Raptor Synchronicity

As I sit trying to title this post, Craig Ferguson is on TV holding up a picture of a barn owl.  That does it.  I gotta tell you a few things.  But I have no pictures of what I want to talk about, so look at my grand-daughter, Logan.

I just fed her about 3 ounces of a four ounce bottle.  She would normally consume the whole thing but I was so happy to see her I probably distracted her from it.

Happiness is a lapful of Loganberry.  Check out those feet!

So after that last post, "Blood On The Snow," I crashed on the couch as usual, beat.  I slept OK, but the minute I woke up I thought, "How could I have forgotten The Mole?"

My dad never was one of those lawn nuts who had to have a yard like a putting green.  But he always hated moles with a passion.  I've never know him to go hunting, except for moles.  If he saw their tunnels or mounds of dirt in the yard, he would stalk them with traps, spikes, shovels.  Never poison though.

Back when I was raising that baby hawk, Falcon Eddie, dad spotted a mole tunnel in process of being dug.  I had an idea!  I called dibs on the mole and got my trusty Crossman 761 pellet gun.  Dad flipped the mole out of his tunnel and I popped it with a pellet.  A good clean kill.

Moles are pretty weird looking, with that pointy nose and those digging claws they have.  I got my X-Acto knife and skinned it and then washed the skin and scraped the inner side fairly clean.  I pinned it fur side down to a piece of cardboard and covered the inner side with a mixture of salt and baking soda.  I let that do its thing for a couple of days and ended up with a nice dry mole skin.  I folded it up just so into a nice bundle the size and shape of a mouse and tied a piece of yarn onto it.  Bingo, a little tackling dummy for Falcon Eddie.  Since hawks are visual hunters like cats, they like to play with furry toys that wiggle.  That's how he knew how to nail the first mouse I got for him.  I can't believe I forgot about that, but glad my subconscious retrieved it.

Then last night was a fitful sleep, with phone ringing and kids coming and going.  We keep irregular hours here.  I gave up on sleep before 5 a.m. and got up to check email, do job apps and read blogs and such.  Then in mid-morning I was tired again so I laid down for a rest.  I dreamed.  I had been telling my new buddy Tommy over at Freedom Guerilla about urban homesteading so a chicken coop appeared in my dream.  But it didn't contain chickens.  First I saw what seemed similar to a rooster but it was longer and much slimmer and man it moved fast and sinuously, like a mongoose with golden feathers but obviously a bird.  Afterwards I thought maybe a phoenix.  And then I felt something pinching my right index finger and there was an owl with my finger in its beak, gently pinching when it could have taken it right off.  I was then jolted awake by the kids asking me to swap vehicles in the driveway so they could run an errand.  My finger still hurt slightly.

What do you make of that?  A phoenix that rises from the ashes, kept in a chicken coop along with the symbol of wisdom which bit my finger but not as hard as it maybe could have.

I love this picture, for obvious reasons.