My Friend Brigget Has a Farm

E I E I O....

Red Door...do you think this is what Liz Arden was thinking
when she named her perfume?

It's no secret that I have Farm Envy when it comes to my friend Brigget. She's got a cool old dairy barn, lovely pastures with a flock of sheep, and then there's this terrifically red door. (It's my tribute to Valentine's Day. Sorry, I don't do fancy little papercrafts.) She also has soil that I absolutely lust over. Yes, I lust after dirt. And if you were to see Brigget's dirt, you'd be lusty, too! I swear it's so nice and lofty you can just reach your arm straight down to your elbow and dig it up; no need for a tiller.

Aside from her wonderful soil, Brigget has something else. It lives in her barn; that barn who's ladder I'm not all together comfortable climbing. But climb it I did, and as previously promised, I even managed to haul my camera up with me this time so I could take some pictures of the hay mow. Or rather, what's in the hay mow.

Inside the hay mow (way up high...)

You see, Brigget has a pair of barn owls that nest there. She's got a bird house..well, owl house...up in the rafters where they raise their babies, and there's a window that they fly in and out of. As a result of raising barn owls, Brigget has a barn owl by-product; their poop. Have you ever seen barn owl poop? Well, you're about to!

The owl house inside Brigget's barn.

Owl poop is big, and it's solid. Not like that ookey, wet, white, runny stuff that falls out of birds like, say, seagull or eagles or even sparrows. No, these are called pellets, and they're bigger than anything my sheep ever produced, and really about the size as the road apples that the horses leave behind (did you know you'd be getting a lesson in poop this Valentine's Day?) They're dry and not all together repulsive; if you don't mind poop.

Poop...cool, eh?

What's cool about owl pellets is that you can break them apart and find dead things in them. Bones and such. Hair, too. In fact, I think this pellet really is just a giant hairball with bones in it. Schools buy pellets for their students to break apart and study. You, however, need not go to school to enjoy the experience! Aren't you lucky?

The owl pellet reveals the skeleton of a tiny animal. If this was a very clever website, it'd have a way for you to put that skeleton together, but we're just not that sophisticated.

Well, that about wraps it up. I've got a lot more to share on Brigget's farm, but we'll get to that in the coming days. For now, thank you for stopping in and checking out the owl poop. You can go back to your chocolate now!