Dr. Suess, the CFO and eggs

Oooh, this sounds like some kind of weird sci-fi movie, but I'm just catching you up on the girls' school activities.  Last week they celebrated Dr. Seuss' Birthday with a Fox in Socks theme.  I discovered that I don't own any interesting or crazy socks, but luckily the kids do.

The 5th grade has been studying eggs and little sister also wanted to have a "baby" egg.  We even made her a skirt.  

They had to build something for an egg to be dropped of the roof of the school.  Parachutes really help and the egg survived.

This week Kevin and I got to help the 5th graders on their field trip to JA Biztown.  The kids get to run the businesses and Kyla was the CFO of the town newspaper,

 which meant a lot of desk work.  

This year she made it to the Animal Shelter after her second paycheck and adopted a puppy before they were all gone.  

Elephants, Tigers, and Bears. Oh my!

Tuesday, May 25

On Sunday the girls and I along with two other families, got to go on a "behind the scenes"  tour at the Oregon Zoo.   It lasted over 2 hours and we got to visit, give snacks to and touch several animals.  I could probably do a separate post about each animal, but instead I'll link you up to the zoo's info page and just show a couple of my 200 photos.  If you want to go straight to the photo album (only 56 photos), click here. 

After it was all over, the girls suddenly realized what a special even this was.  They just kept saying, "Mom, that was so awesome!"  I know! 

First stop was our own personal show/feeding session/photo op with Chendra the elephant. 

Then I asked her handler to show me the end of her trunk.  

Then he told her to blow.  Doh!  I'm so gullible.  My first instinct was to protect my camera, but I wasn't fast enough.   Thank goodness for filters and I hope mine is OK after washing it with a wet wipe and drying with my t-shirt.  I also hope Chendra isn't sick, because I definitely inhaled some elephant germs.  At least I had my glasses on!

Then we got to meet Mo the Humboldt Penguin.  He walked right out of his habitat into the office to meet us.  My photos are a little blurry, but here he is giving Kyla's leg a hug.  Too funny!

Next stop was the bears.  We stayed a few feet away from the door and watched Amy, our guide feed them snacks.  Conrad the polar bear seemed so tame I would have pet him if they would have allowed it. 

I took a ton of photos, but the bars were really cramping my style.  I'm kind of glad they were there while meeting Jody & Vivian, the Sun bears though. 

They started fighting over snacks once and that was a bit scary.  Check out the long tongues and claws these girls have.

Here is Pete, a Black Rhino.  He was very sweet and loves apples, but watch out, you may get slimed!  We even got to pet this guy.

The Hippos, Bubbles & Poppy were also excited to get their snack.  They patiently stood at the gate with their huge mouths open, waiting for the apples to get tossed in.  It was so cool to see these huge animals out of the water.

We had a quick visit to meet Nikki and Mik, Amur Tigers and Kia, an Amur Leopard.  One of the kids asked if why we weren't feeding them - can you say carnivore?  I didn't really get good photos of these guys and Kia was feeling pretty shy.

 

Last stop of the tour was a fun fish feeding session with the Sea Lions, Julius & Gus.

Well, I don't think I missed anyone.  Thanks again to my friend Amy, the zoo keeper and tour guide.  We had a truly unique experience and day at the zoo we will never forget!

Going local

Friday, June 6

I recently finished this book, the first non fiction work by Kingsolver, and it was great. I was very inspired. It was all about how her family lived off local food for a year. Here is a quote that really blows me away.

" If every US citizen ate just one meal per week of local & organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country's oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels... of oil every week."

The day I finished the book I found out the Kyla's 2nd grade class would be taking a trip to a farm on Sauvie Island to learn how food gets to our table. I was so excited to share what I had learned in the book with her.

Well, it's taking me forever to get this posted. For some reason blogger wouldn't save my work, so now a week later I'm recomposing. It was a clear and sunny day, perfect field trip weather. From the bus, we could see all three mountains (St. Helens, Adams, and Hood). Here is Mt. St. Helens peeking through the trellis.

Kyla learned to listen like the owls and sneak like a fox (see her making the fox sign).

First stop was the compost pile, where we learned what dirt is made of - mostly worm and several other kind of bug's poo. At first the kids were grossed out, but then they started digging, holding worms and identifying bugs. There were also some veggies growing out of the compost pile, we tried some kale and arugula. The pic on the right show the lovely greens they were growing at the farm.

Next we headed out to learn the life cycle of plants and plant parts. We also identified some seeds. That was tough - don't think I've ever seen kale or turnip seeds. Here are the kids, walking down a row so they can plant some turnip seeds. They also tried some of those purple flowers on the right, chives. Oooh, a little too spicy.

After lunch, we went to a shady grove of pine trees and learned about the food chain and what kind of animals you find on the farm. We searched and found a lot of evidence that owls live on the farm. We also learned that owl pellets are not poop, it's vomit. Owls eat their prey whole and have to get rid of all the indigestibles. Here is the vole skull that we found.

It was a great field trip. Look for part 2 about going local in our own backyard later this week.

My First Field Trip

Friday, March 20

I still don't have the beach pictures posted, but I do have pictures from Kyla's field trip to Whitaker Ponds this week. It was my first elementary school field trip, since Sydney was in preschool that day, I was able to tag along. We got to ride the school bus, which is exciting for the kids that live close enough to walk (that's us). It turned out to be educational and fun. I'm sure I missed some of the talk as I was busy taking pictures, so don't quiz me. I did learn that the ponds filter water from the storm drains of Portland. The kids learned about lots of plants and birds. My camera batteries died right when we spotted a great blue heron - darn!

So glad I found Kyla some boots at a second hand store recently - it was muddy! Here they are learning how to properly plant some water tolerant shrubs called Spirea.

Here's Kyla digging a hole for her plant. She ended up using her hands, those gloves will never be the same.After planting it was time to study macro (don't need the microscope to see them) invertebrates. First you have to catch them.

Then you suck 'em up and separate them into ice-cube trays and identify them using provided cheat sheet. A pair of boys even caught a tiny fish. Sorry, it was too hard to take pictures of the water bugs.At the end they returned their water and surviving bugs to the pond.Here's a bonus picture for getting to the end. I did a little editing, but willow trees always look so dreamy don't they?