"Hrrmmphpht!" Tauntz sat in his recliner reading the daily newspaper. "Dear, what is this world coming to? Why it says here that there may soon be a shortage of fresh vegetables due to this weather. What's a rabbit to do?"

"Oh, Tauntz, you get so worked up every year about this time. We've never gone hungry yet. We've plenty of food all around us and I've even got a pantry full. Your belly will not suffer, believe me."

Just then they heard a screech and then several more. Seven of the tauntzlets came skidding around the corner into Tauntz' den.

"MOM!! DAD!!! We found a dinosaur!!!" screeched Emory, the oldest of the bunch.

"Yeah, and it's huge and we're gonna be RICH!" hollered, Eric, the youngest.

"Slow down, younguns! You know dinosaurs no longer roam the earth. They've been extinct for millions of years. It was probably a large gecko you saw."

"No, Daddy, not a LIVE dinosaur! We found a dinosaur skeleton, right here in our burrow!" Little Ernestine was bouncing with excitement. "We were trying to dig a swimming pool and we found bones! Come see!"

Tauntz sighed and with a groan he pulled himself out of his recliner. "This had better be good," he growled.

The children excitedly led him down the corridor. They turned the corner and Tauntz saw …

bones.

"I can't believe it" were the first words out of Tauntz's mouth.

He shouted for Mrs. Tauntz.

"Dad, dad! See! We were right!" said number 1 child.

"Well, I suppose if indeed these are ancient bones, we need to bring in an expert. Hmm, who shall we contact to help us?"

Vinky and Vobble were playing outside their barn owl box when they heard the commtion down below.

"Let's go see what's happening," said Vinky to Vobble.

So, they flew down near the action. As they drew near, Vinky said to Vobble, "Wait, we need to let the Tauntz family know we mean no harm and maybe we can help them."

Vinky and Vobble flew down near the ground where the Tauntz family was and got the attention of Mr. Tauntz and …

the light bulb went on and blinked with an exclamation point! "Vinky! Vobble! You are just the gutz we are looking for!"

"We are? Whatever is all that noise and commotion down in your warren? We could hear the ruckus from our owl box." Vinky replied.

"We need bone experts, dinosaur bones! Do you know anything about dinosaur bones?"

"We know a great deal about bones, Mr Tauntz." Vinky giggled. Vobble did his best burrowing owl impression and hurried down the hole, with Vinky close behind.

"It's dark down here, it's a good thing I have 20-20 night vision" Vobble bobbled his head around to get a good look at this dinosaur.

"Wowza! These aren't like any bones I've horked up! These are humongous!" Vobble was quite taken aback at the size, " I think they must be…

triceratops. I'm sure glad I never met one in real life."

Vinky said, "Vobble, I think they were vegetarians."

Vobble, "Yeah, but they sure had big feet and I wouldn't want to get stomped. Speaking of vegetables, I'm hungry. I wonder what CC has on special today."

Tauntz whipped out his phone and hit speed dial. He talked to CC for a few minutes and then hung up. He said, "In honor of our find, CC is going to bring us some Meringue Bones, some Teriyaki Pterodactyl Wings, and a Veggie Eaters Stew."

When CC's Cafe's official snazzy food truck pulled up to the curb a few minutes later, Vinky and Vobble were leading a team of Tauntzlets to excavate the bones. They all decided to take a break for snacks, since digging is hard work even for Tauntzlets.

With everyone crowding around to get their hands on the snacks, VacaDude had to notice the flurry of activity out his window. "Hey everybody!" he called from the porch. "What's going on out here?"

"We're doing a dinosaur dig!" Vobble said, flapping his wings excitedly. "Vinky and the Tauntzlets are making a map, we think there's dinos all over underground!"

Vacadude wasn't sure he liked the idea of the Tauntzlets digging up the whole yard, but dinosaurs were certainly very cool. "Mind if I take a look at those bones, Vobble?"

Vacadude strolled over and peeked into the hole all were vigorously digging in. "My, those are pretty big bones there," he said, quite impressed. "Does anyone know what kinda dinosaur bones they are?"

Everyone stopped digging to give it some thought. They knew it had to be something huge since none of them could lift any of the bones out. They started to look closer, to see if something in or on the bones might give them a clue to what type of dinosaur this was. Vinky was looking very closely at one bone … did it look like "feathers" were one time attached to it????

Vobble said, "Our parents told us we could have been descendants from dinosaurs, but these are huge! Why aren't we

huge?"

Vaca was trying to determine how to get the bones out of the hole. It had to have a bigger exit. He said, "Let's get a crew of all our pals diggin', like Zorro and Rocky. If these turn out to be good soup bones we're gonna need CC's special sauce."

Vobble had taken his book about dinosaurs and other ancient reptiles out of his knapsack and after reading a bit he said, "There weren't any huge feathered dinosaurs. There were some huge flying reptiles like pterodactyls and pteranodons, but they didn't have feathers and were a lot earlier than the feathered dinosaurs. So something seems to be mixed up here."

The very youngest Taunzlet, who was also a dinosaur enthusiast, said "There are so many bones here, that I'll bet there's bones of more than one dinosaur."

The others looked at the mass of bones, then sheepishly at each other. Then Vinky said…

"I think we need a real expert on dinosaurs to sort this out. Hmm, now who do we call? (and I don't mean Ghostbusters."

All the heads turned toward Vaca. The Dude was thinking to himself, "What have I gotten myself and Mary into?" So, Vaca fired up his trusty computer and began doing Google searches on experts and dinosaurs. It made sense that he would try to seek help from a local university or research institute in the San Francisco area first, then LA, etc. A palentologist was found and the person came out.

The palentologist, whose name was Donasauras, (Don for short), was so excited about the find! "We need to dig these all up right away and send them to the museum of Natural History in Washington DC! They will study them and put them all together and I think we may have a brand new species of Dinosaur!"

The Dude was happy about the find, but not real happy about the thought of the yard with a big "moon" crater in it.

But before Don could get the excavation equipment to the Dudes house…

everyone decided it was time for another meal.

They sat down to more of CC's goodies. There were Dino Digger Cups, Stuffed Dino Ribs, and Deviled Dino Eggs.

After they ate, they …

decided to help get everything ready for the project. The Tauntzlets marked out the places they'd found bones with little flags and Vinky and Vobble helped the Dude by putting important plants into pots and flying them to safety. The dude was only okay with this if it didn't wreck his yard entirely, so everyone decided that they would only use the small equipment and would try to stay within the lines.

Just when they finished getting everything ready, Don arrived with his team!

The team got right down to work being VERY careful not to mess up the dude's lawn too much. In no time at all, they had all the dinosaur bones dug up, cataloged and crated to be moved to the museum. After the team left, everyone was looking at the BIG hole in the yard. They all turned and looked at the Dude.

Just then VacaChick pulled in the driveway. As she got out of the car she saw the hole. Her eyes flew WIDE open. Dude went to her to explain but before he could start she ran to him all teary eyed. "You've decided to finally put in the pool I asked for 10 years ago!"

Quite surprised and stuttering, John said, "Yes dear. It's been long overdue."

VacaChic said, "Can we get …

a deck and an outdoor kitchen and those deck chairs I've been looking at and a fire pit and …"

"Whoa! Hold on! the Dude said. One thing at a time, okay?"

Later that night …

The Dude was relaxing in his office. All his critter friends were gathered around. They were anxiously awaiting the arrival of the report from Don and his colleagues. He said he was messengering it over to them. He had sounded REALLY excited when he called.

Finally, the messenger arrived. He handed the Dude a huge packet of papers. The Dude pulled them out and began thumbing through them. He said, "Well, the bones are not from a Pteranodon, they're not from a Pterodactyl, they're not a Stegasaurus, a Brontosaurus, a Tyrranosaurus, a Triceratops or any other dinosaur we imagined. Wow! There are 17 pages here telling us everything that those bones are NOT!"

He kept turning pages. Then his eyes got real big. He drew a deep breath and breathlessly said, "Oh, WOW!"

The critters all crowded around him. Little Ernestine crawled into his lap to get a look at the papers, even though she couldn't read yet. "What does it say?" she asked.

The Dude was still somewhat breathless. He finally stammered out, "Well, it seems they're very, very old, but not dinosaurs. It is a VERY VERY important find though. It seems that they are actually Aurochs, the prehistoric ancestor of the modern bovine, otherwise known as … … … the cow! They've never before been found in North America. They're going to call them AuroVacaDudos."

Zorro looked up in a cheesy feast near-coma and said, "So, let me get this straight. Vacaville means 'Cowtown,' VacaDude means 'Cowboy,' and they found some ancient cows? Just who writes this stuff, anyhow? Even the best movie writers couldn't come up with a script like this!"

The Dude just grinned and said, "Well, they always say that truth is stranger than fiction, you know."


The End