Emily's taken jazz and some ballet at The Dance Barn, and performed in the Nutcracker and the Spring Recital. She loves it! I even took an adult ballet class there, as well as a hip hop workshop on a Saturday. This is a locally owned studio, and the owners are homeschooling parents. So I'm linking again to the school and the blog. That link takes you to the "publicity" post with a picture of the latest poster advertising the school.
If you have a pet that needs to be fed crickets and the crickets have multiplied, you may find this helpful. Our scorpions eat crickets, and we have two cages--one for mom and one for the young. I have to buy large crickets for mom and small crickets for the babies. Well, I added large crickets to the mom's cage and yes, they've multiplied, again. A scorpion doesn't eat everyday, and I don't try to remove crickets she hasn't eaten, which is what smart pet-owners do. I mean, have you tried finding and catching crickets in a cage filled with shredded coconut husk?
Anyway, the last time this happened, and we had many, many more crickets than was healthy to keep in the scorpion cage, I came up with a simple way to gather them for removal to a critter keeper to be fed to the scorpion later. I am having that problem again, so I thought I'd write about it.
I put a square, clear plastic container (we buy rice and couscous in this kind of container--and now I feel justified in saving said containers) on its side in the tank, and put cricket food in the container. After just a few minutes or maybe as long as an hour, the crickets will be drawn to the food and hop in. When you are ready to move them, take the lid or a piece of cardboard and put it over the opening to the container and then just dump the crickets wherever you want--outside if you don't want to keep them.
You won't get all of them at one time, but in the last 20 minutes I've been able to transfer crickets twice--once to the baby scorpions' tank and once to a critter keeper. There were at least 10 crickets of various sizes in the container each time. There are still a lot in the mom's tank, so I'll do this all day today and hope to get most of them out. At least I won't have to go buy more crickets for a long time!
The kids only, not me, not Eddie, just the kids. Well ok, they didn't drive themselves there and they didn't travel alone. Our wonderful friend Patti and her son Gabriel invited Emily and Thomas to go with them for a week. It's the pony swim and auction week, too! Gabe's dad is joining them later.
Loading up our car--Patti said to pack light . . .
But then this is what it all looked like!
They are ready to go! Poor dog Andy has to stay; I'm sure he'd love to run around with the ponies though.
I thought they might be skink eggs, but I'm not positive. They were in a larger pile of dirt, right where they are, but we needed to move the dirt and found them there. We've seen five-lined skinks in the area, so that was my first guess. But I read they like to lay eggs in hollowed out logs, so I'm not sure now. Maybe a snake? They're awfully tiny.
Our lovely black ratsnakes [actually eastern ratsnakes now]--we have at least three that keep coming around. Click the album to see all the pictures.
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| July nature |
The first two pics were taken on June 28. These guys were snuggled all together under the bark till I lifted it up.
This one looks like he/she is eating something--a cricket most likely.
And these two pics were taken this morning. The babies are growing! I think I count 15 now! When we first saw that we had baby scorpions, I think I counted only about 8 or 10, so some must have been hiding.
See the cricket in the green lid? He won't be there long. Hahahahahahaha!
They're starting to molt again, too. I found a shed molting the other day--lots bigger than the first ones we found.
First we have Momma bluebird feeding her babies.
This is some cool lichen growing on my hollowed-out-log planter.
And here is some more. At least I think it's classified as lichen. Anyone with more info, please share!
That is one out of control plant--and I don't remember what it is! It's not squash of any kind. I think it's a gourd, because I had a lot of seeds saved from last year. Guess I'll have to wait to find out.
He's so proud of his crowing that he feels he must crow often for us all to appreciate it fully.
Pretty hens free-ranging.
What do these two things have in common, one might ask?
Well I have an answer.
Kids play tennis. Moms play Bananagrams during said tennis lessons.
We can usually play two games during their lesson. Unless one of us starts talking (or chit-chatting as Thomas calls it) and stops really thinking and planning her words . . .
The pic of my Bananagramophile friend was taken at the playground while our kids were running around. We drew a bit of attention from some other kids who came to watch and give advice. :)
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive. -- Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.
-- William Hazlitt (1778 - 1830)
This was fun! Emily figured it would be a really smart idea to have a harness for the hen that would be in the parade with her.
Originally, she thought the hen would walk with her, but we didn't really think a hen would "get" the idea of following on a leash. :) Still, the harness allowed Emily to attach a leash and gave her something to hold onto in case the chicken went nutso. They're known to do that--trust me.
We took a pair of her old size 8 khakis I'd held onto, just in case I might need the material "some day." I feel so justified now. :) Anyway, we had some measurements that Emily took of one of the hens--you know, the typical ones you always take: beak to tail, wing to wing across the chest, top of one wing across to the bottom of the other, etc.
We used the front of the pants for the chest, sort of like our dog's car harness, really. Then we cut strips from the legs and made them into tubes, pulled them right-side-out to make straps, and attached them at the top.
I used one pant leg hem to go very loosely around the hen's neck. I made a button-hole in it, and used the button from the front of the chest piece to attach it. Kind of clever, I thought. :)
I made several button holes at regular intervals on both straps since we really weren't sure which hen would be used and how snug the harness would need to be. I attached buttons to the bottom of the harness chest piece. The straps would criss-cross from above the wings, across the back, and then button down near the legs.
On a quick test, we realized that the hen could quickly slip out because the straps weren't sewn to each other and allowed for a lot of movement. Back to the sewing machine and a quick fix to that problem.
Later on, Emily tried it on another [un]willing model and saw that our fix worked great. She could attach a dog leash to a D-ring that was hooked through both the neck loop and the criss-crossed straps, just in case we had a run-away hen. Then she pulled out her Sharpies and colored the whole thing with blue and red, for the parade.
We always enjoy our small-town parade!
This year, Emily decided to carry a hen with her (this one is a light Brahma and her name is Jordan), instead of pulling them behind in a cage-and-wagon combo of years past.
I'm posting info on this upcoming unschooling conference.
Everyone is Invited to:
Enjoy Life Unschooling Conference
21-22 September 2009
in Frederick, MD
at the beautiful Mar Lu Conference Center
Speakers include:
Danielle Conger
Kelly Lovejoy
Elissa Cleaeveland
Heather Burditt
Erika Davis-Pitre
Zoa Connor
and
TJ Phillips leading the SSUDs
Funshops galore!
Hula hopping and hula hoop making
Button making
Video games
Bananagrams tournament
henna
gymnastics
black velvet art
can you think of more? Host a funshop!!!
We will also have a campfire with music, story telling and s'mores :-)
AND
An open mic coffee house live and recorded music, board games, crafts, your special talent to share, coffee, tea, soda and more!!!
join our yahoo group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EnjoyLifeUnschooling/
we are on twitter http://twitter.com/NjoyLifeUnskuln
and facebook http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1161919423&ref=profile#/group.php?gid=109548068495
join us!!!
www.enjoylifeunschooling.com
More details to follow. The website is being constructed and is up and running but not quite finished :-)
Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers: Homeschool Showcase #26
Welcome to the (delayed) June 29, 2009 edition of Homeschool Showcase, where we spotlight all the the encouraging, inspiring, hands-on, and just plain fun ways that homeschooling families live, learn and enjoy life together.
See the "Evolved Homeschooing" and "Homeschoolers on the Web" rings at the bottom of the page.
