Who Needs Puzzles?

Last week Sarah unearthed this nearly completely decomposed bird skeleton. All that remained were some feathers and a little connective tissue.

We have accumulated quite a collection of skulls and other bones during our 20 years as parents, including opposum, raccoon and cow skulls, small mammals from owl pellets, a deer skull and many, many more. I always encouraged the kids to clean up their finds and keep them, because, well, this is the closest I would ever get to living my childhood dream of being an archeologist it's educational.

We've had only one forensic failure, when Stephen placed a dead turtle Sarah found in a bucket of fabric softener instead of bleach solution. It took us a few days to figure out where the stench was coming from.
There was also the summer we bought Stephen a book about identifying roadkill. We spent the rest of the season pulling off of highways and freeways to examine remains, indentify them, and categorize them as "fresh" or "gaggingly old."

The above series of pictures records the girls' recovery of the skeleton and its placement in a weak bleach solution.

Isnt' that foot cool?
The skull and various other unidentified bones.

See the wishbone?

The assembled creature. Anyone else have any of these flying around in their yards?