It's called "The Owl Critic"
(I know it's kinda long, but you really have to read the whole think to 'get' it! Enjoy!!)
The Owl Critic
“Who stuffed that white owl?” No one spoke in the shop,
The barber was busy, he couldn’t stop;
The customers, waiting their turns, were all reading
The
Daily, the
Herald, the
Post, little heeding
The young man who blurted out such a blunt question:
No one raised a head, or even made a suggestion;
And the barber kept on shaving.
“Don’t you see, Mr. Brown”
Cried the youth, with a frown,
“How wrong the whole thing is,
How preposterous each wing is,
How flattened his head is, how jammed down the neck is—
In short, the whole what a ignorant wreck ‘tis!
I make no apology;
I’ve learned owl-eology.
I’ve passed days and nights in a hundred collections,
And cannot be blinded to any defections
Arising from unskillful fingers that fail
To stuff a bird right from it’s beak to his tail.
Mister Brown! Mister Brown!
Do take that bird down,
Or you’ll soon be the laughing-stock all over town!”
And the barber kept on shaving.
I’ve
studied owls,
And other night fowls,
And I tell you
What I know to be true;
An owl cannot roost
With his limbs so unloosed;
No owl in this world
Ever had his claws curled,
Ever had his legs slanted,
Ever had his bill canted,
Ever had his neck screwed
Into that attitude.
He can’t do it, because
‘Tis against all bird laws.
Anatomy teaches,
Ornithology preaches,
An owl has a toe
That
can’t turn out so!
I’ve made the white owl my study for years,
And to see such a job almost moves me to tears!
Mr. Brown, I’m amazed
You should be so gone crazed
As to put up a bird
In that posture absurd!
To
look at that really brings me on a dizziness;
The man who stuffed
him don’t half know his business!”
And the barber kept on shaving.
Examine those eyes
I’m filled with surprise
Taxidermists should pass
Off on you such poor glass;
So unnatural they seem
They’d make Audubon scream,
And John Burroughs laugh
To encounter such chaff
Do take that bird down;
Have it stuffed again, Brown!”
And the barber kept on shaving.
“With some sawdust and bark
I could stuff in the dark
An owl better than that.
I could make an old hat
Look more like an owl
Than that horrid fowl,
Stuck up there so stiff like a side of coarse leather.
In fact, about
him there’s not one natural feather.”
Just then, with a wink and a sly normal lurch,
The owl, very gravely, got down from his perch,
Walked around, and regarded his fault-finding critic
(Who thought he was stuffed) with a glance analytic,
And then fairly hooted, as if he should say:
“Your learning’s at fault this time, anyway;
Don’t waste it again on a live bird, I pray.
I’m an owl; you’re another. Sir Critic, good day!”
And the barber kept on shaving.
By James T. Fields (1817-1881)
Arrived in Boston at sixteen to make his fortune.
Only five years later, he was a partner in the most prominent publisher, he worked with such authors as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Nathaniel Hawthorn.
One of our chickens laid this tiny egg the other day...
1 inch long... wow... now that is one tiny egg!! :-D
Sam found, well, actually the cats found this Baby Eastern Hog Nose Snake...
I must say I really *like* Hog Nose Snakes... and I'm sure you can see why... They play dead! It's so funny to watch them! When you roll them over, they immediately roll back over to their backs!
They also are a very pretty snake... :-D
MaryVance - age 4
Sam - age 8 (?)
