Exotic Feline Rescue Center, October 2013

I organized this field trip to the Exotic Feline Rescue Center for our homeschool group as part of our Year of Visiting All the Zoos. We also have interests in cats and volunteer work of all kinds, so it was relevant in a lot of ways.

I expected to be interested. I expected to be impressed. I expected to take lots of photographs and mental notes. I expected to do a lot of telling children to keep back from the fences.

I did not expect to be moved to tears.

The Exotic Feline Rescue Center saves big cats from people about whom I cannot say enough bad things. I do know what kind of person would take an apex predator captive and abuse it, keep it hurt and frightened, and I don't like those people. It's not okay to take our sick power trips out on any living creature, especially an innocent animal, but the fact that these people have done these things to animals that we specifically see as powerful and majestic is some of the worse kind of ugly.

Our tour guide, Marissa, gave us a brief biography of each of the big cats that we saw--enough information for us to understand what specific cruelties had been committed, but not enough to scare the children (if you're interested in more details, you should check out the cat biographies or the back issues of the EFRC newsletter). She spent most of her time, however, helping us understand how awesome each big cat is, explaining each one's unique personality, and even interacting with the more loving and playful ones so that we could see that, too. She also gave us time to simply stand and look; our gravel pathway was three feet from these enclosures, so we really were close enough to really see and be seen:

This cougar actually gleefully ran up and down along the fence, playing chase with Marissa as she ran along the path:

Although this tiger wasn't in the mood to play today, Marissa said that it sometimes likes for her to crouch on the path with her back to it so that it can stalk her. We all looked away and tried to appear as unwary grazing beasts, but the tiger was too busy doing tiger things to humor us:

This cougar, whose bobbed tail came from damage taken after it was abandoned in a barn with other large animals, broke my heart:

Yours, too, right?

Although big cats are pure carnivores and aren't supposed to eat vegetation (and there's another big cat there with permanent neurological damage from being forced to eat cat food instead of meat), this cat has a really bad habit of trying to eat grass. After it was abandoned, it didn't have any food, and so it filled its belly by eating grass. When the EFRC rescued it they had to perform surgery on it and remove a giant mass of undigested grass from its stomach; here Marissa is pulling more grass blades away from the fence edge, where it's trying to reach them:

Our tour guide was a celebrity of sorts, actually. I recognized her from a couple of articles in the newspaper a few months ago--she was very severely mauled by a tiger at the EFRC, after she perhaps accidentally left a connecting gate open when she went into part of its enclosure (memory loss is pretty common with traumatic injuries), and suffered some permanent damage. And yet there she was, right back with the big cats, still clearly loving them as much as ever, still educating and inspiring us and our kiddos: 

She was also my favorite type of tour guide. No matter what question popped into anyone's head, she had an answer. I had a bunch of random questions about endangered animal captive breeding programs, based on a Jane Goodall book that I'd read, and dude--she ANSWERED them! She talked zoo policies with me, animal enrichment, genetic mutation and survival of the fittest, laws involving exotic animals in bordering states, large animal vet care... I was really nerdily spoiled.

And also, the big cats loved her, and always wanted to come over and say hi when she was with us:

We also got to see this tiger track a preschooler who wandered down the path away from our group. It was one of those times when you know you're safe but you're also terrified:

At one point, our path narrowed, and there was only three feet between us and the enclosures if we walked exactly in the middle and kept our hands well in:

So many tigers that shouldn't have been possessions:

If they can't be in the wild, it's much better that they're here:

Our tour ended with a visit to see some tiger cubs! These cubs were born from a pregnant tiger that was rescued from a horrible roadside zoo (Don't ever go to those! So many damaged cats came from private "zoos" and traveling circuses) in Wisconsin, and they are amazing. Seriously, look at this tiger cub play with a stick!

Enchanting, right?

It's never going to be able to really play out in the wild where it's supposed to, but it's also never going to suffer what its parents had to. At the Exotic Feline Rescue Center, it's safe.

Peden Farm, October 2013

animals

 farm machinery

limestone carving

sifting and grinding corn

more animals

leaf rubbings

feeding the cows

braiding hair

hay ride!!!

yep, more animals!

and, of course, still more machines

It was a perfect day on the farm.

Bathroom Contractor, Caught on Tape!

You do NOT need to watch this entire video that Sydney filmed yesterday, but the first minute of it would do well in any zombie movie, I think:

It's probably not okay to wait until the bathroom contractor is busy and then go look through his truck windows and videotape all his stuff, but at least she didn't get caught doing it!

My Latest over at Crafting a Green World: Scrabble Tile Pendants and Recycled Cardboard Numbers

a tutorial for making Scrabble tile jewelry pendants

This Thor is for Sydney, a big fan.

and a tutorial for making math manipulatives out of cardboard

Somehow we lost ONE of the hundred plastic numbers we used to use. Cardboard to the rescue!

 I have a running joke with my CAGW co-workers that I can create some eco-friendly crafting posts that are entitled to use the VERY SEO happy keywords "cool math games." I am totally doing it, so stay tuned!

Work Plans for the Week of September 30, 2013

It's the week of field trips!

MONDAY: The girls discovered that they did not enjoy completing unfinished work from Thursday and Friday on Sunday, so yesterday found them both to be busy little bees who did all their schoolwork and chores without fuss and had plenty of time leftover to play the day away. At this pace, we should be able to finish our Song School Latin review next week, and be able to start new material the week after. Good thing, too, because I've been interlibrary loaning Latin curricula to follow! Whee!

The only snag in the day was Will's reading assignment. Although she's previously zipped through Journey to the Center of the Earth, Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, and Around the World in 80 Days, The Mysterious Island is a whole other critter--Will made it through thirteen chapters but then admitted defeat, so we've instead turned the book into our evening read-aloud, which is fine, because we'd been needing a new one of those.

TUESDAY: The girls are SUPER psyched about their horseback riding lesson later today, and I promised Syd that we could go to the bookstore afterwards, where I will sneakily bring along any pencil-and-paper work that they've yet to finish by then. Syd may not have anything to bring, as she's sitting at the table happily right now, listening to fairy tales off of the ipad and working through her cursive. She most enjoys that type of "packet" work that she can bust through and be done with; she's less enamored of work like her animal biology portfolio, which is project-oriented. Willow, of COURSE, has to be exactly the opposite.

WEDNESDAY: Field trip day! Math and memory work never take a holiday, but hopefully the kiddos DO finish their Tuesday work in a timely manner, because Wednesday is going to be too busy to deal with schoolwork boot camp--I didn't even schedule Will's regular aerial silks class for this Wednesday, because we have plenty do do without it.

THURSDAY: The girls didn't quite finish their history assignment last week, so they're going to finish it this week. I don't *like* to do that, but, as I mentioned, this past Sunday's make-up day was an ultimate fail, so the repeated work is a reminder to me to be more proactive about encouraging the kiddos to stay on top of their schedule. Happily, though, this is DEFINITELY the last week for that Sight Word Caterpillar! I'll be glad to have that extra time to figure out some more creative ways to get Syd through her spelling words without fits; she's about as good at rote memorization as Will, but has zero tolerance for getting an incorrect answer. This makes spelling practice something akin to emotional torture for the poor kid. I must find a way to teach her spelling that doesn't give her panic attacks!

FRIDAY: Another field trip day! It hurt me not to assign geography, a typical Friday work, since that was the other assignment that didn't get finished last week. This 50 states study is slow as molasses! I swear, we are STILL working on the states that we visited this summer, and then I'd like to revisit Indiana, and then I'd like to study the states that we'll be visiting next summer, and then I'd like to study the rest of the states! I'd also like to finish this before the children graduate high school, sigh.

SATURDAY and SUNDAY: The kiddos didn't get a chance to do any of their "fun" school assignments last weekend, but if I can make sure that they stay caught up the rest of this week, then they can explore some new educational games and documentaries as well as go to chess club and Saturday Science class and an interesting-looking family mountain biking event and goof around with toys and swim at the Y and play with friends.

And perhaps an afternoon at the apple orchard, hmmm?

Louisville Zoo, September 2013

With zoo animal fact cards in hand, we trekked the trek down to Kentucky (fun fact: where we live, three different states are less than a two-hour drive from our house--that's atypical for the Midwest!) to spend a beautiful autumn Sunday at the Louisville Zoo:

Syd took the map in hand immediately, declared that she wanted to see the camels--

--and then navigated us there perfectly!

Somehow our zoo brochure missed being stuffed with the day's shows, events, and activities, but we had plenty to do, regardless. Nevertheless, when we passed the giraffe exhibit *just* in time for the giraffe feeding, and when it was discovered that yes, indeed, I *did* happen to have two dollar bills in my wallet, well...

Serendipity.

I'm still not shelling out so much as a penny to feed those petting zoo goats, however:

After having gone my entire life without seeing a gorilla in person, since June I've now seen them in TWO separate zoos!

I think I've told you before, many times, that Willow loves animals. LOVES animals. Her love isn't always expressed exactly as others would understand--a favorite pastime of hers is feeding worms and butterflies, two animals that she loves very much, to her chickens (whom she also loves very much, of course...)--and sometimes her love is rather expressed as intellectual curiosity, as with her plans for a mounted butterfly collection, but she truly loves animals, all animals, more deeply than even most kids do.

And animals love her. Animals notice her, even zoo animals who are used to the comings and goings of hundreds of thousands of visitors to their habitats. I always take lots of photos of my kids watching the animals at every zoo, but it's recently struck me that I also seem to take an unusual amount of photos of zoo animals watching Willow back:

I'm a big budgeter, and thus an early planner, and I've begun, recently, to plan a list of must-see's for our big Out West road trip this summer. I want to see the Laura Ingalls homestead. Syd wants to see Lakota campgrounds (Thanks, Buffalo before Breakfast!). Matt's seen everything except for the dino dig stuff.

And as for Will?

Dinosaurs (of course).
Wolves.
Bison.
Bears.

I think we're also going to Yellowstone!