It is the Sign of the Owl!

Being a grandpa and doing grandpa things with the kiddos, I've watch a number of cartoon movies over time. One of my favorites is the movie "UP". If you've ever watched it, you'd know the fastest way to get the dogs attention is to simply shout "Squirrel"! Why do I mention this? If I want to get that same reaction from my wife Nancy, I just have to shout "Owl!" She'll drop everything and start running, she loves owls!

In this case she was the one to yell Owl! Coming home from the cabin on a back road, 10 miles south of Grand Rapids she suddenly says, I saw an owl back there. What?...where?, I said. She responded quickly, you have to turn around I'm sure I saw an an Owl sitting on a street sign. Now always the pragmatist I thought, it's mid-day, a street sign in the middle of a tamarack swamp, we are out in the boonies....naugh, it ain't happening. However Nancy was getting more persistent as we traveled farther down the road. Making things worse, we are pulling a trailer which makes it harder to

find a spot to turn around. After the third or fourth time pleading her case, I was getting fearful of the reprisal if I didn't turn around. So I was relieved when we found some high ground and a forest road and finally reversed our course.

On the way back, Nancy began to second guess herself and worry, was it really an owl? If it was surely it must have flown by now. Never fear all of a sudden there it was, a beautiful Bard Owl. You guessed it, sitting on a street sign, in broad daylight in the middle of a tamarack swamp. How crazy was that? It's amazing to see someone our age get excited about anything, but Nancy surely did. We pulled right up to the Owl proudly sitting on what was probably the only street sign in 30 miles. Nancy rolled down the window and began talking to it like it was her long-lost child. We just stared in amazement, took a couple of photos and after a minute of two the Owl got disinterested and flew away to the next tree. We got out of the car and followed, but each time we neared, the wise owl calmly glided off to the next tree. After a few of these short flights it was obvious the Bard Owl would not allow us to get close again. Walking back to the car I know both of us were thinking the same thing. After years of traveling this way we had never noticed this sign, but now forevermore when we past this sign we will look to see if there is an Owl sitting on it. It is the Sign of the Owl now and we have the memories and photos to prove it.