Watch out, or owl hoot you.

Last Spring, after a bike ride to the dollar store, I dragged the kids into the garden center at Lowe's so that I could soak up the smells of the unaffordable flowers for a while.

And they smelled divinely expensive.

Since we are unemployed, I take my luxuries where I can find them.  Lowe's is good to me.  They charge not for smelling, nor touching, now gazing upon their lovelies.  Not ever.  That's good recessionomics, I think;  Drawing me in so that I am indebted to their kindness for life.

With three children, a large, bulky camera, and a few bikes in tow, the young fellow working in the garden center recognized folks who are easily awe-struck.  He knew we would appreciate the secret he was keeping.

And we did.  We very much did.

You see, perched high atop a load of mulch on one of their towering shelves of goodness was her ladyship, The Greateth Hornedeth Owleth.  And opposite her position on the other side of the garden center was her faithful guard, his highness, Lester the Mage.  Or at least I think that was his name.  It's all a bit foggy.

Between them on the floor of the Lowe's Garden Center, I felt a bit like Atreyu trying to pass between the staring laser eyes of death at the Southern Oracle.

I'm fairly certain that those birds could blast us to pieces with their penetrating gaze.

"Or I'll bomb you with my digested field mice!"

That bolthead is about an inch across. It holds up twenty foot tall iron fencing. That's a big bird poop.

Even as we left, Lester watched, eyes fixed upon our every footfall, as we, whistling, strode to our bikes and rode away.