we are expanding our chicken run in preparation for handing off the household to our house/dog/bee/chicken sitters while we’re in france.  the extent of the chicken run is frankly embarrassing. i think the chickens now live in more finished square feet than we do. they should have a spread in martha stewart living. all that’s missing is a wolf range, a sub zero fridge, and geothermally heated dirt baths. anyway, as a part of our extensive poultry renovation, i asked my daughter to move a pile a scrap wood, which turned out unexpectedly to be a crime scene. thanks to some diligent and extremely smelly forensic work by my ten year old joseph, we have confirmed that the victims included one or more unidentified birds, and a mouse whose intact pelvis, resembling a delicate skull, can be seen above.

great horned owl pellet with mouse pelvis bone

my back yard, saint paul, minnesota