Wow!  What a week we had in the PHES Forest last week during spring break!  Our new stone benches were installed under the large oak tree just outside of the forest.  They look great!  Mrs. Dean and I did some real exploring.  We found evidence of at least one owl.  How do we know?  Owl pellets- that's how.  When an owl eats an animal it digests the nutritional parts but reguretates (coughs up) the hair and bones in a nice neat little packet known as an owl pellet.  If we dissect it we can tell what the owl ate for that meal.  We also found evidence that beavers lived in the area before.  How?  Glad you asked.  We found several fallen trees that had been gnawed down.  We looked and listened for birds and other small creatures.  We can't be sure but we also believe there might be foxes there.  We were hoping to avoid wild hogs or bears.  Maybe the coolest thing we saw was a geocache hidden there.  Cool beans!  (Geocaching: a hobby, which utilizes Global Positioning System units and the great outdoors.)