Baby Owls and Third World Countries

Hi All-
It has been a very interesting and exciting weekend. Moving home from Utah State was a DOOZIE! (aka...large and grueling task) And I had a little under 4 days to pack up and be completely ready for PERU. I take off on Monday morning...bright and early at the crack of dawn. It is going to be an AMAZING trip. I just can't wait. The nerves have started to set in but the excitement is over-running them. I can't wait to witness South America. I've always wanted to go there. Monkey Island, travelling up the Amazon River, Macchu Picchu, and Jungle Tours are just a few highlights of the trip. I am so excited to work with the people- especially the children. I just know it's going to be the most amazing experience. Probably life-changing. Through all the excitement of getting ready and spraying "bug killer" on all of my clothes we had a very exciting thing happen. The backyard of the Larson home is basically a forest. It attracts animals of all sorts. Baby animals to be exact. Yesterday afternoon our dog Cooper started freaking out and barking at something. Dad and Graham went down to discover that it was indeed a baby owl (about 4 inches tall) that was wedged inbetween a scary dark wall and fence. The little guy just happened to be the runt of his owl family that had taken up nest in our huge trees. The fledglings were learning how to fly and runt ( I like to call him Hedwig ) had been booted out of the tree and his mother didn't care about him. After research- we have discovered that usually the brothers and sisters will peck the runt to death and then eat him. (ew!) Dad Bill brought Hedwig into the house (with thick gloves on of course) and set him on the kitchen table. That was quite the surprise to come home to that. Me and Katie were dying. He was the cutest little most amazing creature we had ever seen. Poor little guy was traumatized and so we took him back outside and put him in the tree hoping that his family would have mercy on him. We are rootin for him. All last night the owls were communicating with each other. Hooting/clicking. It really was a cool thing. Come this morning- they were gone. Probably got sick of all the human interference. So that is the Larson owl experience. How I wish I could've kept the little guy and raised him to be my buddy and my Message Carrier-

Until next time,

Ellen