Nature at home - birds.

As you regular readers may remember, Charlie finally got a pond dug a few months ago. See: http://jbetzblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/catching-up.html He has put in some small blue gills, and bass.
Since then we have seen a couple of ducks on it, a king fisher, trying to get some of the fish, http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/61/_/Belted_Kingfisher.aspx and some yellow warblers. http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/343/_/Yellow_Warbler.aspx. I don't know if the warblers are here because of the pond or we just never noticed them before.

I saw a hummingbird this evening, but not at the feeders,and I am not sure where it is nesting. One year we had a nest in the maple tree in the front yard.

A pair of robins have also built a nest on a fence post by the horse barn. it is only about 4 feet off the ground and has 4 blue eggs in it.

Kathy said she thought she saw an Oriole when they were here for Easter, Charlie has seen it, but I haven't yet this year.

We also have a couple of Bluebirds nesting.

About a year ago we found this really cool bird identification website; Whatbird.com. http://www.whatbird.com/ You can search by entering the name of a bird or it will help you figure out what kind of bird it is by choosing colors, size, beak shape, location etc. It even has a bird song feature so you can hear what the birds sound like.

I don't remember if I mentioned that we took the mare down to "visit her boyfriend" a couple of weeks ago, Charlie went down to pick her up yesterday so we should have another foal about this time next year. Here is a picture of the stallion.

Charlie put our other younger mare in with our stallion, we are not sure if that "worked" yet if not we will have them try again in a few weeks.

Vacation

Well, it has been awhile, I just simply forget to write, because I lead such an exciting live. NOT!
Last week we went camping with my family. There are pictures of that trip on my nephew's blog at http://www.simplyoutdoors.net/2008/05/22/camping-the-first-trip-of-the-year/

There were 11 people who camped and my one of my niece's in-laws came for supper on Saturday.

Michelle had the baby there, Benjamin is 7 months old, and they are so cute at that age, I forgot to take any pictures - AGAIN, but you can see some of them again on Arthur's blog at http://arthurandjenn.com/wordpress/?p=727

We had 3 campsites and our camping "gear ranged from tents, to pop-ups-to trailers, to mini-motor homes.

From Pokagon State Park we went to Redbanks Mississippi, to see Charlie's son Terry and his family.

We had a good time and as usual Charlie did a lot of things with the kids and came home with a little back ache, I don't think he's used to riding a bicycle about 5+ miles.

We hope to have them, or at least the three kids, come up sometime soon to see and ride the horses, and so we can show them around Michigan.

I took a few pictures, but I didn't get any good ones of Terry or Amy or Ruth. This is one of Logan age three, the great grandson, Sarah age 10, and Daniel in the background, age 14. Ruth is 12.

Passion Quilt

I found this on blog that I read everyday, I would like all you at JDL to try this.
This is called a meme- it is kind of like a game of tag. One person starts it and tags several other people. They in turn answer the questions and tag someone else. I am not tagging anyone, but I think it is kind of neat and if anyone that reads this wants to try it or to comment please do so.

Here are the "rules"

1. Think about what you are passionate about teaching your students.
2. Post a picture from a source like FlickrCC or Flickr Creative Commons or make/take your own that captures what YOU are most passionate about for kids to learn about…and give your picture a short title.
3. Title your blog post “Meme: Passion Quilt” and link back to this blog entry.
4. Include links to 5 folks in your professional learning network or whom you follow on Twitter/Pownce.

Here are what some other people have done and said:

http://www.jasongriffey.net/wp/2008/04/27/connections-are-everything/
http://meredith.wolfwater.com/wordpress/index.php/2008/04/28/passion-quilt-share/
http://librarytrainer.com/2008/04/28/passion-quilt-meme/
http://tametheweb.com/2008/04/27/passion-quilt-from-helene/
http://tametheweb.com/2008/04/26/meme-passion-quilt-or-what-i-want-for-new-librarians/
http://heyjude.wordpress.com/2008/02/24/meme-passion-quilt/

Here is mine:Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out" James Bryant Conant

Originally loaded by Marc Shandro http://www.flickr.com/photos/25411240@N00/756336236

It reminds me of a quote (actually several other quotes: (I have several of them on my bulletin board)

“We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are.” `- Max Depree
If you always do what you've always done you will always get what you always got -
source unknown.

In other words, no one is perfect, we always need to improve, and we can't do that by staying what we are. In order to improve you have to take a little risk. Sometimes it can be scary, but I think that most of the time the greatest rewards come at the greatest risk.

I am not tagging anyone but like I said if you would like to pass it along, please do so.
and please credit your sources.