School Days--Wally's Field Trip, Part Two

  School Days is a reoccurring feature in which I ask people about their early memories of school. Everyone has a story to tell about this and I hope to give them a voice here.

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This week will be a little different with an account of Wally's first grade field trip instead of an interview. I wrote this soon after we returned from the trip so there's no looking back with nostalgia here. The story is fairly long so it will be posted in three installments. They will follow each other weekly on School Days Mondays.

Wally's First Grade Field Trip 

Last week found me unsure about going on the trip and the long bus ride to the zoo.

Read about the details here. 

Now for Part Two.

One of the highlights of our tour.

 We arrived at the zoo at ten o'clock and had forty-five minutes for lunch before we actually entered through the gates to look at the animals. Forty-five minutes seems like such a short time when I'm trying to run errands, but it seemed like an eternity when I was having lunch with my group of first graders. They spent the first three minutes eating the meat and sweets from their lunches. The next five minutes were spent feeding the pigeons everything else that was left. The remaining thirty-seven minutes were spent by me trying to control four very excited children. I was partially successful with my cries of “Stay out of the mud!” “Come back here!” “Get off of the railroad tracks! and “Where has the rest of the group gone?”

At eleven o'clock, we finally entered the zoo and had two hours to tour it at our leisure. As we started to explore the zoo, the personalities of the members of my group became evident very quickly. I had two boys, Wally and Andy, and two girls, Isabel and Jessica. Andy was somewhat quiet and wanted to look at everything very thoroughly. Wally, my son, was determined to always be in the front of the group. Isabel was very talkative and eager to tell every fact she knew about the various animals. Jessica was concerned with when we were going to visit the gift shop so that she could spend the money her mother had given her that morning. Also the girls decided that they were going to have aliases for the day. Isabel would only answer to April or Krystal. Jessica informed me that she should be called only Jasmine or Pink Feather.

We covered most of the zoo during our visit even though we didn't have a well thought out route. Pretty much whatever they saw ahead of them was what the kids wanted to see next. However, they all seemed to be looking in different directions. As we were touring, I got hoarse from calling out, “This way Isabel, I mean April, Krystal whatever your name is. Over here, Pink Feather. Slow down, Wally.” and “Come on, Andy.”

The highlights of our tour were watching a king cobra snake eat some white mice for lunch, and observing an orangutan watching us. As the orangutan came up to the glass and stared at all of the kids, I was reminded that she was close to the same developmental age as they were. I wondered what she thought about all of the little monkeys jumping around outside her cage.

After continually hearing I'm hungry, ...

Tune in next week when we go to the snack cart and the gift shop. See if the bus ride home is any different than the bus ride there.

Thankful Sunday--October 21, 2012

I am thankful apples--especially this time of year when they are tree ripened.

Apples from the Shanholtz Orchard in Romney, WV.

Food Waste Friday and True Food Confessions--Oct. 19, 2012

 It's time for Food Waste Friday, when the Frugalgirl encourages us to post pictures from the previous week of wasted food from our household. This accountability hopefully will help us to be more careful with our food and maybe save some money. Also, I am using this public forum to encourage us to eat out less which includes better meal planning. You can follow how we are doing in this endeavor by reading True Food Confessions.

This Week's Food Waste

Salsa, that didn't last long.

Another week of no waste. That's two in a row. I saved some ripe tomatoes. I made salsa from them. The salsa disappeared very quickly.

(Can you find the hidden pattern in the above paragraph. See the end of the post for the answer.)

This Weeks True Food Confessions

We ate well this week.

I think this cooking and eating at home is becoming somewhat comfortable to us. How do I know? Cooking is not such a big event now that I rush to get the camera to document it. Taking a picture is usually an afterthought, if we remember at all, so I will have some pictures for the blog. I hope next week works out as well.



Answer to Food Waste Question: All of the sentences have five words in them. Once again, I'm amusing myself.

A Second Look--October 17, 2012

The mums are blooming, the leaves are turning, and the nights are freezing. Autumn is really here. 

See What I Found This Week During a Second Look.

These are the first mums to bloom this fall.

Chinese lantern seed pods

We're seeing more activity at our feeder these days. This is an adult male house finch.

One of our many squirrels taking a drink from the bird bath.

After a rain one day, these mushrooms sprang up.

The dogwoods were the first trees to turn colors. They have been red for a couple of weeks now.

This maple is also starting to turn. Notice that it does it from the top down. The bare branches transition to red leaves which transition to green leaves.

This impatiens was close to the house, so it survived our first frost.

A Second Look--Early Addition, October 16, 2012

This is an early edition of a Second Look that features the first frost of the season. The regular Second Look will be posted tomorrow.

Here's What I Saw One Morning This Week

Notice the white on the hill. That's all frost.

Frosted Japanese Maple Leaf

Frosted Sedum Bloom

Frosted Violet Leaves

Frosted spider web

Frosted Marigold Bloom

Frosted violet leaf.  Notice the drop of dew to the right of the leaves.