Night Owl

So this last weekend has been kind of...well, fucked up. It started pretty normal. I went to a housewarming party at my friends' house for their new roommate. She is pretty sweet, and her boyfriend said he liked my shirt. I told him we were friends now, so we are. So I went home the next morning and went to sleep as I had not been able to yet. I woke up around 11:00 p.m. I believe and thought, eh, whatev, I'll just stay up all night and all tomorrow. Basically I ended up staying up all night and passing out and waking up at night again the next day. That has been how it has gone every day till today. It's pretty crazy waking up and everyone is already asleep, their tasks for the day finished while mine have yet to begin, if I even had any. I had nothing to do. It was already too late to call anyone or go anywhere, and my brain isn't functional enough for video games at that point.

So that saturday night this all begins. I decide I should just go outside. It's dark, probably about 20 degrees outside. Snow everywhere, I must be crazy, I thought. Surprisingly the cold doesn't seem to bother me, I think it just feels good to not be asleep and actually functional so my body is like, Fuck it! lets run a mile!! Anyways I got some fatty boots on and I'm walkin' around in the snow when I hear this Hoot Hootin' out across the back pond and in the woods.

If you are not familiar my house is on 40 acres, has a pond, 3 fields or varied size, a woods, swamp, river and mud wrestling pit. Seriously. So I'm like, fuck, that owl is the only other thing out here besides me, barring sasquatch, of course. So I responded with my best mimicry of the hoot he hooted. I could tell this Owl meant business because he called back within seconds of mine. He had a deep hoot, the kind you would expect an owl to make, but rarely hear. It was kind of like Hoot Hoo-hoot, hoot, hoot. Again I did my best to respond as owly as possible. It took me a while to get the right vibration and volume. I could tell some of them were totally off because I got no response. I got my tongue trill down and pretty soon we were going at it. I knew he was talking to me too because he would move away then come back closer when I called.

I went in the barn for a while to warm up, and to arm myself. Something made a crazy noise and I wasn't going to have anything attack me so I grabbed a bat and a carving knife and made my way back outside after 40 minutes or so. I called out again to test and got my owl friend back on the line in seconds. Another one had shown up too at some point, farther away from the first because I heard him calling out in the distance. He had a longer hoot, 3 hoots long. I tried different calls for each so they would know I acknowledged each of them. After a few hours of romping around outside chilling with the owls I went back inside.

The next night came, I woke up, and went back outside. This time I got some sweet snowshoes from the barn. Got my bat just in case and embarked. My owl friends were waiting for me it seems because after a few minutes of calling the original one answered back and then I heard the second. I wondered what kind of owl they thought I was. Or if they knew I was just a guy trying to talk to them. I tried not to stand too out in the open so they would see me and get freaked out, so I stayed next to trees and objects. I was quite curious of what they were trying to accomplish with each of their hoots. If it was a calling out to see if anyone else was around, or maybe a statement that this is where they hunt and that I should beat it.

Upon further research I discovered that I was conversing with two Great Horned Owls. I got pretty excited when I saw that. I'm pretty much in love with birds as it is so it was pretty cool to know that not only were there some sweet owls around my house, but that I had chatted 'em up like a pro! I feel like I communicated with them, even if it was just some random hoots they knew I was there and I knew they where there too. They responded clearly to me, and I to them. I hadn't seen people practically at all this weekend because they were always asleep when I woke up. The owls were there for me though. They didn't care that I didn't accomplish anything at all. They were perfectly happy to just talk for the hell of it.

I had more fun talking to those owls than I do talking to most people. So if you are up late, feel like crap, and can't take the world anymore you should head outside and find someone who gives a hoot.