Birds of Prey
I have been a lazy blogger over the past few weeks. In my defense, it was icky and wet and rainy and cold, which means that we were basically at home and hitting the books pretty hard – so nothing really blog-worthy happened for a while. Then the weather got better and we’ve been outside and by the time we come in, I’m too tired to blog. I know; excuses, excuses. You’ll be thrilled to know that I do have a couple of things to talk about this week, so keep your eyes peeled for more verbose goodness from yours truly.
I admit, I am not much of a bird fan. They kinda scare me a bit – I think they’re pretty, but I’m not all about the pointy beaks and sharp talons. The phrase ‘raptor gaze’ is apt; they always seem to be sizing you up for a bite. That said, I try not to pass my phobias down to my kids, so when I heard about SOAR coming our way, I put on my big-girl panties and braved the birds ‘for the sake of the children’.
Save Our American Raptors, Inc. is a non-profit birds of prey environmental education organization founded in Florida by ‘The Eagle Lady”, Doris Mager, in 1983. I looked for a link, and there are several SOAR organizations, but there doesn’t seem to be a main organization. I’ll let you Google and decide which link to use if you’re so inclined. The outline seems to be similar throughout – SOAR is both an educational and rescue/rehab organization for birds of prey.
We were privileged to have Doris was in Southeast TX a couple of weekends ago with her fabulous feathered friends. We got to meet ET, the Great Horned Owl, a tiny Eastern Screech Owl, a Kestrel (Sparrow Hawk) and a Crested Caracara (Mexican Eagle). Loverly Husband volunteered to help and ended up with Cara on his arm for half of the program. I think that one of the coolest things about this program is Doris’ obvious love of her birds. It’s amazing to see someone who has a palatable passion for their subject speak about it. Their enthusiasm and interest in their subject carries over and gets your attention in a way that reading just doesn’t. Since I’m not a particular fan of birds, I really appreciated the opportunity for the boys to learn about them from someone who truly loves them.
Doris mentioned that she’d traveled all over the world on rescue calls and has had numerous birds in her care from one moment to the next for the past 30 years. She talked quite a bit about how she got started. Her story is unique in that her qualifications came more from being interested in the subject and being willing to volunteer. Now, of course, she receives grants from different agencies (including the government) to do her work, but she didn’t start out in academia. With an ADHD kid under my roof, and one who may not opt for traditional career paths, I think that her story and ones like it are essential to helping my son form mental paths to reach his goals.
Doris was a joy to listen to. Unlike some people who lecture often, she related very well to every age group. Her audience ranged from babies to the elderly, and she definitely had a message to get across to her audience, namely, that birds of prey are to be respected and treasured. I think she did a fantastic job of conveying that message. She also gave the kids a chance to hold the birds, which puts them up close and personal. I think that was a key element to reinforcing that message.
That evening, Doris teamed up with Village Creek State Park’s Mistress of Education, Amanda Adair, to organize a night hike to look for owls. We had an entire troupe of Boy Scouts join us for the hike (the boys were all in the 8-10 age range and it was like having my own boys times 12… which was reassuring. My boys are most assuredly NORMAL) and Doris gave us all some guidelines to follow: no flashlights, no talking, no walking sticks. All of the boys had sticks and when she banned walking sticks on the trip they were visibly disappointed. I thought was a little odd, but when one of the kids questioned her she was happy to explain: the kids will drag them, which is noisy. I laughed at myself at that point because she was dead-on right. That’s exactly what would happen no matter how much you reminded them not to drag the sticks.
PeaGreen and I went together; it was quite a long hike (or maybe it seemed longer since it was in the dark) but it was a lot of fun even though at one point my mind wandered into ‘this is what it would be like if we were a group of refugees trying to travel without attracting the attention of the walking dead after a zombie apocalypse, only with more mortal peril and hysteria’ territory. He got tired about halfway through – there’s only so much walking in the dark, silently that a 7 year old boy can handle, but he was a trooper and he was glad that we went. LBB elected to stay home with Dad, so it was nice to spend some time with just my youngest, especially doing something that was new and different. We heard a couple of owls that were far off – Doris said not to expect to see or hear one, so we weren’t terribly disappointed. She did have ET with her, so the kids did get to see at least one Great Horned Owl at the end of the hike. If you ever get the chance to do something similar, I highly recommend going for it!
A couple of nights after all this LBB comes flying out of his room, well past bedtime, to inform us that there is a great horned owl calling right outside of his bedroom. Sure enough, there was. I LOVE seeing practical application of something that we’ve been learning about. Even when I don’t think they’re paying attention, they’ve shown time and again that they do hear and they are learning.
Warmly,
~h
Wrapping up the Weekend
… with a few more pictures from our wonderful vacation…
Today is the last day of Loverly Husband’s vacation and tomorrow is back to the daily grind. We’ve had such a great week!
Warmly,
~h
A Week in Review
This past week has been an absolute whirlwind of activity. It’s our last week of M4, and we have been running ragged for the past month. I am seriously considering taking our week off next week and doing absolutely nothing!
Like I mentioned in the planning post, we’re doing more that feels like ‘unschooling’ than true desk-work. In fact, this week, we’ve omitted desk and workbook work altogether in favor of letting the kids wind down a bit.
Tuesday involved a non-educational movie, Alvin and the Chipmunks – the Squeakuel… I’m really out of the loop. I had no idea about the controversy over a video on YouTube of a few 7 year olds doing one of the routines that the Chipettes do. Apparently the original video was removed, but you can still see portions of it on other YouTuber’s responses to it and on news channels. Although I pretty much agree wholeheartedly that the choice of song, outfit and dance movements of those little girls was entirely inappropriate, once you get past all that and actually watch them dance – holy cow they are talented!! I’m going to save the sexualization of little girls for another post because right now, I am just jealous that I can’t move like that. In any case, the movie was an exercise in tolerance and my Loverly Husband praised my self-sacrificing spirit and dedication to making our children happy. It wasn’t as bad as I was expecting, but since I was expecting my ears to start bleeding, that’s not really saying much. The kids loved it which was, of course, the point.
After the movie, we had lunch (and scored some awesome heavy-duty cardboard tubes from Subway that they had those huge window decals in – not sure what we’re going to use them for but I just know they’ll come in handy) and I got some pretty good shots of the kiddos. While we were eating, a little yellow spider attempted to make it’s home in LittleBoyBlue’s shoe. We ousted him and were going to look up what kind it was but have so far been unsuccessful.
As we were finishing up, another family with several kids came to picnic in the same area we were in. Turns out the little girl was a former classmate of the kids’. I went and talked to their mom for a bit and we got into a great discussion about education and homeschooling. I know that some moms run up against opposition when others find out that they’re homeschooling, but I never have. Everyone I’ve talked to pretty much is interested if not outright supportive. It’s really nice to live in an area where my choices are validated by other moms.
They were headed to the library too, so we all went together. While the kids browsed, I found out that LittleBoyBlue actually won a prize for the summer reading club (SRC). We don’t know what he won yet – we go pick his prize up next week. That was a huge boost to his reading confidence. He’s definitely more excited to read now that he thinks there might be a reward in it. PeaGreen was understandably upset. I forget sometimes that he’s still such a little kid. He thinks it’s terribly unfair that his brother won and he didn’t. He’s pretty much past it now, but the disappointment was profound for a while there.
After the library, we went over to the Civic Center for a science lesson with Gary Saurage and Jana Parr from Gator Country (and CMT’s ‘Gator 911‘) do a presentation for the SRC. The kids always have such a great time when we do anything Gator Country related. We’ve gone on several field trips with school and playgroup, and we’ve taken the kids out there ‘just because’ and they always get so much out of the trip. Gary & Jana were great. They brought an alligator (Chubbs) and a crocodile (Moe) for the kids to hold, and the infamous Banana for the kids to take pictures with. They had to have answered a million questions – you really have to admire people who can patiently and coherently give out as much information as Gary did while wrangling 40 children under the age of 10.
Wednesday, we got our history and social studies lessons in with a presentation on “Timeless Toys” put on by the McFaddin Ward House. The ladies dressed up in clothing from the 1920′s through the 1960′s and showcased toys from those decades. It was interesting to see how many toys we still have and how the packaging has changed, yet still has the same feel. They also let the kids handle the toys, which was great – so many times, it’s ‘look with your eyes not your hands’ and they don’t get much out of it. The ladies had tables set up with different decades and a bunch of toys and interesting things for the kids to explore, like play-dog, silly putty, metal and wooden airplanes and boats, penny tin toys – it was neat to see all the kinds of thing that our grandparents might have played with.
Thursday we didn’t have any big plans, so I sent the kids out to explore. I told them to take the camera and illustrate their walk. Here are a couple of the pictures they came back with.
It was really interesting to see the things that they chose to photograph. I love just handing them the (shatterproof, waterproof – basically kid-proof) camera and giving them free rein*. It makes seeing the world from their perspective much more interesting. They took pictures of our house, the pool, the backyard, each other – they must have taken 50 pictures (have I mentioned how much I love the digital camera age??) and many of them turned out reasonably well. I’m going to print them and have the kids write the story to go along with their pictures when we start M5.
And of course, Thursday evening was the roller derby game that I posted about last week. It’s a record – I’m in the paper 3 months in a row, lol.
This bout was a double-header with Spindletop Rollergirls and the Houston Roller Derby. They mixed the teams up to form 4 teams – Scars and Stripes (white) vs. The Bill of Fights (blue) played first and blue won. Then The Patriot Axe (red) vs. Babraham Lincolns (black) played a tight game – at 0:03, the score was 100/99 red. Since my sister was playing on black, that was a bad thing. Thankfully roller derby games don’t stop when the clock runs out, they stop when the jam is over. With 3 seconds left on the clock, that means one more jam… in which black racked up an impressive 16 points and the win!
][[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[=rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrtkmmmmmmmmmmm <——- (our new cat, Cosmo’s thoughts on this post… more about him in a couple of paragraphs…)
Friday was supposed to be our Homeschool Group’s Park Day, but it was raining (again – like it has been all week thanks to the hurricane down south) so the park was under water and we went to the bookstore instead.
This morning was Home Depot’s kids workshop – they got to make a periscope. That’s a pretty cool little toy! The boys are definitely getting better at making these little things. We’ve done 4 or 5 at Lowe’s and this is our second one at HD and I am definitely seeing improvements in their building skills.
Afterwards, we went to lunch and then to PetSmart to ‘look’ – at least that’s what we told the boys. In reality, we were planning to adopt a kitten. I’m not a dog person and my Loverly Husband is and has been lobbying hard to get a dog ‘for the children’ for some time. This is his latest attempt to convince me that animals are not the great evil I am predisposed to believing they are, and that our home might be enhanced by the addition of one or more small creatures in it. I have to give him credit – it’s working. We browsed dogs and then cats (then birds, hamsters and hermit crabs) and settled on a sweet little cream and orange tabby. He’s buff colored all over with no white, active enough to keep up with the boys but big enough to not be skittish or dangerously small under busy feet. We went through several names (including and discarding ‘Spot’, ‘Mr. Sprinkles’ and ‘Fluffy’) and finally settled on Cosmo.
After playing all afternoon with two very excited little boys, Cosmo’s new perch is apparently going to be the back of my chair in the living room. As long as he keeps his claws out of my hair, we’re cool. {wink} This is the boys’ first real pet. We’ve had fish before, but this is out first foray into the world of furry. So far, so good!
Warmly,
~h
* In an interesting side note, I found this about the expression ‘free rein’ vs. ‘free reign’. Interesting reading!
Get Outdoors!
Apparently, today is National Get Outdoors Day. I only found out about it by accident, when I stumbled across A Magical Childhood’s blog, linked to from Peaceful Parenting,which I was reading for another post that will go up in the next few days on eco-consciousness – so look for that!
Anyhoo… we had a full day outdoors planned already, so I’m glad that we got to participate in the national event, even if it was only consciously for the afternoon. As I’ve mentioned before, our Farmer’s Market is on Saturdays, and we’re trying to go every other week (which is when we grocery shop). This was the second time we’ve gotten to go, and the first time we’ve actually bought something. I found some absolutely gorgeous tomatoes, huge blackberries (big as my thumb!), lovely little blueberries, honey from local bees, bell peppers and onions. The kids were hot and hungry and whiney, as evidenced by their expressions:
so we were only there for about 45 minutes – I woke the kids up, dressed them and we were out the door sans breakfast, so we went through McDonalds (I know, I know – but it’s a rare indulgence) for McGriddles for the boys and to Chick Fil A for chickin-minis and coffee (that lovely, delicious, life-sustaining elixir of life – COFFEE!!) for me.
The market was just teeming with activity this morning. It was nice to be out and about so early. I’m typically not a morning person, but lately, I’ve come to respect (if not full-on ‘enjoy’) the early morning. I’ve been getting up when my husband leaves for work, so I’ve had some time – usually no more than half an hour or so - before the kids get up and it’s really nice to have the time to myself.
We had to wait a while between breakfast and the kids’ workshop at Lowe’s, so while the kids played, I revised our calendar for the next couple of months. Our Library’s Summer Reading Program has a ton of events and I didn’t realize that it would be the same presentation at multiple locations, so we double-booked on a couple. Then we headed over to the post office to mail off our first 5 PostCrossing postcards – to Greece, Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany and Brazil. It’s a really neat site – you register and send out postcards to people all over the world, and then your name goes into the post and you get postcards from all over. You have the opportunity to contact each other after the postcard is received, so I would imagine that you could pick up an international pen-pal if you were so inclined. One of our postcard recipients has a daughter that is 8, so we’re going to send her a postcard as well. The optimist-homeschool-mom in me totally sees that playing out in a pen-pal sort of way, lol. Whether the boys will be interested in writing to her or not is probably a different matter! In any case, whatever postcards we get are going to be going up on a wall in our school room, and we’ll add a push-pin to a wall map to track the ones we send out in one color and the ones we get back in another color. I’m excited about it!
Once we got to Lowe’s, some friends of ours, LittleBoyBlue’s best friend from school and his mom and some of our homeschooling friends, came and met us to do the craft. The kids made a picture frame. This was by far the most complicated build we’ve had so far. Granted, this is only our third class, but still. They did a great job building them though, and had fun visiting with their friends. It’s been hard coordinating busy schedules to get the kids together lately; I’m really glad we had a chance to do that today.
After working with man-tools, we went over to Michael’s craft store for a more artsy Father’s Day themed craft – a hand-painted camouflage picture frame. I doubt that our dad will actually get the frame – he’s not really a picture frame kinda guy; but he will appreciate the craftsmanship and artistic allure of their work, I am sure. Michael’s also had a ceramic mug with markers that is actually the craft for tomorrow – we might just go back since they’ll be on sale for $1.50 – plus you get to keep the markers, which are permanent on anything ceramic. I can just see all kinds of uses for ceramic markers. It’s amazing how blank and plain all our white dishes are now in my mind {wink}.
Factor in a trip to the grocery store to re-stock the pantry for the next 2 weeks, and then we headed back home for a lunch of fresh fruit and veggies, sandwiches and I think the kids had ramen noodles. Not my favorite, but they do enjoy cooking “worms”, as they call them. It’s one of the few things that they can cook mostly by themselves. Now that I think about it, they probably could cook more. Maybe we’ll work on that in home-ec this coming week.
After catching up on this week’s Merlin, we changed clothes and headed out to the pool (after checking on our tomatoes, which are GROWING!!), where we spent the rest of the afternoon. My mom and my grandmother came out to swim with us, so we had a nice little visit with them – one of the perks of living next door to two sets of relatives, I think.
All in all, I’d say that today was well-spent. I hope your family was able to Get outdoors and enjoy some family-togetherness fun today!
Warmly,
~h
Lazy Sunday
This is our first weekend after a week of homeschooling. Normally – well, the “old” normally, I would be making sure that the kids’ school uniforms were washed and ready to go for the week, backpacks were ready, homework, projects and supplies for the week were done, gathered and ready to go and all that jazz.
It is so nice to be able to relax and not worry about any of that. Our family is all at home right now. My husband is watching football, I’m working (and blogging, which is not technically “work”, but it suits me for the moment) and my kids are snuggled up together watching cartoons in my bed (even though I instituted a ban on TV last week, we altered it to be weekdays only). No one is rushed and my mind is clear and relaxed. I don’t have a thousand things weighing on me to finish or get together and it is so very nice.
I just wanted to share.
Warmly,
~h
