Night Heron of the Morning

9am
Local Park
Spring has Sprung!

Such a noticeable difference in the sounds of the place now. Bird calls everywhere, getting worms, mating, building nests. No tropical jungle, but for here, a big difference. Just a week after the trees have blossomed.

So we go the wetland boardwalk, and at the beginning I see this white reflection. We creep up on this never before seen bird and watch it fly from the water to a tree and sit to watch us.

Mockingbird decided to name it a Blue Fisher even though we later learned it was a Black-capped Night Heron. I love that name, I must think of someone I can name that...it sounds so tidy yet mysterious.

Last time we went we saw the pond's muskrat for the first time swim the entire length of the pond.
It's just thrilling to me that a place you frequent weekly for three years can still hold so much to be discovered.

Charlotte Mason is like that for me. Layers and layers of knowledge and connections to be discovered. I think that is what I love most about her approach- letting the student discover it and make it their own. Not something introduced to you to the point that all mystery and personal investment is obliterated.

On a Wild Turkey Chase

Not chicken scratch, turkey tracks. About two weeks apart, we discovered a flock of 40 turkeys in the same section of Alpine Loop. A recent snowfall made it a lot cooler than we were prepared for-the valley-dwellers that we are.

 

 

But finding this flock was worth it. The Tom strutted blue & red faced out in the middle of the road and their tracks were easier to photograph than they were...

 

Still, it's fun to see something so very wild, just living naturally. There's just something so exciting about finding something in the world that has always been there, yet never personally witnessed on this scale before. This  South Carolina Cooperative Extension website was very informative on them. In the flock we saw only one mature Tom, but there must have been more as this was a winter flock still banded together. (Tom tail up in left third of picture between 2 trees)

Cardboard Cathedral part I

When Bowery Bird was in Y2 we made cardboard castle. There are catapults and crossbows and all kinds of other instructions for Middle Ages stuff to be made by kids. But it all looked too complicated. But I'm not an engineer, I'm an artist. Maybe when I have a boy in Y2. This go around we are making a cathedral. Easy, right? We had friends over today to help/distract us, depending on the time.

I looked up simple floor plans and images to remind myself what they actually look like, then started cutting. The girls enjoyed making stain-glass windows on tracing paper with color pencils.

Here is the nave and a flying buttress (patent pending). So it's just stuck in with a slit between windows and is in fact, really flying in this picture...I scored the upper half above the windows to fold over making a steep roof when connected with the other side. The slit at the end of the nave is where the folds come out for the transept, or crossbeam of the cross in the cathedral floor plan.

 

This is my favorite part so far. 7y/o Mockingbird did the catacombs. This is just a flat piece that goes below. So there are the color-pencil gardens around the cathedral, and then the buried king, saint, lady, and knight in their tombs below. I was thinking we could open their coffins and see something surprising inside, but this idea never came up. I think it is only because the boys all went to play elsewhere...otherwise it would have only been a matter of time... Then there are "stairs" above.

 

 

We watched this film just before I pulled out the cardboard pieces and assigned parts to work on. It is an older movie, I think geared toward children. It's all very appropriate but quite cerebral.

Cathedral is an animated story where a fictitious cathedral is being built little by little interspersed with two guides taking us to actual cathedrals in Europe to show us relics, gargoyles, windows, and other unique bits about cathedrals. I think it was worthwhile, but I didn't make them finish it, a lot is learned in any part of it, and I was starting to see the squirming surface from the six on the sofa so...we had lunch.

We'll finish it later.

SLC Book Sale scores

Another Awesome Salt Lake City Library Sale!
This time Bowery Bird came with me and found The Song of Robin Hood (gorgeous), several Nancy Drew, and a Paper, Scissors, Sculpt (inspiring).
I was able to score Churchill's History of the English Speaking Peoples for a mere $8, Dictionary of Ships, DK World War II, some Janson art books, Oxford Anthology of English Poetry, and several BSA Merit Badge booklets, Beatrix Potter stories on 4 cds, and too many paperbacks.
I even made it patiently past the man purchasing hundreds of books--they brought in a cart for him-as in Costco dolly.
I was there 2 hours and felt a little rushed-it's that big, and was that good this go-round. Can't wait for next time now that I've paid my $15 membership fee.

Spring Break 2013

What do mothers do all day!
I hear myself, exasperated say.
It is spring break for them, for me
and I'm not sure which feels more free!
(insert hysterically giddy laugh)

There's no math lessons, no drills
 of which to grit our teeth.
No piles of readings,
worlds of words with meanings beneath,

No-how do you spell 'usually'
or trying to identify some blooming tree
No shushing the screamer who wants another 'nack
No spelling rules (drop the y) to keep track

No pulling together of 4 different orbits
Or preaching sermons from 4 different pulpits
No hysteric calming (theirs or mine)
We just roam about with oodles of time...


I organize my bathroom closets, my pantry!
even sort the sordid clean laundry
I start to paint, to write, to draw!
I watch a movie-then 3 more
I plan my month's menus-
like never before
(I even think about mopping the floor.)

But I forget to read stories aloud for an hour
I let slip the scheduled scripture power
I miss hearing piano
and seeing them play
I fall into projects that take all day
The children are gone morning to night
with their friends, outside, then come home to fight


It's a free for all-almost
An instructional educational-coast
I walk from the shore toward the sound of sirens
Of time to think, to create, just silence.
Then Monday sends us all back, one week from the day
home to schedules and boundaries all gone astray

and it's good to be home, I say
those things,
those creations,
that organized bliss
is meant for another season
not this.