owl vomit anyone?

My family and I are big fans of the TLC show "Dirty Jobs" with Mike Rowe. A while back, they did an episode where they visited a man who collects, cleans up, and distributes owl vomit pellets to schools and individuals for scientific research. We thought that it would be cool to do that some day, then forgot about it.

Last week, I received an email from a friend in my homeschool co-op with an email address for a gentleman at the Pomona Valley Audobon in California and offers these pellets for free. I figured, what the heck, and emailed him. Three days later, we had three owl pellets and a worksheet. Today, the dinner table lab opened up for business.

For those of you who don't know, I will explain the reason behind dissecting owl vomit. Owls eat small rodents, swallowing them and digesting the meat off of them. Now, owls cannot digest fur and bones, so they promptly vomit them up. This vomit comes out in the form of a fur pellet with the bones of the owl's dinner safely collected inside. Pull open these pellets, and ta-da, a skeleton jigsaw puzzle.

Class begins:

Dang them ribs are small!

Ohhhh, I found a skull! Whatchu got?

CSI: Oxford

In the end, Stephanie had a vole (a type of field mouse) skeleton, Sierra had a small gopher, and Savannah had a rat. Don't worry y'all, the girls scrubbed their hands and the table was cleaned with 409.

We had a lot of fun doing this, and I suggest you give it a try yourself. It is very fascinating. If you are interested, I will be happy to tell you how to contact him.

Believe it or not, on Saturday, Don will be going with his cousin Dale to see his very first car race. Apparently, we are the only family from Dons' dads' side that doesn't just *loooooove* NASCAR and all things ovally. So, when Dale invited Don to go, he figured, why not, might as well figure out what all the hoopla is. In a few days, Don will be off smoozing with the bigwigs in the VIP tents and I will be with the girls in Byron and Dale's wife, Patti, hanging and keeping her two boys and my girls from going nuts. God help Dale if Don comes back a NASCAR fan... I'll kill him lol.

I suppose that is all for now. I got dead creature dust up my nose so now my nose itches. I have the movies "Otis" and "Rambo" coming in, so expect my oh so desired movie critiques (this time with only *my* opinions lol). I know y'all just can't wait for that!

One last thing...just an FYI: Lit incense sticks and a six-year-olds nose do not mix. Mark my words.

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