Who Cooks for You?

Yes, the title of this post is the call of my favorite raptor, BUT, it also proves that even the barred owl knows that David Cook should be the next American Idol. (hehe) I am so tired of hearing about David Archuleta ("the chosen one") and his amazing voice. I don't care how amazing his talent is, I do not want to buy an album of a doe-eyed little boy who is controlled by his crazy stage dad. David Cook is a rock star and the whole package - not just a great singer. If Archuleta wins, I am vowing never to watch idol again.

Come to think of it, I may never watch idol again anyway due to the lame-arse metaphor of a boxing match that ran through tonight's finale show.

BTW - I took a poll of my fifth graders last week -- it was 17 for Cook, 4 for Archuleta. What's up now?

Take it Outside

Yes, strange though it may seem, the U.S. National Whitewater Center resides just outside of Charlotte, NC. It's this amazing facility on almost 300 acres that boasts the world's largest artificial whitewater river. It is also an official U.S. Olympic training site. After two years of being open, we finally checked it out this past weekend. Why we didn't get to partake in the rafting or kayaking, we did do some rock climbing - dave's maiden voyage in harness, in fact - and enjoyed a lovely meal in the cafe afterwards.

There are also ropes courses, zip lines, hiking, and mountain biking. Their motto "Take it Outside" also kicks arse, imho. We will definitely be revisiting. Here are a few pics -pardon the quality...camera died and phone was my only option...

Let Geometry Be

You must check out this clip made by the graduating eighth grade geometry rockstars at Trinity. Kudos to Josh for inspiring his mathletes (hehe) to greatness...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=-xAWAd9Ag5U

Two Cool Things I Saw Today

one of the owlets from last week sitting on its box



my friend linda's roses in full, busting out bloom

The Raptor Report

OMG!

This past Monday I convened with two precious baby barred owls. For serious. The fifth grade ventured out in the drizzle to visit a barred owl nest in the backyard of a local home with our friend from UNCC Dr. Rob Bierregaard. When we arrived, Dr. Rob removed two four week old owlets from the nest in order to band them for tracking. He also inserted a microphone in the nest box for data collection. The We were able to watch the banding process, see Dr. Rob take measurements of feather length and weight, pet the owlets and learn a TON of new owl facts.



this is me carrying the owlets to the kids - dr. rob lowered them down from the tree to, that's right!, me. :)


Did you know, for example, that at eight weeks the owlet leaves the nest for good? OR, that a baby owl does not start developing until its mom chooses to sit on the egg? This results in the eggs hatching on the same day even if they are laid several days apart! OR, that you can’t tell an owl’s gender until it is full grown?

Eventually, the mom and dad started calling to one another – the kids recognized their calls and “check in” or “what’s going on with you?” calls and even spotted the mom in a nearby tree. She was definitely watching every move Dr. Rob made with her babies...

The link to our gallery is below - enjoy!

http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=263281209415859064/l=375714786/g=5494