The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

It is hard to believe we've been in Arizona for three days already! We missed a big storm back home, and have had nothing but sunshine here.

We took the boys swimming on Sunday, and then had a barbecue so we could meet my sister's friends for the first time.  Sadly, a detour in L.A. led to us missing her performance by 15 minutes on Saturday night!  So, the band played for us around the fire pit in exchange for S'mores, which was sweet.

Yesterday, we drove out into the Sonoran desert to see it in full bloom after the early spring rains and warm weather. My sister has lived here for eight years, and has never seen it more beautiful than now. So, it is a huge treat to be here this week.

We took the boys to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, a world-renowned natural history museum, zoo and botanical garden (for those back at home, it's sort of a really fancy, huge CALM). The grounds were covered in the same desert wildflowers, cacti and trees as the surrounding preserve.

The boys were amazed by all the giant cacti -- saguaro -- which we drove past on our way to the museum, many of which are over a hundred years old. In the picture below, it shows the very slow beginning growth of a saguaro, which takes 15 years to grow to the height of one foot!

We got to see a ringtail, a brown pelican, and a skunk up close in a museum show about habitats and local species. The docent also released two military macaws to fly around the auditorium at full speed -- and one flew so low he brushed my head with his wing! Then he perched himself on the back of a seat to show off his fancy colors!

Cactus wrens and other natives can be heard all over the pollination gardens, but the museum also has two aviaries. The hummingbird aviary is home to seven different species of hummingbirds, which flit and fly from tree to tree, teasing all the photographers attempting to shoot them!

The other aviary housed Gambel's quail, mourning doves, curved-bill thrashers, finches, pyrrhuloxias (a type of cardinal), mockingbirds, robins and ducks. The birds are so used to people, they'll come within inches of the path or sit on branches a foot from your head -- just don't stand directly beneath them or you'll get a messy souvenir!

The boys love learning the exact names of each species. :)

Many of the animals were taking their afternoon naps. We peeked at the sleeping beavers, bobcats and ocelots, and peered over a canyons at the mountain lions, hiding in the shade of their naturalistic habitats.

In the underground exhibit, a gila monster and snake shared a burrow, while the scorpions stayed cool under their rocks.

We couldn't stop for a nap, but we did take an ice cream break!

The bighorn sheep didn't seem to mind the bright sun and heat, and even a screech owl was awake for us, perched in the shade of a saguaro.

Thank you, Auntie Brookie, for taking us to the desert museum!

Headed to Tuscon!

Thank you for the sweet notes of sympathy about Mystery. I know so many of you can relate to our chicken love!

Tomorrow we will leave our six remaining hens (and the kitty) in the loving care of Daddy -- while the boys and I head out for our first big road trip since we drove to Oregon for the Life is Good Unschooling Conference three years ago.

We're going to Tuscon to visit my excessively talented (and I say that with great love and admiration) sister Brook for the week, and to see her perform her original songs for the first time on stage.

I am so excited! We have music in our blood, but Brook never saw herself as a musician until this last year, when she was inspired to turn her poetic skills into song. Not only did she write 20 original songs in a mere two months, she rounded up some very talented local musicians to perform her music on the mandolin, guitar and cello.  I'm so proud of you, Brookie!!

The boys and I have spent all day packing, and cleaning, and doing laundry so we could pack... And can I just say that it's been way easier than I anticipated this time around? It is SO handy to have an almost-9-year-old who can reach inside the washing machine!

We've got a dozen new library books, four books on CD, all our favorite music, and lots of snacks for in the car. We're planning to leave first thing in the morning, driving 10 hours in one day so we can arrive in time for the concert. And I have never driven this route before. (Yes, I'm a little nervous.)

Please pray for traveling mercies!!

I'm hoping to post updates from my sister's house, so you won't have to do without me for a whole week. ;)  Also, I have a little surprise coming up. My birthday's on Wednesday, and it's time for some presents (for you!)...

Goodbye, Mystery. You were loved.

Last Friday, less than an hour before I needed to leave for the Good Friday service at church, Eldest came in from doing his chicken chores with a scared look on his face.

"Something's wrong with Mystery," he said. "She's curled up in the corner of the coop, and she's not moving."

Oh, no.

We have been so blessed in the last two years of chicken parenthood -- every one of the seven little chicks we brought home in February '08 grew into a healthy pullet, then hen. No sickness. Only one neighborhood dog invasion, from which all but Jackie Blackie escaped untouched, and she recovered quickly.

Mystery was our only Rhode Island Red. Sometimes she was at the bottom of the pecking order, being a little smaller and shyer than her Orpington and Rock sisters. But she laid more faithfully than any of them. She was also Eldest's favorite -- he named her.

When he came in with that worried look on his face, Scott and I hurried out to the coop. Our little red hen was curled up in a little corner of the chicken yard, against the garage and the fence, her head tucked down as if asleep. But she was not asleep.

Scott put her gently into a cardboard box, and the boys helped me dig a hole in in a shady spot at the back of yard, near the blackberry vines. They laid yellow flowers on top of the grave, and wept a few tears in my arms.

Eldest dreamed that night that Mystery was alive again. But, of course, there was no Easter for her, poor baby. Sadly, I have few pictures of her, since her sisters were the camera hogs, and Mystery preferred to stay busy on her nest.

You will be missed, Mystery!

Springtime with the ducks

When I was little, my mom would take us to the park downtown to feed the ducks. Since then, the park has been revamped with a new playground, fancy fencing around the "pond" (formerly a canal), and a pretty bridge.

We've been to lots of other parks around town, but never this one until today. Sure enough, the ducks were there waiting for us right by the parking lot! I was worried they might bother us at our picnic blanket if we fed them too close, but they weren't at all aggressive like geese can be. The boys had to follow them very slowly and throw the bread bits at a good distance so they wouldn't run away.

The ducks at our park were mostly Mallards, and sat or waddled about mostly in pairs -- one green-headed drake with one brown mottled hen. A flock of Mallards is called a sord.

The wild Mallard is the ancestor of most varieties of domestic duck. In areas where they are not native, such as New Zealand, populations of local subspecies can be negatively affected by interbreeding with feral Mallards.

We also found one Muscovy duck, who was definitely larger than the other ducks, and may have been blind, from how he was feeling his way along the rocks. He (she?) reminded me of the ugly duckling, although he wasn't a swan.

We took our library copy of The Story About Ping by Marjorie Flack and Kurt Wiese, a story about a Pekin duck who lives on the Yangtze River, and read it during our picnic.

When we got home, Littlest found One Duck Stuck by Phyllis Root, another library book I read to him this week, and "read" nearly the whole story from memory! So I have to recommend that one. :) He also liked Jane Yolen's story of Dimity Duck and her friend Frumity Frog.

The older boys enjoyed reading the short chapter book, Funny Frank, about a chicken who wants to swim like the ducks, and the farmer's wife who helps him.

I'm still waiting on Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey, which is on the kindergarten booklists of most curriculums I've seen.

Do you have local ducks you like to visit?