Science in the park

Another summer activity with our fellow homeschoolers (and everyone thought when we said homeschooling that we meant schooling at home? hah). With storms threatening on the horizon, and the heat climbing to an almost unbearable high (when last did we see a week of temperatures over ninety degrees?), we gathered in small groups under the  picnic pavilion to play with air. Sound boring? Never.

Zzzzzz zoo

We really enjoy going to the zoo. I know it's a controversial thing, zoos, and I can see both sides of that argument, but since they're here, and while they're here, we like to take advantage of seeing animals we would never otherwise have the good fortune to see. Still, while I love going to zoos, I'm not fond of the crowds, the heat if it's summer, or the crowds, or definitely, definitely the crowds. There's something about zoo going that brings out the worst in people. I swear the idea of calmly and patiently waiting in lines, a thing we all supposedly learned about in kindergarten, goes out the proverbial window faster than the proverbial baby in bath water. And since the jostling, pushing, constant people in the way, and overall monotony of voices drives me batty after a time, I can only imagine what it's like for the animals, who from their small spaces must put up with, day in and day out, the human cacophony that accompanies any crowd.

But the work day is blessedly short for your average zoo animal, and although I never put much thought into zoo after hours before this week, I can now say with utmost certainty that happy hour is a thing at the zoo. Think of it this way: once all that cacophony, all that humanness, walks out the front gate, all panda-monium breaks loose.

They're gone! the animals are thinking, Let's get our party hats on!

The minute the after hours hush falls over the zoo, the animals come alive. Whatever animal you couldn't find because it was hiding behind the rock is now out cavorting with whatever enrichment device was just now placed in their enclosure by the equally relieved keeper. It's better than happy hour beer, it's happy hour frozen fish, or crackers in a box, or grubs in a ball. This is the life.

And you know what else? All the animals that don't officially live at the zoo, all the free-loading rabbits, ground hogs, geese, and ducks also come out for the fun. And everyone's in such a good mood, the rabbits don't even think of taunting the wolves, who are too busy galloping all over the enclosure now that nobody can see them to give a hoot anyway.

Yes, zoo closing time is just like closing time anywhere else, and I know this because now I've seen it thanks to a summer time homeschooling field trip. Just as everyone else was skipping out the front gate, about twenty of us were sneaking in (not really, because we were there by invitation) to take part in the happy hour festivities. We toured the grounds, we made enrichment activities, we saw (as best we could) animals playing after dark, and we slept with the fishes in the zoo aquarium, the sharks, rays, and sea turtles slowly floating by all night long. Then the next morning, functioning on only as much sleep as we'd been able to muster, we were given another tour of the zoo before the front gates opened and we were set loose with all the other zoo goers.

Of course, by then we'd been privilege to the zoo as it is in its off time, and the open hours were less impressive, but we did get to feed the giraffes.

4H Youth Show 2016

Before homeschooling I knew one thing about 4H: that it was a club for kids who raised adorable baby animals so that they could later sell them off for slaughter. It was indelibly linked in my mind to the story of Charlotte's Web and the fate that awaited poor Wilbur. I've never been a vegitarian, nor have I ever been deluded about where my food comes from, but I'm far too much of a softy to have ever met any of my meals in the spring of their lives.

None of that has really changed for me, my son is equally soft hearted, and we live in a suburban area that doesn't even allow the rearing of backyard chickens, and yet we have been 4H members for several years now because, as it turns out, 4H is about more—way more—than farming. We were introduced to the 4H program when we joined our homeschooling group. I turned in my paperwork and was handed a bonafide 4H membership card that entitled me to a discount at the local Tractor Supply Co. I was also handed an information sheet about all the activities the program had to offer, from summer craft camps to weekly archery classes, all with the main goal of helping kids grow to their full potential.

Each summer the 4H year culminates in a county-wide Youth Show where the animals so dutifully raised and, in some cases, trained, are shown and put up for auction. But the show isn't only for the farmers in the group. In addition to barns upon barns full of animals, there is a building dedicated solely to "still" projects, or projects other than animals that are presented for judging. These projects are meant to demonstrate any level of beginnership on up through mastery of any hobby or skill imaginable worked on over the previous year. Kids present finished projects to judges to earn grades of A, B, or C. Some projects will also be given a ranking of Honors, and from those Honors projects will be chosen a single Best in Show per category by age. It's a system that rewards individual effort as well as overall.

Calvin has presented projects in the Youth Show for three years now, but for those first three years he received only participation ribbons, as do all the youngest participants. This, then, was the first year he was old enough to be elligible for grading, and he took that challenge very seriously. When he registered to submit ten projects in six different project areas, I was concerned—about him completing them on time, about the quality of the finished work, about what he could possibly learn from so many different projects—but I was wrong to worry. I wasn't really surprised that he tackled some of the same projects (wildlife and wildflower info pages and photography) with the same skill and attention he'd afforded them in previous years, but I was completely blown away by his attention to detail in new project areas, like rock collecting, container plants, and especially sewing, which he had never before tackled in all his life.

Ten projects, ten A grades, eight Honors rankings, four Best in Shows, and lots and lots of fun.

Heifer Global Village

If you've ever sought to give in honor of someone you love, you may have run across Heifer International. This is the organization that allows you to give the gift of livestock (a goat, a water buffalo, a rabbit, you name it...) to an impoverished family, and wrap the giving of gift as a gift for someone else who will greatly appreciate not having another vase to store only to remember at the last minute to drag it out and dust it before you come over. The gifts are fun (who doesn't want to give away a water buffalo???) and mindful, and Heifer will even provide you will a printable certificate so you have some. We have purchased gifts through them in the past for family members at Christmas.

But Heifer International is not only involved in helping the impoverished around the world, they are also into teaching in order to raise a more mindful and involved next generation. We are fortunate enough to have one of their Global Village education centers very nearby (there are only four such sites in the United States), and last week we took a homeschooler's field trip to the Howell Nature Center's Heifer Global Village. The "village" is a collection of authentically erected and sustained shelters or homes that would be found in outlying areas around the globe: an adobe hut from Africa, an elevated house from Indonesia, a traditional structure from Peru, and a shack from the Appalachians.

We were given a guided tour of the site by a very well-informed docent who did a great job of pulling the kids in with games and tantalizing factoids. They also had llamas. Llamas make anything an easy sell. And while I think our tour was completely worth the afternoon, probably the real meat and potatoes of the site are the overnight and shelter building group programs offered for older kids. 

Our very own cows

We have been using the same milk in our house since Calvin was first drinking it in a sippy cup from a high chair at the table. It comes from a daily farm not quite an hour from our home, and in those early years, before it was available in the local stores, we had it delivered. It came in glass jars, carried in a wire basket by a real milk man driving a truck painted with traditional dairy cow spots. It was a highlight of our day, especially when we added things to our order like ice cream, or their annual egg nog, so thick you could eat it with a spoon. 

These days the glass jarred Calder milk is available in a handful of our local grocery stores, but even though we no longer get visited by the milk man in the cow truck, I still feel loyalty and connection to our milk that I might not if it was a national brand in the carton. So it's a little odd that, with the dairy less than an hour away, we never visited our cows to actually see where our milk originated. I mean, that's a homeschooler's bread and butter, isn't it? (They have great butter, too, by the way, that comes in great big wax paper-wrapped blocks).

So today we rectified that educational omission. Our local homeschool field trip club organised an afternoon at the Calder Dairy Farm with animal feeding opportunities, cow and milking education, a hayless wagon ride, and a (very large) scoop of delicious Calder ice cream. The little bit of rain didn't hurt our fun. We fed farm ducks (I love farm ducks!), goats, sheep, and baby cows. We met amazingly portly pigs (they snore). We milked a friendly cow (with a lot of help from an obvious expert). We enjoyed delicious ice cream. 

And now we've met our cows.