who cooks for you?

I'm not going to start talking about my very own personal chef... not yet, anyway (sorry, dear, that has to wait for some future time!)

No, what I really want to talk about is the Barred Owl I met the other night. I had gone outside to try and take a nighttime photo of USML's beautiful chapel, but it was a wasted effort with my substandard camera.

The stroll outside wasn't a waste, however, when I heard someone asking, "Who cooks for yooouuu? Who cooks for yoooouuuuu?"

I wasn't ever able to see much more than his (or her) outline against the night sky. I was later told that this is the distinctive call of the Barred Owl. I remembered my sister saying that when they do night walks through the woods, the owls sometimes answer their calls.

So I responded to the owl (enigmatically, I might add), "Who cooks for youuuuu?", hoping I wasn't being too rude by not answering and that I didn't sound too much like a rooster.

He and I traded questions several times. He also flew around a bit, from the roof of the dormitory, to one tree, then another. The last time he flew, he went almost directly over me, and I was able to see his rather impressive wing span as he flew across the campus and out of my sight.

He never did give me the name of his chef.