friends, I feel like I ought to inform that it's probably not the best hunting strategy to keep screeching every 3 minutes when you're on the hunt. Even the dumbest mouse and bunny is going to figure out that a screech could lead to a murder and to keep their heads low. Since our goal is for the prey to walk around waving their tiny rodent arms to attract attention to themselves, we might need to bring this up at our next owl meeting.

And on a more exciting note, I'm done with the Quantum Cleanse. I had my first cup of coffee this morning and it was delicious!!! And oddly, I could only drink one cup. More than that made me feel a little sick. Our new RE allows 2-3 cups of coffee, but I'm thinking I might stick to 1-2 cups. And tonight, I am so excited about the pinot grigio I'm going to put in the fridge!! WOOHOO!!

And I did lose about 6 lbs. I'm very happy about that. But I really want to lose about 4-6 more lbs before the IVF in August. So I'm still sticking with what I've been eating with a few modifications: no sugar, minimal wine, mostly vegetarian and less wheat than before. Truly, it would be great to be back down to my weight at Conor's pg when we go in for our IVF.

But now, it's time to focus on today and today's work and relish the coffee I had this morning!!