Last week

If you think I'm only having trouble keeping up with the blog, you should probably see the unchecked list of chores and the piles of books, papers, and other items collecting on tables, steps, the floor, and even chairs. It's a shameful confession, but true. I haven't written in our daily homeschool log in two weeks, and Calvin's budget sheet has been equally neglected. At least the library books are not overdue, the gardens are watered, and we do have clean underwear. Priorities.

So what happened last week? Last week was hot. We had our air on for two more days that reached into the triple digits, and nights that barely dropped into the seventies. We kept our cool by working at the library, reading a lot inside, and playing in the water. It has been over two weeks since we have had any rain worth mentioning. Our average rainfall for July is 3.67 inches, and to date we have had a total of .77 inches, the large majority of which fell in the first week. I'm battling to keep the gardens alive, and the rain barrels aren't exactly helping much.

Calvin had daily "jump start" swim lessons all week as a supplement to his weekly lesson. He takes weekly lessons at a local swim school with a comfortably warm indoor pool and enthusiastic, joyful young teachers. The lessons are limited to four students per teacher, and they are never-ending, so kids just move up to the next level whenever they are ready and keep going from there. I do admit to feeling a little guilty, though, or maybe just nostalgic, in taking him to indoor summer swim lessons when I remember so fondly the weeks of rising early to take lessons in the chilly outdoor public pool when I was little. I had to walk uphill both ways to school, too.

It was Art Fair week. The Ann Arbor Art Fairs are quite a production, and most locals try to get out of dodge for the week, but I have always enjoyed the crowd and the festive spirit. Jon's family has a tradition of spending the opening day walking the fairs and we have always joined them, so while this was unfortunately the first year that Jon could not take the time away from work, Calvin and I had a great time seeing everyone and perusing the art. Calvin was particularly drawn to a booth of nude photography, a booth of plaster and stone reliefs, and a booth of metal sculptures. He spoke well with a number of artists, and enjoyed a fair favorite—fresh squeezed lemonade. Jon and I went back on Saturday so he at least got a chance to go and look around. But even the Art Fairs didn't bring any rain worth mentioning.

Probably the highlight of the week is Calvin's new, very own Magic Tree House, built for him by Jon's dad, as imagined by his mom, in a tree at their house. A real, honest-to-goodness, awesome as all get-out tree house. I'm a little jealous. Calvin, of course, loves it, and had a marvelous time spending all afternoon in it. He especially loved the sweeping and upkeep, so why, I ask you, is our own house so messy?

And lastly, we spent yesterday morning cooling off at the lake, where Calvin practiced his swimming and played at splashing his father for a good couple of hours. This year especially I'm feeling lucky to live so close to a small public lake and beach.

Which brings us to this week. We have just three more weeks before we'll be on our final summer vacation, which I figure is just about enough time to catch up on everything and get back into a routine so that I can lose a whole bunch of ground again by leaving. But at least it's been fun.

Nature Thursdays

What do you do when you know more than the naturalist giving the presentation, and you know that they are giving horrendously wrong and even inapporpriate information? I did and said nothing, and now I'm kicking myself. Our usual beloved naturlist was not with this morning and we were introduced to the person filling the summer internship position. She incorrectly named two species of bird, told the kids that owls couldn't turn their heads any more than a normal human, and encouraged the removal of eggs from nests belonging to invasive species (which actually she incorrectly identified as invasive when in reality they are native species that are just outcompeting some song birds fair and square, as far as nature goes). Even Calvin knew that she had been wrong when identifying the speckled robin as the female instead of the juvenile, but we both kept quiet during the program and talked about it together later. We decided that it had been polite not to interrupt, but that we probably should have at least questioned the suggestion to remove eggs from nests, because it's unfortunate that some parents and children went home with dangerous misconceptions about some species that live in our area. I will do the next best thing, though, and talk to the head naturalist about it.

We spent the rest of the day at the lake, eating a picnic lunch, swimming in the lake, reading in the shade, and going crazy in the splash zone. Summer is good stuff.

Beating the heat

I never thought I'd find an 85 degree day delightfully cool, but all things being relative that's exactly how I felt about today, and we spent it outside tending to the gardens, refinishing deck furniture, and playing in the water. Tomorrow being Monday, we'll have to be back in the actual swing of things. Yes there is life after vacation.

Nature Thursdays—aquatic wildlife

Nature Thursdays are back! Last year we spent every Thursday with one of the two fantastic wildlife interpreters from our County Parks & Rec commission, and yesterday marked the beginning of the same for this summer. The weekly programs are aimed at children, each with a theme bugs, or snakes, or flowers, etc. This week's session was about water-loving wildlife. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) Calvin and I were the only people who came, but we had a great time seeing our favorite Michigan wildlife specialist again, and Calvin got to touch green frogs, a crayfish, a snapping turtle, and even got to hold a painted turtle. We also went for a short hike to try netting smaller wildlife in the pond. Being just us of course meant that the program went at Calvin's pace, and because he was so obviously interested we were treated to extra discussion and netting time, which made it just that much more fun.

The program was at Independence Lake this time around, so we packed a picnic lunch and stayed to spend the afternoon, partly in learning to identify a few common Michigan plant and animal species (with only ourselves and a book as guides), and partly to play in the sand and water. Calvin is becoming a fish. He can now push off, arc into the water, and swim a ways with good kicks and a pretty good early crawl. And he loves to float around on his back. Back home in the late afternoon he spent another forty minutes in the bath. It's possible that he should have been included on the list of Michigan aquatic wildlife.

Playing the memory game, then sorting by salt vs. fresh water

Painted turtle

Painted turtle

Green frog

Trying to feed the turtles

Swans on the pond

Looking for and discussing critters in the net

Bigfoot print or tree stump?

Splashing around after lunch

Swimming!

Floating!

Getting as sandy as humanly possible!

Watermelon

June 2007

July 2008

June 2012