The Owl Who Wasn't

Goings-on in the backyard are a big deal around here, especially as a stay at home mom to a 4 year old who loves nature and animals. We'd been hearing this owl for about a month or so, and Lucy and I were always looking up into trees trying to find it. The thing was, it "hoo-hoo'd" at all times of the day, which seemed a little odd. One morning I happened to look out of the window and saw this huge bird sitting on top of the neighbor's tree and realized the hoo-hoo sound was coming from it! It was kind of far away so I thought it might be an owl, but I used the zoom on our camera and it had a small head and looked more like a pigeon. Lucy and I were a little disappointed (we wanted there to be an owl), but at least it was a BIG pigeon (about 12 inches from beak to tail) and not just a regular old boring one. :) I went on google searching for "pigeon that sounds like owl" or something, and found this blog entry that cleared it all up for me! That blog is great, by the way! So glad I found it. Anyways, now at least we know that we have a "band-tailed pigeon", and not an owl. It sits on the same branch a lot and whenever Lucy sees it she yells "there's the pigeon bird!" and runs to our bedroom window to get a better view.

Here's a photo of our new buddy:

So not an owl, but a good learning experience for my daughter and I!

A Little Girl and Her Tomatoes

Lucy, enjoying her first cherry tomato harvest of the season! She ended up eating over half of those after I took these. :)

Stinky

There's not many things sweeter than a bunch of flowers picked especially for you by a 4 year old named Lucy...especially when told "These flowers are pretty stinky but I thought you would like them anyway." Thanks sweetie!