Mrs. Octavia Owl

Octavia Owl feels a touch of melancholy as her summer break comes to an end. What a wonderful summer it was! The camping trip with her dear grandchildren, the shopping trip in the city with her sister, relaxing days at home working in her garden, renovating the kitchen with her husband, reading books late into the night free from alarm clocks. Cherished memories to carry with her as she returns to her classroom.

Bedecked in her new fall outfit, her feathers looking great with their auburn highlights, Octavia prepares for a new group of students, young minds she can inspire and ignite with her passion for learning. Some students will be scared, nervous to be away from home. Others will be defiant, challenging her at every turn. Then there are the know-it-alls who don’t give other students a chance to speak. The deeply troubled students who live in dysfunctional homes touch Octavia’s heart most of all. All of her new students will need kindness, patience, love, and encouragement. They will need someone who believes in them even when they don’t believe in themselves.

Octavia stands in her classroom and surveys her new autumn themed wall displays and activity centres as the bell rings. She listens to the chaotic shouting and foot pounding in the hallway. As the door opens, children rush in, jostling each other. A young hedgehog is crying because her hair has been pulled. A little rabbit has hidden under a desk. Octavia relies on her years of experience and her skillful classroom management as she writes her name on the board and calms her class, “Good morning. My name is Mrs. Owl. Each desk has a name plate. Please find the desk with your own special name plate, and take a seat. Who wants to play a game with coloured jelly beans?”

Your pet becomes an expert at finding its own food!

It was a dark and stormy night, well it really was, and one mother owl was caught in gale to end all gales, when she flew her nest, yes, she really was carrying her nest, straight aboard the most fearsome ship of the seven seas - Black Betty!

Now, the pirates aboard were a motley crew and yet, that bedraggled mama and her single, solitary owlet, stole their black hearts right out of their chests. Invited to stay on board, the little owlette, known for skipping across the decks looking for a tasty worm or two, hidden in the pockets of the crew, grew up learning the ways of parlay and rum.

Yes, he was an owl, who became a pirate, whose mother then shooed him away to the mainland, where he belonged. Where he belonged!? No, that would never do! When he was grown, having gotten rich running rumchatas up the coast on behalf of the Black Betty, the owl had everything he wanted, save the respect of the local owls. He felt he would never be accepted by the other owls in the neighborhood, who were far more mannerly and enjoyed “gentlemens races” in their fancy yachts on the weekend. So the pirate-raised owl bought a ship, the grandest vessel of the modern owl, and determined he would show them all, every last land lubber and scurvy pirate lackey, that he was the fiercest and fastest sailor of the seven seas!

And, that’s where you’ll find him to this very day, tipping his hat to the other owls determined to beat him at his own game, awaiting the next race, the next chance to spread his infamy far and wide … let any owl beat him, if he can!

Favorite food:

Chocolate Mouse

See below for your free foods!