inter-library loan

i am currently working my way through all the books of seanan mcguire, but since my library doesn't have a lot of them, they have to come through inter-library loan.

...which is kind of fascinating to me.

so of course i'm making a map of where all the books are coming from.

because of course i am.

here.

the screaming stump

i'm sorry; i do not update y'all as often as i should. i'm still reading about your cat and your crazy clients and your kids.

let's just say that i've been busy studying. and stuff.

anyway, today i was out at my study location having a good luck at this stump...

no wait, backup, backup.

this winter on many occasions i saw the tracks of a little cottontail rabbit. and the rabbit was browsing the brambles around the stump and then i noticed a lot of poop outside some holes in the snow and it was clear that the little cottontail lived there and then one day there was one perfect wingprint in the snow and a great deal of fur, but no blood, so it was unclear to me whether or not the little cottontail survived the raptor attack, but i didn't see new tracks or new poop, so i sort of thought not.

but that was more or less where i lost my glasses, so i keep looking around there and as the snow melts (we had fresh yesterday!) i can see more and more where the fur is scattered about and i was looking at that today and some diggings around the base of the stump when i heard (or more like felt) a vibration and then a scream and i thought maybe a bird?

but the noise seemed to be coming from awfully low to the ground and then i heard it again and i was just coming around to the other side of the stump to look in the hole and i saw...

AN EYE.

at least i thought it was an eye. i was kind of standing there thinking "did this hole have a thing in it that looks sort of like an eye before? was it always so dark in there?"

and then the eye BLINKED.

and the thing screamed. loud. and the vibration buzzed in the hollow under the stump.

and i said "hi, neighbor. didn't mean to upset you" and i'm sure i looked legit startled and i wandered away, letting the little cottontail believe i had been scared away.

i don't know if it's the original little cottontail, but it is A cottontail.

i didn't use to think of rabbits as animals with fearsome screams, but there it is.

and now that stump will forever be the screaming stump to me.