The tamest fox in the world

And then I was bitten by a fox.

You know how you plan out your week, and usually, it goes fairly well with only minor bumps along the way?  And sometimes you have other weeks where every effort at progress is thwarted and nothing goes according to plan?  By Wednesday it had been that kind of week.

Luckily, I have a sense of humor.

Monday and Tuesday were spent swimming upstream.  Figuratively, of course; it's far too cold for swimming just now.  Because we're juggling so many balls, both in homeschooling and as a family, I decided to put one of them down.  The pigeon.

In the midst of lining up a cat/rat sitter for an upcoming journey, we realized that the bird posed a bit of a problem.  Leaving the cats and the bird unsupervised in a room together for hours on end, even with metal bars between them, left us all feeling a bit uneasy.  So I made a few calls, and we decided to take our little pigeon to a wildlife rescue sanctuary.

In one sense, it feels awful to pawn the pigeon off on someone else, after all, it was my beast that attacked it.  I feel this overwhelming sense of responsibility.  On the other hand, I knew in my heart that it would have a better chance at a happy recovery surrounded by other wood pigeons instead of lurking cats.  So off we went.

The place was absolutely amazing, and the volunteer staff was fantastic.  I was happy to see that they had loads of pigeons.  They not only had pigeons, they were just short of a zoo.  They had so many different kinds of animals, it was astounding.  They had owls and parrots, ferrets and rabbits, snakes and lizards, ducks-- just wandering around.  There was even a tame doe walking about trying to set the reptiles free.  They even had foxes.  Tame foxes!

Or so I was told.

We love foxes.  We have some in our garden, and each time our motion lights click on at night we run to the back windows hoping for a glimpse of the foxes.  So you can imagine the excitement when we arrived at this place, and the man announces that we can pet a fox.  The tamest fox in the world.

The man went on to tell us how this fox was hand-raised by someone and subsequently dumped.  He took her in and loved her, and she has been just as sweet as can be, like a dog.  Apparently she's so tame that she has done loads of television and film work, so she's not only tame, she's a bit famous as well.

He brought her out and Einstein and the kids started to pet her.  I snapped a couple of pictures, and then reached my hand in to have a little pet.  And that's when she bit me.

Perhaps she thought I was paparazzi, and I should have asked her to sign a release form.

While a small pool of blood was welling up on my hand, the man continued to assure me that this particular fox was completely harmless.  Apparently she just plays a little rough, like the time she almost took off his nose.  It was a love nibble.  She rarely does that.

Which I suppose means that I'm one of the few... one of the painfully chosen ones.  What luck!

If you want to pretend you were there with me, this is what you saw:

And if you want to play a game of guess the owls, here they are:

  

  

Did you have a productive week?  Or did something unexpected happen?

Snails

Moonshine and I have been working on some human and animal studies this month.  Right now we're having fun with snails... it took us quite a bit of poking around to find some that the birds hadn't already eaten in our garden.  Every morning there is a scattering of broken shells all over the place.  The birds must be having quite an early morning feast.  If I were a snail, I would be hiding, too!

One thing I could thank the birds for was that they made it quite easy to examine the inner spiral of the shells.  So perfect!  They reminded us of a spiral ceiling we saw in Barcelona this past summer.

After digging around a bit in the garden, we unearthed a couple of live snails to investigate.  Then we made good with some empty shells and modeling beeswax to make some snails for the nature table.  Moonshine was so pleased with how they came out -- a mama and a baby!  So precious together!

Moonshine was hungering for some lovely stories this week, so we read the snail stories included in Jacob Streit's Animal Stories.  I've been looking for a copy of this in English for years, and I finally found one a couple of months ago.  It would have been perfect for Grade 2, but we're happy to have it at all.  I think it's just as applicable to the Grade 4 study anyway.  Perhaps I chanced upon our copy at the right time after all.

Just by luck I came across an interesting BBC video about the sounds tiny insects make, including snails.  Fascinating stuff!

Moonshine and I have also been talking about crafting some animals for our study.  I found the cutest pattern for crocheted snails here.  At first glance it looks to be a bit complex for my mediocre crocheting skills, so we may just end up making it up.  I'm thinking it will be fun to try.

But not this week.  This week I have undertaken a HUGE project which is eating up all of my extra bits of time.  Not that I have many extra bits, but you know what I mean.  Hopefully, I'll be able to show you that huge undertaking tomorrow.

First clear day

On Sunday we had our first clear day in I don't know how long.  I can't remember the last time I saw a sky that blue, but we spent almost every minute of it outside soaking up the sunshine.  It was such a welcome change that the kids immediately lost their shoes and socks.  At one point I discovered Moonshine hanging from a tree in only a t-shirt and shorts, while Sunburst announced that it felt like January in Arizona.

Einstein and I made the best of it by getting to some much needed yardwork-- the final layer of autumn leaves that we never quite got around to and cutting back everything that had died in the icy winter.  It wasn't long before the kids climbed down from the trees to help us, and then everyone went back to playing.

Kitty Bill was delighted that the pond in our garden had thawed so he could sail his wooden boat.  To his delight there was something moving in the pond. (Click to make them larger.)

In all fairness, Einstein discovered them first and later scooped out a few eggs to show the kids.  The green stuff is duckweed.  The kids each thumbed through the field guide and independently decided that our pond friends are called common frogs.

Later, we sat around burning stuff with magnifying glasses, because... isn't that what everyone does? Who knows when our next clear day will come again.

Everything cows!

We're still finishing up our zoology book from last year. Now that we're practically living on a farm, it makes it a much easier task.

From our studies of Ancient India to the lowing out in the fields, everything is suddenly turning up cows!


Our weekend trip to the Swiss mountainous countryside coincided with the Swiss cows coming down from the mountains for the winter. Apparently the goats came with them.




These cows are currently pasturing behind our house, and the girls have been making daily visits to a newborn calf in the stable next to us.




Since we don't eat cow, we celebrated our appreciation for them with some artwork (mine and Sunburst's):





My attempts at pastel cows:



and Sunburst's, including a poem she memorized awhile back:

Worms, math, and treehouses

Busy week! This week I presented the earthworm, straight out of Klocek's book, Drawing from the Book of Nature. It's still much too cold to go digging for actual worms here, but as avid gardeners, we're no strangers to the amazing, little creatures.



Worms segued very easily into a lesson on fractions when we read that if you cut them in half, they die. But if you only cut off the the hind third, they don't die. Sunburst has been hungry for new math problems, and instead of waiting to present this as a block, I just jumped right in with some ideas from Dorothy Harrar's math book.

Sunburst told me she hated fractions, so we started out with some sentences about fractions being good things and a story illustrating the truth of those sentences: Sunburst gets on the bus with an apple. Her hungry friends get on the bus, and the apple gets shared and cut each turn, until eventually there are sixteen slices - one for each child. Last to get on the bus is an old man who is starving. The kids all decide to share their slices with this old man, so that in the end, he has the entire apple.



And then we did some very simple fraction work to build the foundation.





I also backtracked through Dorothy Harrar's math book and brought forth a lesson from the second grade section-- it seemed more like a fractions story than a multiplication story.




Moonshine did a little math herself, sort of. While Sunburst was busy at work on her fractions tree, Moonshine wanted to draw a little tree of her own. This tree multiplied itself into a dozen treehouses, each one designed with specific friends in mind. When Moonshine gets an idea there is no stopping her.



And what of Kitty Bill? He got in on the drawing fun, too. Sometimes he likes to do that. Other times, like today, he just steals off with a pair of scissors and cuts everything in sight. Of course we prefer it when he draws pictures instead.

Harbor seals

While I was hoping for two, so far we're only managing one animal per week for this block. I'm really proud of Sunburst's seals, and we both sort of laughed at how much trouble I'm having with the breathing tones. She's doing a much better job of it than I am.



Here's my progression. I like my first attempt better than my others, though it's mostly done with lines. My second one looks like a steamroller hit him, and the third (done with breathing tones) is nature gone wrong, sort of a seal-groundhog hybrid. Maybe it would have better luck at predicting the coming of spring.

How did Steiner know?

A couple of months ago Sunburst went through this science-hungry phase of checking out nonfiction animal books from our tiny library. After reading three or four of them she asked me if she could write animal reports as part of her homeschooling.

I about fell over. How did Steiner know? It's times like this, when the Waldorf grades curriculum he designed meets up exactly with my daughter's interests and needs, that I have to sit back and truly acknowledge the genius of Rudolf Steiner.

So last week we began our fourth grade zoology block. I'm using Charles Kovacs's book, The Human Being and the Animal World, because I love the way he explains things. I also have a copy of Drawing from the Book of Nature, by Dennis Klocek, which is also superb. Both books start in different places though-- Kovacs starts with cuttlefish while Klocek starts with worms. It would probably have been smarter of me to follow Klocek and start with the easier drawings, but I got so excited about Kovacs's book that I jumped right in with cuttlefish.

Because Sunburst wanted to actually write her own report, we talked about outlines as being a list of things she might want to know the answer to. We took the list, arranged it in groupings, and then I sent her off to find the answers. It turns out we have ZERO English-language books about cuttlefish at our library, so thank goodness for the internet! I set her up with the wikipedia page and let her go to town, and it felt like a good, safe compromise. She came back with answers and wrote a pretty decent report.

The drawing is another thing altogether. While Sunburst is happy with her drawings, and that should really be the goal here, I still feel I need to spend more time working on Klocek's idea of this "breathing tone," or shaping without any noticeable edge. We do it with crayons, but I find the sharpness of pencils lend themselves toward lines much too easily. Also, it would be fantastic to observe these creatures in real life... but we live in a city. The reality is that if we want to observe anything we'll have to go to the zoo or watch videos. Between you and me, when the windchill is 21 degrees, I'd rather preview some Youtube videos than drag kids to the zoo.

I know. Waldorf purists are shaking in their shoes; I'm breaking all the rules.

I do that sometimes.

We drew our interpretations of the cuttlefish from Kovacs's book, and then made some sketches while we watched some Youtube. The colored drawing is what we came up with from watching the videos. I don't know what kind of cuttlefish it was, but it sure had longer tentacles than the one in the book. It was easy to become enamored of these little guys-- we were especially fond of the video that showed what appeared to be a mom and dad protecting a baby from the scary camera crew. It could have been a menage a tois for all I know, but it sure looked like a family to us.

Anyway, here's Sunburst's MLB entry. The drawings are pasted in from her sketchbook.



And here are my versions of the same drawings:

Unschool Zoo

This week two things became vastly apparent:

1. Unschooling is a force to be reckoned with.
2. Animals are curious, amazing creatures.

Freedom and the cat
Our cat Holstein is an Unschooler. He's determined to teach himself things.

Our week began with Holstein, that crazy cat of ours, getting in trouble with yet another neighbor for preying on birds in her yard. It's not his fault entirely, it was that terrible hailstorm in Texas that whacked dozens of birds out of the trees as well as the siding off our house, and helped Holstein remember his true catlike nature and develop a taste for critters. Hailstorms are sometimes called an "Act of God," and with this in mind, perhaps there is a greater plan at work on the cat? I keep waiting for it, but in the meantime we decided to bring him inside the house after a brief deworming period locked up in the laundry room.

On Holstein's first night in captivity, he escaped, or rather he was sprung by a band of raccoons. They broke into the laundry room again, completely busting the lock off the cat door, and letting Holstein out in the process. He promptly returned the next morning, and we locked him up again, fixing the cat door and remembering to pull the storm door shut tight.

A main key to unleashing the amazing power of Unschooling is exposure to the possibilities. If you pay attention well enough, you'll begin to see possibilities everywhere.

The following morning I was prepared to let him inside the house, but he was nowhere to be found. The lock on the cat door was now open and yet the storm door was still shut tight. The food dish was full, so we had not had a raccoon visitation. Very curious. Later in the day, after Holstein had returned for a snack, I locked him up again.

There is an old saying that holds, "We are each teacher and student." In this case, Holstein had been learning lock-picking from the raccoons. As soon as I left the room he unlocked the cat door, squeezed himself out between the two doors and somehow, God only knows, managed to climb up the storm door, reach the handle, and fling himself towards freedom. Our cat can open doors! He wants to be free!
Insectivores and what they eatBetween our readings of The Far Side of the Loch and my niece's blog of life in France, Sunburst has been very interested in the idea of hedgehogs as pets. She looked them up in our Encyclopedia of Mammals and read for awhile. There are several different types of hedgehogs, they have wild skeletal systems that enable them to fold up, and they don't live anywhere close to us, either in North or South America. She desperately wants one for a pet, but unless we get a job overseas, she's out of luck. However, they are in the order Insectivora, and thus, are related to shrews.

We do have shrews here. So many shrews, in fact, that the same neighbor who was irked about our cat Holstein, said she would prefer it if he caught only the shrews and left the birds alone. Obviously the cat isn't willing to sign a treaty or anything, but it did peak a curiosity in shrews. We don't want our cat to harm any living creature, really, but what makes a shrew's life less worthy than a bird's to our neighbor? They both serve the greater good by eating insects, don't they? We read until we found a possible point of contention.

Refection.

Yes, unfortunately our book even had a picture. Apparently shrews do quite a bit of rectum-licking to absorb lost nutrients. Never in my wildest homeschooling dreams did I forsee a discussion about rectum-licking, anal tissues, and creamy anal secretions. Digestion and absorption, yes, but not in regards to the great world of nutrients contained in feces. Mmmmm-mmmm.
Pigs: to rot or not?
"What exactly is pepperoni?" We were snacking on leftover pizza slathered in artichoke hearts and pineapple, no pepperoni in sight, when Sunburst threw this question on the table. The simple reply of "spicy sausage" did nothing for her. From pepperoni she branched out to other pork products-- ham, bacon, hot dogs, pig ears at the pet store.

We talked about preservatives, since in this country all those things are kept from rotting by either drying, as for pig ears, or the application of chemicals, mainly sodium nitrate. My kids are fascinated by the idea that as a child I couldn't eat most meat products because of an allergy to sodium nitrate. I get wicked migraines from it, and it shouldn't be a surprise to my parents that I find it easier to avoid these migraines by being vegan.

This conversation took us into a lengthy discussion on fresh vs. cured, animal husbandry, history, shipping, commodities, and consumer choices. Is there such a thing as asking too many questions? Sometimes I wonder.

Playing with vomit
Yesterday Sunburst carried out her latest McGuffey Reader and asked if we could play "school." She taught herself to read using the beginner book of this series written in the 1870's, Primer Reader, and has, of her own volition, managed to work through the First Reader and almost to the end of the Second Reader. She can read anything at this point, but she's bound and determined to get through the entire set. There are seven in all.

Playing "school" with these Readers means that she wants to play school as it were in the 1880's. Go ahead, I told her, and she began her recitation of the particular lesson, remembering to read it slowly and enunciate. The story was about an owl that some children had taken from its roost during the day, when owls are nearly blind, and included a host of interesting owl observations ending with an owl's ability to eat an animal whole, digest the fleshy bits, and regurgitate a compact ball of fur and bones. I'll give these readers one thing, they never fail to peak a child's interest.

Our 1880's school concluded on that note, and Sunburst compelled me to tell her everything I knew about owl pellets and my experience with them. She was enthralled with the idea that she could dissect one, too. My public school education didn't broach this subject until Grade 9 when my interest in the natural habits of animals had been usurped by my interest in the natural habits of boys. It took me about two seconds to conclude that wiring a child for scientific inquiry is probably easier before the onset of puberty, and I headed to the computer to search out information on ordering owl pellets.

I found them HERE. On a different site we read all the interesting information on pellets, learned that other birds make them too, and could hardly contain our excitement when we discovered the virtual pellet dissection opportunity. We spent quite a bit of time checking out every clickable thing on the site, and from THIS page you can look inside the pellets of different birds and see what was for dinner, including a fact-filled question and answer segment to help you hone your scientific mind.

* * *

I'm learning to expect the unexpected when it comes to homeschooling and really just go with the flow of interest and see where it takes us. In this, Sunburst isn't any different from our door-opening cat. She wants to be free. Free to ask questions. Free to partake in new experiences, new adventures-- and free to learn. Free to have fun with learning.

Amen to that.

Raccoon Envy

Today our cat caught a chipmunk. This wasn't the first time it has happened, nor will it be the last. It's unfortunate and sad and really a whole host of other things, but "thems the facts."

I have a big heart and a small house, and thus we have four indoor/outdoor cats. Spayed, neutered, vaccinated, flea-treated, well-fed, curious cats that love to go outdoors and chase bunnies away from my vegetable garden, frolic after butterflies and fireflies, climb trees, people watch, nap in the sun, eat grass, and unfortunately pester the local wildlife. That's just what cats do.

Short of tying cowbells around their necks (one cat has FOUR bells!) there isn't much more I can do to help alert the wildlife that our cats are afoot. Despite my jingling efforts, our dear Friendly Friend cat caught a chipmunk while we were outside enjoying the nice weather, and the girls begged and pleaded with us to try to save it. Not only should we save it, but we should SAVE it. Coddle it, bandage it, and nurse it back to health. We've been down this road before, many times, but not with such fierce enthusiasm.

After Einstein had scooped it up into a box, and Sunburst began talking excitedly of vets and chipmunk poop, did I realize what was really going on here. She has a huge case of Raccoon Envy.

My mom was recently given a family of baby raccoons that had been nesting in an attic. The mama was startled away by some roofers when they tore the roof off the house, and well, now someone has to feed them. Enter my mom.

She has the biggest heart in the world, and she can't say no. This is where I learned it from. In the past few years she hasn't said no to four dogs, eight cats, four indoor birds, one crow, four bunnies, two horses, a hen, a rooster, and one ugly duck. Those are just the animals. She currently lives out in the country in California where she has been homeschooling my three younger siblings. They've got a lot of room, a host of ground squirrels, and a 92-year-old man to keep them entertained.

And now she has baby raccoons, four of them. They need to be fed via syringe all day long, like babies. They're only about four weeks old. Once they start eating solids on their own, she can turn them over to the local wildlife rescue. Until then, she's chasing them around her bedroom and massaging their bellies with warm washcloths and feeding them.

Sunburst has seen the pictures and spoken at length on the phone with my mom about them. She has asked every question she could think of, including a thought-provoking discussion on rabies. Sunburst is certain they don't have it, by her own calculations, and I hope she's right, given that my mom has already been bit.

They're cute, I have to give her that. Baby raccoons are adorable, fuzzy, ferocious little creatures, and she wants one. Just one. But if all you have is a chipmunk, well, I guess it will have to do. For now.

*That's permanent marker on their heads to tell them apart.

** For more fun with wild pets, check out The Tarantula in My Purse and 172 Other Wild Pets by Jean Craighead George. We've been reading this one over breakfast. It's simply fascinating and humorous, and yes, my mom did send it to us. Why do you ask?

***As if the homeschooling opportunities related to such things weren't obvious enough, my younger (albeit much taller) brother is making the most of raccoon-style learning HERE. The raccoon mileage is apparently limitless.