Here we are again, near the end of another week of our homeschooling life, and I am so happy you've stopped by to see what we have been up to!
Let's pick up where we left off last week...
On Saturday the whole family (Kurt, Emily, Arlene, and myself,) got up and started layering early in the morning. We packed a lunch and an afternoon snack and we were in the car not that long after sunrise.
Our destination? To see Bison and Sandhill Cranes.
We had seen just a few of the Sandhill Cranes that spend Summers in Wisconsin and Winters in Florida a few years ago, but we knew we wanted to go to the Jasper-Pulaski Fish and Wildlife area about 100 miles from our home and see LOTS of them. It had been our family plan for over a month to go see them on Saturday. Then, when Arlene and I learned that The Nature Conservancy had returned free-roaming Bison to Indiana last month, and they were only 45 minutes from the cranes' stop-over, we added to our plans.
It was a great day, lots of sun, not too much wind, and not horribly cold (a good thing in Indiana in November!) I'll have many more pictures to post soon, for a Road Trip post, but for now, let me tell you - we were NOT disappointed!
We saw the Bison first - 22 of them, and they were really close to the fence so we got a lot of quality photos. Sorry to tell you, I haven't downloaded them yet, so here is a selfie of Arlene and I so you can catch a glimpse of the Bison.
It has been about 200 years since the last known bison was killed in Indiana, so having a herd of them come back to populate a nature preserve during this, our Bicentennial year is really cool.
Bison/ Bicentennial ...get it? Yup, silly but funny!
After about an hour of watching the Bison trend back and forth between mannequin poses and chasing each other around the prairie, we decided to head over to Jasper-Pulaski.
The sandhill cranes migrate through this area every year, sometimes having thousands in this one wildlife refuge area at a time. The highest count we had seen for this year was from earlier in the week when they estimated just over 10,000 cranes. There were not that many left on Saturday, but there were a lot, like maybe 2000?!
I have some really cool pictures on my camera, and one of the other photographers there even offered to let me put my Canon camera body on his Canon lens (like they use for Pro Football games,) for a while in the mid afternoon. That was really awesome! I'll try to get the pictures ready to post soon. In the meantime, here is another selfie of Arlene and I. All of the tiny grayish dots in the background are Sandhill Cranes. There is one knoll in the field they were in that had so many of them on it that it reminded us of looking across a Civil War cemetery.
What did we do the rest of the week?
Sunday - church, food, fun, fellowship and great teaching
Monday- finish our review of Chara Games' Commissioned, and some bookwork
Tuesday - finish our review of The 101 Series' DVD set of Chemistry 101, and write a guest art book post for Annette over at A Net in Time. Pray for my friend Annette, as she found out she has pneumonia and had been wiped out.
Wednesday - I had my haircut and then Emily drove us over to Kurt's parents for lunch. Oh yeah, and Emily spent a LOT of time addressing graduation announcements!
Thursday- Grocery shopping with Arlene, and then we went to visit with my friend Sharra, who is fighting against cancer. I know God is working through it all, and I know He is glorified by all the love and help everyone has been giving Sharra and her family. Please keep her whole family in your prayers.
Today?
Well, I had plans for Arlene to get a lot of bookwork done since we had been majoring in field trips recently...but... it was too nice out so we ditched the books and packed our bag for the gym. We went swimming (indoor pool, it IS Indiana people!) When we got done to was 75 degrees, sunny, but very windy!
As I am sitting here typing I keep getting alerts on my phone that the huge line of severe thunderstorms is fast approaching, so I'm going to end now with this: Don't wait until tomorrow to tell your family that you love them! Do it today! Enjoy each day as the gift from God that it is. Be the light the world around you needs. Everything of the world is just dross, time spent with Christ and time spent loving people in His name are the gold.
Go hug your children!
Linking up at Homeschool Highlights. Stop by again next week!
Do you make a new watercolor background for your title graphic each week? They're so pretty!
ReplyDeleteIt's been a long time since I've seen bison - what a great field trip, and how exciting to see the bison in those kinds of numbers and the cranes too. Wow!
Thanks for linking up at Homeschool Highlights!
Kym,
DeleteDon't I wish I was that good at watercolors! I use an app on my phone that my friend Sharra told me about called Waterlogue and I have taken several pictures of quilt squares from quilts my Grandma made and used the app on them. The app will make a watercolor sketch of any picture for you, but the best ones are the pictures with multiple colors and some contrast. It is really cool, you should try it!
I'll look for it. I was thinking they looked like quilt blocks. :-)
DeleteWhat a fun week! Observing bison and sandhill cranes is exactly the type of thing I would enjoy too.
ReplyDeletehuh....you answered that question for me as well. must be an ipad thing as I can't find it on android.
ReplyDeleteI would LOVE to see sandhill cranes in real life, and seeing bison running around "in the wild" would be very neat.
Sounds like you had a nice week with your family. I'm sorry your friend has pneumonia and another one has cancer. It's nice of you to visit them.
ReplyDeleteLove the cranes and bison! Busy weeks but taking time for fun is important. - Lori
ReplyDelete