Live hand in hand and together we will stand...

I know…it’s been a while, but here I am, finally. I hope ya’ll have been enjoying yourselves.

Thanks to everyone who donated some Mouse Money. Just got a shipment in and I can’t tell you how grateful I am to everyone who could help keep us afloat.

Lined up like little soldiers. I can’t do my job without these…or a house, for that matter…

I just had a conversation with Sean O’Keefe today about holding a fund raiser. Please keep all those fingers and toes crossed for us. I am aging faster than a road-kill on a hot summer’s day with more money going out than is currently coming in… http://www.seanokeefeevents.com/

Here is the first and hopefully only baby Great Horned owl of the season…


The term ‘hacking’ means that you take a young babe that someone has rescued, house it for a while and condition it to come to a certain spot for food (like a portable hack board you install in their chamber). Then you start moving the board closer and closer to the door, so when you let them go, they will know to come back to the board for food while they are flying around learning the ropes on their own. I also toot a little whistle when I come up with food, so then after they are released, all I have to do it toot the whistle when I come out and they will hear it and come by for supplemental feeding if they choose. Now, it’s not a law that you must hack young, but you certainly up their chances of survival if you do. I don’t care how many live mice you give them in chambers, life doesn’t work like that after they are released and since their parents are not there to help them find food, it’s up to the rehabber to do it.

Now for some reason, Great horned owl babes don’t hack worth a flip. I don’t care how long you keep them or what sort of operant conditioning magic you pull out of your hat, the very second you open the door, they fly away and you never see them again. That means, most likely they promptly starve to death, which means tremendous amounts of time and resources wasted, not to mention a horrible death for the bird.

So, the next best thing to do when they are found is to check them out, make sure they are eating ok, make sure there is nothing wrong with them and then re-nest them. It was nice this day to have someone schlep the ladder, climb the ladder, hang the basket, climb the ladder again and install the baby. All I did was take pictures! Diva Teener? Say that fast three times…

Babies leave the nest before they know how to fly and care for themselves, so I encourage people to leave the babes alone, unless there is something obviously wrong. This baby must have gotten booted out because he was a little young to have fledged of his own accord. Could have been an older sibling that evicted him. I doubt he got blown out since the weather had been calm in the preceding days. I guess he should count his lucky stars that mama didn’t serve him up to the older babes for dinner since the GHO’s nest in late January around here. I guess he was a mid-life baby…

Jeremy found the little guy in the woods at Reinhardt.


One last meal to fill his tummy…he ate like a trooper and that eases my mind somewhat.

Don climbed the ladder and installed the basket. Thanks, Don! Nice spot, eh?


Jeremy- installing the little tot…now we wait for mama and daddy to do their job…


Jeremy kept an eye on him and reported that he stayed in the nest for a full two weeks! Here’s hoping that he will take that second chance and run, er…fly with it…


Oh, the riff-raff….notice he has his hand on my purse, or is it my leg??? I haven’t been accosted by a pirate since last year! Ren-Fest is lots of fun…


Sam sporting some kids shades I scored at the local Michael’s. He’s too cool to fool!


Chattahoochee Nature Center asked if I would take these babes from them to hack. For some reason, they don’t provide that service and I don’t know why (see diatribe above **sigh**). These are Barred owl babes and they are doing just fine, growing like little weeds and the older one is wild as a snake. The younger they are when you get them, the better they hack. I will have better luck with the smaller one…


Can you believe the size of this chicken egg I found in the nest box yesterday???? It either came from one of the Orpingtons or the Wyandotte since the youngsters aren’t laying yet. Chickens really have quite a poker face, so no one’s facial expression gave it away, but I think I noticed Barbi stepping a little lighter yesterday! Can chickens get stretch marks??? YOW!

The girls were just hanging out this weekend…


And the frogs…they like to hang out, too.


Did I mention I’m a fool for frogs…unfortunately, the cats like them, too…


My friend Nancy was so kind to buy me a ticky to the Atlanta Garden Tour. It was nice and all, but must admit, it got a little depressing after a while. Only two of the houses had animals and for some of the mcmansions, it looked like no one lived there. Soulless, perfect shells… I didn’t make it by Arthur Blanks house…dang, I could have left him a business card!













I learned to hack eagles from this man, Ted Touchstone. He died suddenly of a stroke a couple of weeks ago. RIP, Ted…



Thank you for taking the time to read my blog….m.