dad...

my dad suffered a major heart attack on monday evening. he is now in the cardiac care unit in st. cloud, minnesota, fighting for his life. we are hopeful that he will regain consciousness within the next day or so and have minimal damage to his brain. we will keep everyone up to date via his caringbridge site:

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/davefoley

some exciting sh*t on circle drive (literally)

this post and photos are most certainly for nature-loving nerds.


we found two exciting discoveries this weekend - one just cool and one completely bizarre! the cool find was some owl pellets (aka poo) on our back stairs. we think that these are from a pair of barn owls that are apparently roosting in the redwood tree next to the house. we have been hearing them at night on a regular basis since january or february. we see them flying around the house every once in a while...their bright white wings being reflected by a full moon is magical. (on a totally different owl note, i found a dead burrowing owl while i was running a few weeks ago. so cool to know that we have multiple varieties around here.)

 two owl pellets

close up on what looks like a scapula

lots of other bones in there too...pete and i are going to dissect them later and see what we find. i mean, really. is there a better way to spend a 4th of july weekend? :)

find #2 falls squarely into the bizarre category. yesterday morning i was pulling weeds and raking leaves when something caught my eye in the pile...

at first i just thought it was a ball of tape or band-aids. but then i realized that it was much more... the hair and the shape of the poo suggest that it probably came from a coyote. but what in the world did it eat?!?!

 most bizarre coyote poo EVER. 

thoughts anyone??