August 2007

here is kezia’s little owl floating down a river. let me explain how this happened.

we were walking by a river when we saw this tree had falled across it. spotting another path on the other side we decided to have a family adventure and see if we could climb over it. the water was quite deep and fast flowing, so we needed to be careful.

jane decided she and esther could make it over, but kezia and i would stay safe on our side. unfortunately jane had kezia’s newly acquired owl in her pocket. this owl was a prize in a treasure hunt kezia had just completed, and kezia loved it.
as jane started to cross the river it dropped out of her pocket in to the water. for a while it lay still in a sheltered backwash

but then, before we could hook it out, it caught the current and off it went.

we all ran down the river looking for places to hook it out. the river was wide and too deep to wade in. the bank was very high so getting to water level was tricky too. here is jane trying to reach it with a stick

but before we knew it little owl was in the main current.

luckily esther spotted a big rock near the edge of the river and the owl headed straight for it. it was make or break time. i put my camera down, grabbed a stick and managed to coax it in our direction, and by some amazing skill managed to scoop it out of the river (without falling in myself)

owly survived the ordeal (and i got plenty of photos), but we never did cross the river.

let that be a lesson to all of you.