Story time. By now, you know that I grew up in the woods in Oregon (my childhood house pictured above). I loved playing outside with my siblings and friends, building forts, exploring the creek and having air soft gun wars. In middle school, my best friend Rachel would come over to my house every day. During 6th grade, our usual activity of choice was working on our fort down by the creek.

     Let me set the stage for you; The creek was in the back of the property and required walking through tons of ferns, ivy and stinging nettle. On the other side was a glorious patch of wild blackberries, untouched from the outside world. Our main mission, every year was to get across the creek to the blackberries. One day while exploring we found a super short way to get to the creek, stinging nettle free! The only thing was, it was down a really steep hill. Once at the base of the hill, it opened up to a clearing and the creek. So Rachel and I grabbed shovels and carved stairs out of the hillside (This is actually what we were doing when a tree almost fell on me, you can read about that, here) Now we had easy, pain free, access to the creek, and a perfect spot to play near the creek. 

This is a picture of the creek and "clearing" - now overgrown. I went back to visit back in 2011 before the new family moved into our house. We would spend hours pulling up Ivy from the ground and from off of the tree so it didn't choke our favorite pine. 

     Fast forward to a somewhat "established" fort; stairs made, path well worn, Ivy cleared, etc. It was a damp, rainy, October Oregon day. Blackberry season is long gone and we hadn't figured out how to get across (For some reason, we never just crossed the creek through the water - no one ever wanted to volunteer to get wet.) Since we were approaching winter and in the thick of fall, getting to the other side was not a priority. We decided it would be fun to dam up the creek and have a shallow pool that we could fish in. (There wasn't any fish in that creek) 

     With our goal newly set in our mind, Rachel and I proceeded to go down to the creek everyday to widen the banks to give us more "working room" when it came time to damming. Like I mentioned before, we were in 6th grade. That's important to know, because we had just finished our "bone unit" of the human body in science class. So there we were, digging away at the bank when my shovel connects with something solid. I think its a rock or a root and carry on. But as we are digging, I notice that whatever I have hit is shifting. Rachel and I, curious, go full Indiana and dig it out. Out pops, from it's cavity packed tightly in the earth, a bone. We scream! "A FEMUR! IT'S A HUMAN FEMUR BONE!" Obviously it couldn't be anything else. 

     Rachel and I start to panic. Somebody was killed in my backyard and they buried the body to hide the evidence! Our next (logical) thought is that someone is going to think that WE murdered someone in my backyard. The cycle of logic continues. Frantic and with no cell reception down at the creek, we realize we need to call our parents. Mine weren't home, but Rachel's were. Carefully, we grab leaves to pick up the bone to bring up to the house. - We couldn't have our fingerprints all over this bone. That would for sure tie us to the murder. 

     So there we are, running and screaming as we scamper up the hill, carrying a human femur wrapped in leaves. As soon as we get to the house, we drop the bone on the sport court and book it inside and crawl into my bed. We call both sets of parents and begin each conversations with, "WE FOUND A HUMAN FEMUR IN THE BACKYARD AND PEOPLE ARE GOING TO THINK WE ARE MURDERERS!" So much tact. Obviously, our parents are alarmed and tell us to stay inside, they'll be right there. My mom gets home first, shortly followed by Rachel's dad. We walk them out to the backyard to show them the remains.

     The foggy, gloomy weather matching the anticipation that Ray and I felt as we lead them out to the bone. Rachel's dad stood over it for a second, looking at it with a quizzical expression on his face. Ray and I clinging to my mom's arm as we waited for our worst fears to be confirmed. After a much too long pause, Rachel's dad says, "That's a cow bone, girls."

     I felt my mom breathe a sigh of relief. We wouldn't have to call the cops, everything is ok, it was probably just a coyote. Rachel and I are still not entirely convinced, Mike explains that it's way too big to be a human femur - considering it's already bigger than our arms. (I later googled it, just to be sure.)

(left cow, right human)

      With all the excitement over, Rachel went home with her dad and I went back inside with my mom. A few minutes after Rachel left, my dad came home. We filled him in on our discovery, and when we went to show him the bone in the backyard, we were met, (to my utter horror) Angel, (our dog) EATING THE BONE. And that ended all further work on widening the bank of the creek. There may still be the rest of the cow buried beneath the soil at the Birdhaven house, but that's something that we will never know.