Wildlife in the .18 Acre Wood

There was an exciting siting on our in-town acreage this afternoon. 

 Living on less than 1/5 of an acre, we find that glimpses nature and wild creatures are few and far between.   (Conversely, we have the pleasure of not owning a lawn mower.  It's a trade-off.)  So anything that flies, creeps, or slithers into our little garden is something to be examined by the entire family. 

Here's what fascinated us today:

Hello Mr. or Mrs. Barred Owl

Side Note:  When my girls called me out to see our friend owl, my bookwormish second-grader said, "Mom!  This is like a thrice-in-a-lifetime sitage!"  I don't think "sitage" is a word, but "age" sounds like a suffix she picked up at Georgia Tech.   "Thrice" I will have to attribute to her nerdy heritage (she may or may not have grandmother who bought a VCR in 1985 for the sole purpose of taping "Jeopardy" episodes), and before she starts junior high, I'll give her the "using-Middle-English-probably-isn't-that-cool-anymore" talk.  But until then, we'll look at owls together, and I'll get a kick out of her using words like "thrice."

After we worked through our vocabulary issues, we were mesmerized as we watched the owl watch us, doing all of that owly head turning.  It was very poised and not threatened by us in the least.  Those city owls are bold, I've heard.  And they also eat rodents, which is very good for our pest control budget. 

But the best part was just how different it was from anything I would have designed.   God's creativity as displayed in nature is breathtaking.  

Psalm 19 puts it this way:    

The heavens declare the glory of God;

The skies proclaim the work of His hands. 

Day after day they pour forth speech;

night after night they display knowledge.
There is no speech or language
where their voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world. (niv)

All we have to do is listen and respond.