an empty owl box.

cory and the kids surprised me this year for my birthday with the funnest present. they made me an owl box! i think i've missed the owls the most and it was so thoughtful of them. so last night we got it mounted and it's all ready for our owls to find their way back...or we'd love to welcome a new owl family! 

here's to hoping our empty box won't be empty for long!!

our owl babies.

anna gave us a sweet gift last night. a book entitled, "owl babies." the cover looks very much like this first photo. we continue to follow and document our "owl babies". we see them every other day or so. sometimes 2 days in a row if we're lucky. we usually see any number of the 3 babies and the dad. the mom hasn't been seen for a couple weeks now, but we found her this morning. one of the first things the kids do every morning is go and check to see if we have any owls and how many there are. 

i'll have to check, but i think we've seen them for almost 5 weeks now. it's been a highlight of the summer for sure. we've collected feathers and have even checked out their pellets. we haven't had the magpie problem (lots of squawking and obnoxiousness) that we'd had all spring, to which we credit to the owls. the robins don't like them at all. the robins will come and try and squawk to get the owls to leave, but the they aren't bothered and the robins eventually give up and leave after a few minutes. 

we think it's pretty amazing and have invited many family members and friends over to see them. 

i think we'll call it "the summer of the owls."

the last 2: photo cred goes to my uncle dave

our owl friends.

last friday we had on of the coolest experiences! while cory and connor were having batting practice in the backyard. cory hit a ball into the big tree and spooked a bird out and onto another branch.  cory went to look and found a little grey owl looking back at him! then they started to look around the tree some more and more and more owls popped out. turns out we have the cutest little owl family in our back tree!! we have a mom and dad and 3 babies, which we are pretty sure are western screech owls. they are about speckled grey and 6-7" tall.

it has really been such a cool experience! they are so majestic even with their small bodies. they are content to just sit and watch. all but one are not easily spooked. the kids love to go look for the owls every morning and throughout the day. we've seen them since then twice. we've been reading up on them and read that after the babies take their first flight, they will stay for about 5 weeks. so we are hopeful that we will get to see more of them!!

2 of the babies.

this is the daddy. he's much smaller than the mom and babies.