Camping in the Great Outdoors

Well, maybe not so great, but outdoors anyway. Last week my daughter decided she wanted to sleep outside in our backyard. Since we have a reasonably large backyard, a large tent, and a queen size air bed, I figured what the heck. My husband tucked us in with our popcorn, flashlight, and a Little House on the Prairie book, and said, "See ya in a couple of hours." He figured she'd either get bored or scared and that we'd be back inside soon. Not so...we spent all night out there where I discovered that the Anderson dairy plant a block down the street is very loud and that it's darn cold at night in late September.

Because it is almost the end of September, I asked her if she wanted to sleep outside one more time before we put the tent away. That would be how we wound up sleeping outside last night after we got back from D&D, this time with the Little House book and flashlight but no popcorn. And this time we discovered that the best part about sleeping in a tent in the backyard is having access to a long extension cord and a space heater.

At any rate, while we were out there last night, Evie noticed how many stars there are out here at night. Okay, so every constellation she sees is "the Big Dipper", but every astronomer has to start somewhere, right? And while I was trying to get to sleep, I heard an owl. Actually, I heard a screeching, and then an answering "hoo hooooo" series of calls, repeatedly. Kind of nice to know we have owls living nearby, probably in the large trees overlooking the creek behind the neighbors, at least from the sounds of it. After poking around a bit online, I think what I heard was a Great Horned Owl answering its owlet's screeches for food. Pretty nifty. Some night when it's not so chilly out and my kid is sleeping, maybe I'll go out and sit and see if I can spot any other wildlife out there. Apparently tonight while Todd was sitting outside, he was buzzed by a bat...but we already knew we had bats in the area, so while it was a cool encounter, it wasn't really unexpected. Wonder what else we have hanging about in the yard?