A mtn lion & a monarch butterfly...

It's official: I've completely converted over to the dark side. ;) When I first moved to the ranch I didn't even like the thought of shooting gophers or of having "heads" in my house.

Yesterday I blasted a gopher that was munching away in my yard and I love this mount/base that we just put up last night.

I love how the wood flows out past his feet. I love how the mtn lion is looking at a monarch butterfly with curiosity. It is even better because the monarch butterfly has the color ORANGE in it. I love that the colors of the butterfly constrast with the muted colors of the mount/base. I love how there is a real woodpecker hole in the log. I love how the twigs flow out into the open air space of the livingroom.
And you know what is even better...this base was free. Chris just walked up and down the ditch behind our house, and pushed over a few dead/rotted trees with woodpecker holes. He then grabbed his chainsaw and cut a chunk off of the tree that had the most character. The butterfly is actually a dried butterfly that Chris gave me when we were first married. When we finally had the mount and base up, Chris's Dad commented that it would be cool if there "was a bug" that the mtn lion was looking at on the twigs. Aha I thought....I went and grabbed the butterfly out of my glass case where I store all of my treasures (wedding bouquet, Anne books and my little glass tea cup from my g'ma). We used a scrapbooking glue dot to stick it to the twig. Scrapbooking glue dots come in handy in all situations. ;)
And there you have it...our base and mount that we love! You will have to come see it sometime "for real."

Dad's helpers...