Who Cooks For You? Who Cooks For You All?

We went hiking in and around Shenandoah National Park with Matt's Dad this weekend. The first order of business was looking for morels -- the first mushrooms of the year. Then we had a great walk up Little Devil's Staircase through a canyon full of spring wildflowers. But, the most incredible thing was when we came across several owls hooting right along the edge of the trail. One was under some brush and seemed injured. He eventually flew off, but only after several minutes of us checking each other out. We still can't believe we actually held a wild, but docile barred owl. And, knowing what we know now (that owls sometimes play injured as a defense mechanism) we probably wouldn't have done it. But it was doing a pretty convincing job of looking injured.


Wild columbine showing off.


A victim of our somewhat bountiful morel hunt





Elizabeth's turn.


Those huge dark eyes are pretty intense.

Matt and Art climbing (a small part of) Little Devil's Staircase