An owl's eye is probably the most efficient organ of vision possesed by any animal. It has a visual sensitivity at least 35 times greater than ours, and possibly as much as 100 times greater. They can see well in both light and dark. They can't roll their eyes in the sockets because their eyes aren't round. They're more like tubes. To make up for that, they can rotate their heads maybe as much as 270 degrees horizontally and 90 degrees or more vertically. Owls also have great hearing. The "ear tufts" of feathers on top of their heads are not ears and have nothing to do with hearing. A bird's ears are holes in the sides of their heads, covered with feathers. Owls especially can hear high sounds like the squeaking of a mouse, or a mouse scurring across a field, twigs breaking, that kind of hunting noises. Do you know if there is anything I can do to encourage them to stay? Barred owls eat mice and other small mammals, as well as frogs, birds, and snakes. They can also wade into the water to catch fish. They like small prey they can swallow whole. Larger prey is ripped into chunks. They digest what is digestible, and cough back up and spit out a pellet of what is not digestible. Scientists examine those pellets to figure out their diets. CAN an owl kill a dog or cat? Oh my yes. Owls can and do attack, kill and eat small dogs and cats, although they prefer smaller puppies and kittens. It's not real common; it's not their food of first choice, but it happens once in a while. We had a Great Horned Owl in our last neighborhood that was killing feral cats -- according to an owl expert I talked with. Owls can swoop on their prey so quietly they take them by surprise; their feathers are fringed in such a way as to absorb noise. Owls usually behead their prey, and almost certainly eat the eyes first. So if you find a dead animal and the head and eyes are intact, it almost certainly was not an owl. A Great Horned Owl weighs about 4-5 lbs, and a grown Barred Owl is about the same I think, so it's not like they're going to fly away with heavy prey. The GHO is a little stronger than the Barred. The good news is they only hunt at night. So watch your small and baby pets at night and don't leave them out alone -- especially during nesting season when the owls have young to feed. Owls will attack a human too (not for kill/food of course), generally to scare you away from their nests. They have very nasty talons and can be very aggressive during nesting season so if they swoop you, stay out of that area after that for a couple of months. You might want to learn what months the Barred Owls nest in your area. I am not saying you should be terrified of owls. That would be silly. But you should have a healthy respect for them and some knowledge. Here, watch these daytime territorial attacks to see how brave and aggressive an owl can be... Fearless owl Here is a link that might be useful: Owl attack

My outdoor mama garden spiders disappeared months ago. The one in the green house, who left three egg cases, went away weeks ago; presumably they die. I noticed her web got smaller and less detailed and then -- no more spider. But the one inside the store room is still alive! This photo was taken today with a flash from inside the store room looking out through the glass window. I think she made her living by snagging paper wasps who also lived inside the store room. There's not much of a web left, but it looks like she may be feeding off a paper wasp. She didn't move very fast when I gave the web a little jiggle, but she did move. As far as I can see she left one egg case. I wonder how the males find the females, especially when they are inside a room like this one although we do leave the sliding barn door open much of the time. Whatever, I'll be collecting the egg cases from the green house and the store room and placing them outdoors, inside some grocery store produce netting, so when the eggs hatch in the spring the young spider's strand of silk can catch the breeze and disperse the little spiders.

I love a good revived thread. :-) My good deals are all from eBay this time. My desktop computer is not quite four years old, but since it gets a lot of use and we believe in "lifecycling" electronics I've been casually looking for a good deal on a somewhat high-end refurbished PC to replace it. Before I found anything, my computer quit. Just refused to turn on. I researched possible causes, and called in my expert: my son. The power supply was a common source of the problem, so I bought one on eBay for $20. Nope, that didn't do it, but we kept the replacement in the computer and held onto the old one as a spare. Next we replaced the motherboard ($70 on eBay). Yes! The computer works fine at this point, but we figured since the hard drive has been spinning all these years, why not replace it--or add another, which is what we did--rather than wait for it to fail? So I bought a 1TB SSD drive on Amazon ($100), and now have a "new computer" for under $200. Also, I've been wanting an L.L. Bean tan canvas "barn jacket" for a long time but was unwilling to pay over $100 for it. Even eBay prices on them aren't usually tempting, but this time I found one for under $20 including shipping. I love it! It really is "like new," and I look forward to wearing it when spring starts to make an appearance. All I need now are olive green "wellies" for our muddy season.

I have never heard of SHP before and had to do a bit of spot research. Crude protein is listed at 10%, which makes them inferior in terms of nitrogen-equivalent to soybean meal (crude protein around 50%). Divide CP roughly by 7 (a bit less, but close enough) for the nitrogen level. So these are a bit over 1% nitrogen, while soybean meal would be around 7% nitrogen. You'd have to use about five times the mass of these to get the same protein amount.