Frog Hunt

With the beautiful weather, we've been hitting the Arboretum almost every week.

Last week, we actually had a picnic in the lilac maze (best place in the world for hide and seek), but the week before, we went frog hunting at the dogwood garden.


We started out finding this bug, interesting because it's an actual bug in the entomological sense.

I generally call all insects bugs, but I was chided for this by an entomologist at the Natural History museum.  A ladybug is not a bug, it's a beetle.  A stink bug, OTH, is a real bug.

 We found no frogs, but three or four toads in the pool at the bottom of the garden.  I'd love to know what kind they are: they are concrete colored and have strange yellow spots on the backs of their thighs.

The kids caught some, but we found no tadpoles.

Then a helpful arboretum employee passed by and explained that the pond had recently been drained and cleaned and all tadpoles moved to the cypress pond.

Aha!  To the cypress pond!

They had a lot of frogs!  We also saw lots and lots of egg masses, but no tadpoles.  I think they were hanging out under the duckweed.

We'll just have to go back in another week!

UPDATE: The "toads" were actually Gray's Treefrogs!

Pity Me!

Or: The Downside to Marrying an English Teacher.  Which would be random speaking in iambic pentameter.  Doesn't sound too bad until you consider iambic pentameter before breakfast.

Confession time: I have what could be delicately described as an impaired sense of rhythm.  I don't dance, I have a hard time with music, and I seldom attempt poetry. I can manage limericks, but I have a really hard time with iambs, dactyls (except pterodactyls), metrical foots (should be meters, dude), and other alien life forms.

So, iambic pentameter before breakfast is hard on me.   The Emperor, OTH, can just speak Shakespearean,
the worst of which was the example, "I ate the head of Megatron, indeed!"

How's This for Real?

A friend dropped by to pick up some stuff and drop off a lovely gift, and stayed for tea.  At some point during a delightful conversation, she asked, "So, what are your kids learning?"

My mind went completely blank.  Up until that moment, I had forgotten that she's the Latin teacher at our local Classical Curriculum school.

All I could think of was, "Oh, you know....stuff."  Which I elegantly refrained from saying (barely)!

I came up with something like, "Uh, Biology.... and everyone is doing Math..."

Doh!  I'm totally blaming this on pregnancy brain.

Eventually, I also came up with the facts that Mxyl and Klenda had just written a book, Zorg that day had finished the last Pre-Algebra lesson, and we had recently finished the world's longest study of US History.

I should have brought up all the art, horseback lessons, ancient history, Spanish, fossil hunting, computer animation, and gardening that we've been doing lately!

Actually, I think it was just a polite question, and for all that I think of myself as "not particularly caring what people think," I processed it as "Are your children actually learning anything?".  The phrasing "what are they learning" threw me for a loop. I know a great deal about what I'm teaching.  What they are learning is inherently more mysterious, particularly since much of what they are learning has little to do with me!

 If I were able to do it over I would just say, "Why don't you ask them?"

The picture of the cute baby groundhogs are a complete ruse.  We found them under a barn while Marching Through Time - there were four, but I only got a picture of two.

Tenderfoot!

Last night, Zorg moved up to Tenderfoot!

Congratulations, Zorg!!!

For the non-scouters, you start out at scout, then comes Tenderfoot, Second Class, First Class, Star (Mxyl's rank), Life, and Eagle.

Zorg you are on your way!!

Breaking News!

I have great news!  As you may have noticed with the widget, we are expecting another baby!

We are super early (due Jan 1st) but I am telling you now to beg for prayers.  As most of you know, I lost the last three babies in a row.

This time I am on progesterone, and the test was a good strong positive, so we are feeling hopeful (and in need of prayers).

Marching Through Time!

 Mxyl, Klenda and I went marching, anyway.  The Emperor took the rest of the Zoomlians to the BSO.

We saw friends, Romans, and countrymen...

OK, we made new friends, and saw a fair amount of country folk.  And we did see Romans (shown here advancing on a barbarian while beating their shields with their swords).

 We saw Celts!

We saw Charlamagne's encampment!  We saw Charlamagne's living descendents!  No wait, we were Charlamagne's living descendents...

We saw Vikings!  This meant entirely differnt things for Klenda and Mxyl...

 Klenda tried on armor!

Klenda danced!

 Mxyl plotted to take over the world with the Infinity Gauntlet.

Mxyl:"And I plan to rule it with an iron fist".

He got this from the Six Little Ducks:
Six little ducks that I once knew
Fat ones, skinny ones, cute ones, too
But the one little duck
With the feather on his back
He ruled the others with

AN IRON FIST!!!!

I'm sure we didn't sing it that way with the first few kids...

 Mxyl also tried out a sword (100 Years War).

And  another sword (War of the Roses).

And a bunch of armor not pictured.

And some swords not shown here, including some really interesting zweihanders at the Renaissance German encampment.

We discussed the finer points of swords and arrows (so to speak).

Klenda went back to dancing.


We were having a wonderful time, but we were starting to get hot and a little tired.  That's when I realized we had been there nearly three hours!

We'd seen barely half the reenactors!  We hadn't even made it to the Americans yet!

We decided to go get lunch and go home while it was still fun!  Maybe tomorrow....

Down by the Bay With a Microscope Snob

 We made our first trip of the year down to the Chesapeake Bay to look for shark teeth!

We were there about an hour and came back with 107 Miocene fossils!

We had 16 bone fragments from marine mammals, 14 ray plates and 77 shark teeth!

Choclo was very impressed when I explained that the Egyptian mummies are 3000 years old, but the shark teeth are 30,000 times that old!

Plus, we had a lovely day at the beach and a nice picnic!

When we got home, I hauled out our brand new (university surplus) microscope (Thank you Mr. Bill!!!) to look at the sample of Bay water I had inadvertently puddled thoughtfully collected.

I am head over heels in love with this new scope!  Microscopes are like sewing machines.  People who are just starting buy a cheap machine to see if they like it.  The machine balks at every turn, does a terrible job, they get frustrated and decide, no, they don't like it.

A good machine, OTH, is a joy to use.  More to the point, it's easy to use.  A careful 6 year old can spend many happy hours with a good microscope!

What are you looking for in a microscope?  You want something binocular (2 eyepieces) so you don't have to squint, one fairly low objective to make it easy to find what you are looking for, and one or two higher objectives so you can get a closer look.  Cast off university (or laboratory) scopes are ideal.

I paid $40, thanks to Mr. Bill being on the look out!  If this scope were new, it would cost $800- $1000, but it has a lot of extras (an oil objective for example) and it's a heavy duty scope. It's also at least 15 years old and made of metal.  I saw decent basic scopes for $200.  It pays to go surplus!!

Things to Look Out For

Last night, Choclo poked himself in the eye.  An hour after he was supposed to be asleep.

As it happened, the Emperor and I were off having a top secret date.  Evidently, the kids had not gotten the memo that we were gone and that Rose was around to handle such things.

So they handled it themselves.  Mxyl and Klenda comforted Choclo, gave him a cold pack and got him settled down.  Perfect!

Flying, Ear Eating Tarantulas!

In the lower bunk, however, Oob was feeling shortchanged and Mxyl texted us the details:  "I hurt, too.  A thing at the beach ate my ear.   It was a tarantula, a LITTLE tarantula, a flying....Thing....A bee stinged me right here and I need  a cold pack.  A little thing like a gnat or something."

Watch out for those!

On Giants' Shoulders: Once Upon A Time

On Giants' Shoulders: Once Upon A Time

We are living in interesting times.

Portfolio Problem

I found this in the younger boys room.

How creative!  I could take a picture and put it in their home school portfolios!

Then I realized all those little things on the top level are heads.

And then I realized the things on the bottom level are skulls!

So, if I put in the portfolio, it would fit under:

1.Evil Genius: Basic Theory and Application

2. Manifestations of Menace 101

3. Art: Creation of Creepiness in Three Dimensions.

Or 4. Creative Anachronisms in Society

For the record I decided to go with English.

Obviously, the guy with the gun looks English.