a robyns nest

Abstract...

The Boy and I attended a class this morning at a local art gallery...I should mention that this class was organized by a fellow homeschooling mama with a very  young baby...a heroic effort  when considering all the other things she has to take care of these days.  THANK YOU Jen :) 

The gallery has some great abstract pieces on display right now.  These were the guiding force behind the pieces the kids created later in the morning.

And of course, I had to get in on the action too....

Amazing what you can accomplish with some paint, yarn, and a little  glitter glue ;)

As far as I'm concerned.....this should be a national holiday.  Hell...while we're at it, let's just go ahead and make  ALL fiber festivals into national holidays.  Alpacapalooza anyone?

 

There is something magical about throwing a bunch of fiber addicts into a room together....fill that room with various blends and textures and colours (oh the colours!) of fiber and......well, let's just say I saw a lot of happy people today ;)  I heard more than one contented sigh as I watched people of all ages lovingly petting hanks and skeins of wool. 

The Sheep to Shawl folks were out in force again this year.  Read the rules on the website....this is serious business people.  

Aaannnnd....you didn't really expect that I would come home empty-handed, did you?  That's 4 oz's of goodness right there.

I stopped short of this guy though....please mom...can I have him?  Puuh-leeeaase?

nirvana...

Without exaggerating, I feel that I can safely say that The Boys entire life (all 5 years of it) has been leading up to this apex moment last week.  He and I took a solo trip up to Edmonton to visit my sister and family... while there, we took a day trip to the  Royal Tyrrell Museum .

(tangent alert...I HIGHLY recommend making a point of traveling solo at some point with each of your kids...or at least taking each child out individually on "dates"....it really was magical to spend time with this monkey one on one....)

I wouldn't be lying, either, if I mentioned that as soon as we entered the exhibits this Boy Child went FULLY into character, and began to stalk every human in the museum....he WAS a carnivorous dinosaur.  That's my boy :)  All those years (all 5 of them) of stalking his little sister have finally paid off ;)

Honestly, though...The Mama's favorite exhibit had nothing to do with dinosaurs (shhh...don't tell anyone...).

The Story of Life, by Lorraine Malach, hangs in the entry way of the museum.  Malach applied her unique talents to the creation of a series of large ceramic panels portraying life forms from the Precambrian to the Cretaceous. She used human-based figures to tell the story, linking the study of paleontology to the present day and intending visitors to develop their own personal interpretations. A total of ten panels, each four feet wide and eight feet high, it is simply stunning.  Malach passed away before finishing this masterpiece, but a few dedicated friends made sure it was completed in her unique style.

my top 10...

 

In honor of big sunhats, the approaching end of summer, and almost a year and a half  of blogging....today's post is a collection of my ten favorite entries from this bloggy adventure.

I hold the selected posts dear for a variety of reasons.  Some were selected because although they were written in moments of mama chaos when  I wanted to rip my hair out.... now, several months later, I can laugh.  And that is good.    Others were selected because they remind me of things I want to....well, of things I want to make sure I always remember, I guess.  And still others made the pick simply because they are pretty... :)  So there.  Enjoy the ride!!

*  My son is an addict...

* Where babies wait...

* Mixed media...

* The Mouse King...

* Two Haikus...

* Angry Chickens...

* Love ...

* T.V. free, Day 4....

* Hepin'...

* Can we talk for a minute? (scroll down to May 13th)

bzzzz...

We added a second level, or super, to our hive this past week.  Our colony has taken full advantage of living in such a rich agricultural area, and has nearly filled the 10 frames  they started with.  They have dedicated much of that space to their nursery, which is a good sign.  If they feel like they need to add members to the colony, then they must feel confident about their food source. 



We added what is referred to as a "short" super (6 inches deep , as opposed to a full sized super which is 9 inches) and a queen extractor (the metal grid you see in the pic)  The extractor goes between the original super and the new one, ensuring that the queen stays on the bottom level (she can't fit through) and thus, all nursery activity stays down there too.  This leaves the upper levels to be used by the workers exclusively for honey storage, which is where we will harvest from in the Fall.  Theoretically you can keep stacking supers  one on top of the other as your colony grows,  however,  our city requires us to stop at 2.

There we are, 2 story's high.  The thin silver layer between the two supers is the queen extractor.  Did you know that in it's lifetime, one bee will make only 1/12 tsp of honey? 

And while we're talking about bees, check out this  Heifer International project designed to help struggling families around the world earn income through the sale of honey, beeswax and pollen.   

 

1/4 million ...

If you've followed this blog for any length of time, you are no doubt familiar with some of The Boys' obsessions.  An opportunity arose for him to fully experience one such fascination last night.  It was too good to pass up :)  The Yolo Basin Foundation, an organization local to the Davis/Sacramento area, offers a series of...wait for it...wait for it...... Bat Walks throughout the summer.  I know you were all hoping for something dinosaur related...



The underside of this stretch of highway which runs over a wetland area between Davis and Sacramento, is home to one of the largest colonies of Mexican free-tailed bats in California.  It strikes me as such an interesting melding of humans and nature. 

It is thought that close to 1/4 million bats live here.  You can see the beginnings of the evening hunt as the first few hundred or so bats make their exit near the tree in the above photo.... always the same tree, night after night without fail.

The Boy was duly impressed, although I'm not sure if it was the bats, or the opportunity to ride in the front passenger seat  (less than 5 miles an hour on a dirt road out to the observation site) which left the most significant mark on him ;) . 

" We want to regain responsibility, to actually share the mantle of responsibility with our children, for not only their education but also their lives. Learning at home is not just about learning to read or write. It is not just about learning how to add two numbers together or knowing why a whale is not a fish. It is about learning to live, to interact, to be a part of a community that is comprised not just of children doing children things, but also of people doing people things. Not being labeled and thereby limited—as a student in a particular grade, as a jockor a nerd, or even merely as a child—is part of what homeschooling has to offer. "

- Quote by Jeffrey S. Cramer -- A Different Education

escaping the heat.....

109 degrees outside....what better way to pass the day away, than to drive an hour to San Francisco?  So MUCH to do, and (most importantly, as far as I'm concerned) it was 25 degrees cooler.  Ahhhhh..... relief.



A visit to the Aquarium of the Bay was in order.  One walk-through turned into two....once just wasn't enough I guess ;)  It was magical for all of us.... the first time for both kids to see many sea creatures live and in person...until now, sharks and jellyfish of this size existed only in books (and very vividly in their minds! ).



That look of complete wonder and pure amazement on their faces is hard to beat.

 

owl puke*...
*thank you, Charlene for setting me straight!!

It is well over 100 degrees here today....definitely a good day to stay inside and pull apart some owl pellets.  We are fortunate to have a very healthy Barn Owl population around our house.  A good friend has a pair nesting in  one of her trees.  In her words "come on by and grab some pellets!  Our poo is your poo*!"   I tell ya, that's a true friend ;)

I looked around online and found this simple bone identification chart, as well as this site, if you'd like to do something similar, but don't have owls living nearby.



Even the teeny-weeny hands got in on the action.  Our biggest score of the afternoon, by far....



To clean off bits of fur, and um...whatever else was stuck on there (ahem) we put the bones in a 4:1 water/bleach solution.  (Just for a few minutes, or the bones will disintegrate)



There was a brief moment when the kids realized what exactly, an owl pellet is. 

"Oh....it's poo*? "

In that moment, I wasn't sure if I was going to lose them.  In my mind's eye, I could see them running away from the table shrieking "eeeewwwwwww! "

I should have known better, though.  I mean, when you're 5 years old .... what's cooler than poo?

**And now that we know the truth...the whole thing is even cooler!!  Puke scored even bigger points than poo ;)

five....

A certain boy celebrated his birthday last month.  It wasn't a big surprise that he requested a bee-theme for his big day.  Between you and me, it makes this mama very happy that her boy wanted nothing more than a day spent tending the bees with his Ito, an evening spent cooking around the campfire, and a night spent sleeping in his new tent :)





Did I tell you we finally got our own bees here at our house?  Your first clue was probably the addition of a few bee-related books to our reading list.   So far, so good.  We're enjoying the learning curve, and looking forward to delicious wild honey this fall.