M+B=E2O2

The Birds Part 2

Well, I had other thoughts I intended to write about, but I was privy to a scene  today that I feel I must share since I posted about the crows & the hawk yesterday. 

I was up in my room, talking to a loan agent on the phone (remember the whole house problem? This is a post for another day).  I had just opened up the curtain which faces the street.  On the house across the street were two white doves.  One had it's tail feathers flared and was clearly agitated.  A crow was hopping around nearby on the roof.  As I am idly watching, waiting for the loan lady to get back on the phone, the agitated dove takes off over the tree to the house next door.  Out of nowhere swoops in a hawk.  Took that dove right out of the air onto the ground. 

The crows came out in force.

There was one on the ground next to the hawk, but the hawk was not about to surrender its booty.

There were crows lining the eves of the house,

in the tree

and on the street lamp.

  The hawk went to work tearing out the feathers of the dove.  At one point a man who walks the neighbor hood daily comes upon the scene.  He stopped about one house back and just watched.  The hawk, feeling nervous, picked up the now lifeless body of the dove and carried it up the grass off the sidewalk. 

He allowed the man to get with in a few feet before taking off and flying over the houses and landing on the next street.  At least 15 -20 crows followed.  Now If I were the man I'd have given the hawk a wide berth.  Left him to his prize with out the fuss.   

The kids only saw the latter half of the scene.  They were both sad and fascinated.  When we came back form piano lessons today the doves were out (our neighbor down the street has a white dove service)  but instead of all being in one large group as they usually are, there was one group of around 20 that were in a pack and the rest were sort of scattered (another 20 or so).  I've never seen them fly like that.  Within a minute or so we saw why.  A hawk was scouting the area.  Once he arrived on scene, they all flew back to the coop within a few minutes.

Ahhh Nature.

Oh and Vanessa- I completely agree with your comment- they are so totally amazing.  The doves down the street are out for their exercise every afternoon, and the awe of their beauty and flying has not diminished in the last year and a half.  I feel so lucky to see their show.

The Birds

We have a bunch of crows that live in a neighbors tree nearby.  They are often heard cawing and conversing.  There are always two or three birds hopping around our front yard, doing their crow thing.  This morning there was a big crow commotion in the trees so my sister (who is visiting) went out to see what all the fuss was about.

Apparently there was a hawk- a rather large one, too close to their territory.  They dive bombed him  while he sat in a nearby palm tree.  They worked in groups, switching out periodically. They would swoop down from straight above him then just when it looked like the crow would crash into the tree it would pull up from the dive cawing loudly.

This carried on for over 10 minutes.  The hawk went from one palm to another, 3 in all.  Eventually the crows stopped, though they were spread out through the neighborhood, keeping an eye on the tree.  The hawk moved around a bit at one point, without leaving, and 3 crows flew out of no where and started in again.  It was pretty fascinating to watch.  It kept my sister and I out in the cold, misty morning air for a good 15 minutes!

Halloween monster

I had the most frightening experience last night. 

I have this huge fear of spiders- I mean huge. Last year I tried to conquer them - totally unsuccessfully. 

Late last night I was trimming the stems off  a bouquet  of sunflowers so that they'd live another few days.  I gathered the bunch of stems and took them  outside so that I could add them to my compost pile  in the morning.  When I walked outside I could tell immediately that the winds had turned.  As you all know Southern California is on fire and the East winds (aka Santa Ana's) have been  horrific.

This time of the year we always get  Santa Ana's, it is as much a part of fall as red and orange leaves.  In the 30 or so years that I have lived in this state I have never seen them blow  like they have been blowing.   They are a weird experience to begin with.  You look outside and see the clear blue sky.  You know it is mid October.  You see the trees swaying.  In your mind you expect to walk outside and need a jacket.  It looks cold because it is autumn and by golly it is supposed to be cool- even in a southern California beach town.  However when you walk outside you are hit with a hot, dry wind.  It feels like summer, but windier.  I both love and hate the Santa Ana's.  They stir up all sorts of allergens so even if you don't have allergies - you get a runny nose, but they feel kinda nice too- sort of like a warm hug when you least expect it. 

This time there was no warm, gentle hug.  The winds were more like  a hot slap in the face.  The gusts were strong (gusts were clocked at over 100mph!!!!!). I didn't want to drive anywhere for fear of flying debris.  Whole tree limbs were bouncing down our street. 

Back to my story.

The winds turned late yesterday and  effect was immediate.  That cool ocean wind with speckles of moisture gripping your skin.  It was a welcome relief.  I put the flower stems in a pile of leaves that had gathered themselves on my back patio and walked out to the edge of the grass- just under our wood slat awning.  I breathed in deep and felt a web on my arm.  I tried to brush it off- but I couldn't seem to get it.  I glanced up and, I kid you not, less than 12 inches from my face was the biggest mother fricken spider in the whole world.  Huge.  I swallowed a scream and ran in the house doing that "get this GDMF thing off me" dance- you know the one-even if you don't have the mouth of a sailor I'm sure you've done the dance.  I was gulping screams all through the house brushing every inch of me off.  I looked back outside and saw the monster spinning a new web.  Ben, who had gone to be 5 minutes earlier came to the top of the stairs to see what was wrong.  I made him come down and look at the beast.  He is used to my arachnophobia , but even he was impressed and disgusted with the creature. 

Whenever he tries to mush a spider for me it inevitably gets away.  I reminded him of that as he went for shoes and something to beat it with.  It would likely take nothing less than a baseball bat  to knock that thing senseless.  The homeschooling mom in me wanted him to leave it there so we could go out and look at in in the morning and see what kind of beast it actually was.  But then I knew I'd have to make it go away some how or worse capture it for the boys to have play with study and Homie don't do that. 

He ended up capturing it in an old yogurt container ( a big one not the single serving kind) and then he taped it up - can't be too cautious here- and we put it in the trash which will get picked up today thank God.

I hate spiders. 

Here Goes

I have (I hope) a bit of time to post.  Evan's still asleep though so this may change if he gets up and demands my attention. :-) 

Owen woke with a tummy ache- he is quite dismayed over it- he really wants to goto gymnastics today.  His buddy T was not in class last week, and even though we played at the beach with him yesterday he is very upset at the thought of not seeing him in class today.  Yeah he must be sick!

The lat two weeks Emma, Owen and Evan have been doing Swim Camp (really it is just lessons, but the program calls it "camp").   Owen was a little stressed at the thought of it-  he is definitely Ben's son.  When I first met Ben I used to tease him about how much he worried.  I'd never met someone who worried as much as him.  Now I have!  Owen just worries and worries about things. However with just a slight push, he moves forward and gets through what ever it is that he's worried about.  After minutes in the pool he was so happy to be there!  He told me when he got out that he loved swimming more than even sailing.  Sailing was the previous Sundays worry.  I took him out in a sabot and with in minutes he proclaimed his love of sailing.  Anyhow, back to swimming.  The class is more for fun imo and not one that really pushes the kids to reach the next level.  I knew that going and and am pleased with the ultimate outcome.  Both big kids can swim on their own and Evan was at least not terribly upset by the second week.  He mostly sat on the steps, but by the second week he'd let the pretty instructores take him out.  The big kids teacher is a guy Ben went to school with-  We've know him for years- so it was fun having them in Fred's class.  Yesterday was the last day and on Wednesday Fred told them they'd get to go off the diving boards.  Owen worried all Wednesday night.  When the time came however he  and Emma both marched out to the end of the 1m board and with out hesitation jumped in to Fred.  Emma was sooo proud of herself with each jump!  She has no fears that she voices, adn she is a fish in the water- she LOVES swimming.  After several jumps Owen noticed that there were littler kids than him going off the high dive (3m).  he took a trip up to the top of the ladder and then changed his mind, did another jump off the 1m board and then went straight to the 3m board walked out and jumped.  Very little hesitation!  He wanted to go again, but time was up.  I don't think I could be any more proud of him right now!!  Emma had no desire to do the high dive, and that is fine with me!  I love how much she loves the water and how good she is in it.  Evan came and watched the big kids do their jumps then was sad that he couldn't go back in the water when they were done.  He's so darn stubborn, he actually knows how to swim, but just didn't want to do it unless I was in the water.  So he just refused to do anything cooperative.  *sigh*  Oh well at least he sat on the steps with out fussing.  I am planning on signing them up for the fall class. it is just a couple days a week. 

What else....

Last weekend Ben had a conference in Carlsbad at a very lovely resort.  My parents came out and took charge of all 4 kids and Ben and I went all by our lonesome!! It was heavenly.  We left Friday around 11am and drove straight to a movie theater in Carlsbad. LOL!  We say a 4pm showing of Harry potter and the Order of the Phoenix.  It was AWESOME!  Both the movie itself and the very act of going to a movie!!  I did like the move a lot, I am now reading OOTP again to see what bits were left out.   This brings me to Book Seven- we are counting down the minutes!  Neither of us are gong to any of the book parties or anything, but I will be getting the book first thing Saturday morning, we plan to read it (me out loud to him) as much a s possible Saturday, then Sunday afternoon Ben's mom will be watching the kids to give us a few uninterrupted hours of reading.  Until the book is done, I will not be turning on a computer, TV or opening the newspaper.  I do NOT want this book spoiled for me.  I plan on cherishing every moment.  That means I won't be posting here again for a bit- I know my frequent updates keep you all going, but you'll just have to wait for a while!! LOL!!!  I spent most all day Saturday in the Spa area.  The "treatments'' were waaaaaay out of budget, but you could get a day pass for a reasonable price, so that's what I did.  it was very peaceful.  Next year we plan on taking the kids.  The  resort is super family friendly and I know the kids will have a Blast!!!  There are watersides, a spray park area, beach entry pool with a giant sand box area.  There is a kids club day camp or night camp so we can still have some alone time if we want and the kids room looks FUN.  I'm glad we had this year to ourselves though. 

My garden is Wild.  It is  is crazy wild.  The pumpkins would take over the entire yard if I didn't keep turning the vines back into themselves.  We have at least 10 pumpkins going, one if them is already huge.  We've been eating cucumber almost daily and I don't see and end in sight.  We've had one post of green beans and I just picked another colander full of them- I expect to pick at least 2 more.  Crazy I tell ya.  The tomatoes- OMG the tomatoes.   There are well over 100 of the green suckers on the two plants.  I don't know what I'm going to do with them all.  Salsa anyone?  I make a mean salsa- (ok disclaimer here- I can make it but it is MIL's secret recipe that I uses so she gets the credit there!)   

School.  I can't say that I envy any of you that are "starting" up right now.  The kids are just flying along, learning things at the most unexpected times.  In the car they are always learning things.  A favorite game lately is guessing if I'll turn Left or Right.  My car has a digital compass in the rear view mirror and that is something the kids are always looking at.  They are all really developing a sense of direction- always trying to figure out which way we will be heading next. 

We also cross a bridge often that is near an estuary.  Even Olivia shouts out "estuary" as we cross over.  The two big kids know what it is exactly the other two just know that it is an estuary! 

I've really gotten much more comfortable with our unschooling-ness.  I really feel strongly that my biggest objective in these younger years is to teach them manners, respect, how to behave in the real world and how to get along and play with one another and others they are with.  Any academics learned is a bonus.  It is amazing how often those bonuses happen too!  In chatting recently with my neighbor who has been a teaching for years I was given  more kudos for our methods.  She currently teaches Kindy and said if she could do it her way she'd do much of what I do-  exposure to all the basics(colors,numbers,abcs shapes), lots of reading,  arts, music and physical activity.  Lots of exploration and imaginative play.  No phonics or teaching kids how to read- unless they are asking for it, unless they are ready.  In public schools today kids are expected to read a a much earlier age than in the past.  Most kids, boys especially, are not developmentally ready to do it.  Being a lover of books and reading, I want my kids to love it too.  I did not become a fluid reader until the 3rd grade.  Until that point I struggled a bit,  teacher notes in my report card  make comment on how dismal my reading was.  By 5th grade I was reading Macbeth and Oliver Twist.  I remember both times of my life.  I remember HATING to read.  I don't remember when it "clicked".  I expect it just did at some point.  I see it happening all the time as Owen works his way through words.  He is teaching himself to read slowly.  Words that befuddled him several moths ago he can read with ease now.  If his journey to reading takes as long as mine I will be happy - I want him to have the same love- especially because he loves to hear stories so much. His MP3 player is filled to the brim with stories! any how, bottom line- we're happy in our educational methods at this time!!!

I mentioned sailer a bit ago- we've joined a local yacht club and it has been sooooo great!  We do not have and do not plan on getting a boat anytime soon-  it will be several years at best.  The club is family friendly, well established and has a great youth program.  I know many people there from my childhood, we had a sailboat for years.  The Club has  Friday night dinners, they serve food Fri-Sunday.  Sunday they have free food set out- really good stuff too.  It is a private facility so the kids are in an enclosed safe area.  We bought them life jackets and they are not allowed to go on the docks with out them.  I am looking forward to creating many memories with my family there!

Ok time to head to class- have to drop Owen off at the IL's, he ended up throwing up. 

I'll try to come back soon.  Once the book has been read.