I'll admit something, the one thing I really miss right now is Halloween parties. Some of my best friends had a big one last night (this year's party night for Halloween) in SL, UT and I was really sad I couldn't join them. I love getting dressed up and going to parties. Even just dressing up and walking through the streets at night, looking for parties is fun. Plus binge drinking and dancing, duh (jk...). BUT something happened last night that made me so happy, despite not being able to attend a big Halloween bash.
Yesterday was spent hanging out at home and doing arts and crafts (HALLOWEEN VERSION) before going up to Duluth! I'm obsessed with Minute Mysteries, so as soon as we got in the car we grilled Troy with questions about the most recent one for the entire hour and a half up there. We finally got it, but with a lot of hints (to be fair, it was a really hard one). But we eventually got it! We went to Savers first to go Halloween shopping. I'm lucky because, since I had the flu last year (blech), I still have a half-finished toucan costume that has never been worn to a Halloween event. Thus, I've given myself permission to be a toucan this year! AKA I only needed a couple more things, so I was just looking around Savers as an interested party. However, it was absolute CHAOS. It was as if a tornado of frat boys had suddenly emerged in the aisles of Savers and it required Halloween merchandise as fuel. I did find yellow tights for bird legs, though! The gods of Halloween are on my side! After I'd found them (in my size, too!), I hurriedly went to join Anna and Leeann in a less crowded aisle (Troy had gone off to Gander Mountain). Leeann then started asking me questions about what I thought she should be, which allowed me to act as one of my favorite roles of all time: A HALLOWEEN COSTUME DESIGNER AND ADVISOR. She decided that she wanted to be a crow after a little bit of deliberation (our first idea a couple of weeks ago was to be Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie from MLP: Friendship is Magic, but then we decided to go with birds for the easiness factor), so I wandered around the store with her and grabbed random items off of racks to throw into her arms that I thought would be good crow paraphernalia. We ended up getting a good haul of things that will hopefully combine and create a MAGNIFICENT CROW COSTUME. Then we can all be a flock of birds for Halloween.
After Savers, we headed to Fitgers for dinner. There we saw dozens of college kids in costumes heading for the building, which made us wonder if we made a mistake in trying to go to Fitgers on a Saturday night. Fortunately, the costumed children were headed to a fall gala instead of the restaurant. I had another moment of forlornness, wanting to join the college kids with a costume of my own in their gala/party. Then I realized that there probably was not booze at this event and decided I would rather go to Fitgers and eat my delicious wild rice burger and drink apricot wheat beer with my franz. And that is just what we did. I was originally going to get a growler of the apricot beer, since it is SO GOOD, but I had spent too much money already, so I didn't. Instead, we enjoyed our food and beer and then headed up to Hawk Ridge for OWL NIGHT!!!
All desires to go to a Halloween party had ebbed from my system after Owl Night. We immediately heard a saw whet calling when we got out of the car, which excited us beyond belief! Unfortunately, it turned out to be a lure, but still! It was FREEZING. That took my mind off of anything else but how cold I was plus OWLS for awhile. I'm glad they warned us that it would be cold, because otherwise I wouldn't have thought to wear long underwear. And I'm glad I did. Because, like I said, it was cold. We got up to Hawk Ridge and took our seats just as the program was beginning. The person teaching the program was Sarah, a hilarious naturalist who was constantly praising our back row for our supreme ornithological knowledge. When other people wouldn't answer her questions, we'd jump in for them. We got acknowledged for knowing that elf owls are the smallest owls in the US, that flammulated and spotted owls are the other dark-eyed owls besides barn and barred owls, and that the term "flammulated" had something to do with patterning (turns out it means flame patterning). Just like during the day, the banders set up specialized raptor nets to try and trap owls so that they can band them and track their progress the same as they do with hawks. We waited the whole program, an hour and a half, for owls to be caught so we could see them. In the meantime, we learned some new things about owls, made ourselves seem smart by answering all the aforementioned questions about owls, touched owl wings, and listened to owl calls. The Long-Eared owl is especially hilarious to listen to. I couldn't find any good examples to post, but they sound like whining children. While playing a barred owl call, we saw a silhouette fluttering silently above us, so we all remained perfectly still, turned off all the lanterns, and waited. We watched the owl (either a long-eared or a barred) fly overhead one last time and then head back towards the banding station. We hoped it would get caught, or at least something would get caught, and it happened! Three saw-whet owls were caught just as everybody was about to leave. We ended up staying until 10:30, wanting to see the owls and then people releasing the owls (because people can adopt them for a fee and then release them). We watched as one owl sat on a woman's shoulder for five minutes. Just as our group was about to leave, Sarah asked, "Did you all want to hold one of the owls?" I turned around with eyes as wide as dinner plates and slowly nodded, whispering, "YES!" I was so excited. Even though I've most definitely handled a saw-whet owl in my life before, I was still so so so excited to hold the adorable little owl. It's just my bird nerd nature, I think. Troy and I both held the owl; we were instructed to hold her just like an ice-cream cone. She was so soft and looked right at me with her lemon yellow eyes and I melted. It was an amazing experience, and I wouldn't trade it for a thousand Halloween parties.
One of my favorite quotations from the night was, "Owls don't always smell like skunks, sometimes they smell like bread" from Sarah. The other was her explaining that she doesn't kiss the owls because she values her face. And her face "brings in the big bucks". She was amazing.
Anna also got pictures of Troy and I holding the owl, those will come soon! After our owl holding experience, we got in the car and desperately tried to warm up with 99 cent hot cocoa from the gas station on the way home. We got home at about midnight, where I immediately leapt into bed, snuggled down, and went to sleep.
The next day (aka today), I woke up early to do my chore for the house, which was to clean the kitchen. Then we went to Subway, went grocery shopping (where I found out that there were NONE of my favorite Halloween treats available at this grocery store! No Halloween lofthouse sugar cookies or Halloween sugar cookie cutouts anywhere), and then headed to Jeff's house to make North Woods animal cookies!
We met Fir, an old employee who now works at the National Eagle Center, and decorated porcupines, red foxes, moose, squirrels, and fish. Anna made fish into the four different species of trout we have in our freshwater aquariums and then quizzed us on them. We then baked the cookies and ate too many. By the end of it, I felt like I was going to explode. We said our goodbyes and then headed home. The boys and Leeann wandered off to shoot guns while Anna and I stayed behind to paint with watercolors. I headed to the barn to feed Cica, where I saw this spectacle.
Woody staring down a pumpkin
Also I saw this, which I thought was really pretty.
I went home, drank a beer, and then read Halloween Cracked articles (and watched youtube videos about "ghosts") until everyone decided that we should eat noodles and watch The Help, which is exactly what we did! And it was awesome.
No pumpkin carving yet, and unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) no touring of haunted mansions. BUT there are still three more days left of Halloweek!!! BEFORE THE REAL TRUE BLUE HALLOWEEN!!!
Here are some of the Halloween doodles I've been working on
Remember Jezebel? I mentioned here here last year. I decided that I wanted to figure out her color scheme on one of my days off last week because I do what I want. I can't decide if I like her socks as blue and black patterned or black and white patterned. I love doodling my little bat girl.
Before I retire to bed, I will leave you with this amazing reincarnation of my childhood and Halloween all mixed into one youtube video from the 90s.
M Y N MINE
Long-eared owl calls: http://www.owlpages.com/owls.php?genus=Asio&species=otus
ReplyDeleteLove, Dad
Yay thanks! The babies are ridiculous sounding, haha
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