Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Spring!

On Sunday, despite the chill in the air, Lamb had to get out to play. So she played with her sand box, thrilled at the success of getting her kite airborne (and relieved I did a field repair after it fell apart on impact one time), and did some spring landscaping with bits and pieces of dead and dormant plants, pine cones, and rocks. A storm rolled through that night, so I'm glad I got a picture:


She was quite pleased.

And yesterday I went with her class on a nature-related field trip. To my surprise, she really got into the activity of pulling apart owl vomit to look for little animal bones amidst the fur to identify what it ate. It helped that earlier she had seen a very cute owl in person. So predator or not, it is friendly and the small mammals it ate are food.

She found some tiny jaw bones with teeth in place and wanted to take all the bones home. I didn't think it was really allowed but put one in my pocket. She could have taken them all home. I'm glad we didn't. Sadly, the teeth fell out and I could not manage to glue them back in place. But the bits are saved in a clear plastic box for future scientific inquiry.

It was a cold day of studying nature, but at least there was no rain. I'll call it a field trip success.

It doesn't feel like spring, yet. But we're all ready for it, no doubt.