Eagle Days

This weekend, we drove to my parents' home in Pella, Iowa for a visit and to attend the 24th Annual Bald Eagle Days at Lake Red Rock.

The first event we attended was the Minnesota Raptor Center's presentation. I've attended various Raptor Center events over the years and I must say, they are a well-run organization that does a great job with education.

The presentation included this Red Tailed Hawk that was blind in one eye from West Nile Virus.

This Peregrine Falcon was surrendered to the Raptor Center by a falconer who found that she wasn't a strong hunter. Tests run by the center indicate she has a weak heart and therefore doesn't have enough stamina to survive in the wild.

This Great Horned Owl was 'rescued' as a hatchling by people who found it on the ground. Rather than leave it for the parents to take care of on the ground (which is the appropriate response), they tried to care for him. He imprinted on humans. As a result, he doesn't know how to hunt and still talks like an owl baby.

This eagle was brought to the Raptor Center as a juvenile after it was struck by a car.

After the presentation, we walked through the exhibits, watched a presentation on bats, and then went to the Dam. The eagles were restless with all the people walking around watching them (according to the man from the Raptor Center, they had counted over a hundred the day before and I know my parents have seen as many as a hundred when they've taken walks at the dam).

I took better Eagle shots at Christmas. However, this juvenile was funny. I was directly below him and he wouldn't fly off. The whole group of us stood underneath him and he just kept tilting his head looking at us, probably wondering what our problem was. Finally, Tim took a stick and hit the trunk of the tree he was in and he took off.

Here are some other shots from our day.

Mother/Daughter Journal

I had read of the concept of a Mother/Daughter Journal before the girls could read but what I read did not offer a way to introduce it to your child that might excite them. Recently, on Pinterest, I found a way to start one that I really liked. So I wrote the first letter as suggested on the blog Mama Jenn and gave one to each of my girls. C is not particularly happy with me at the moment and has not written in hers. K was very excited to write in hers and her first entry melted my heart.

It says "Dear Mom, I love you. Thanks for teaching me how to mack {make} boxes."

I make fancy gift boxes, you can see some from Christmas on my other blog as well as K's first effort. She has made three more lately and has already given my favorite one away (before I got to photograph it). I will try to photograph the ones she has made recently soon.

I replied.

Her joy and excitement when she got my letter was profound. This is definitely worth doing if it touches your child's heart.

No Beatrix Potter, Here.

This morning, while K was practicing piano, I was working on getting caught up on some business emails, I felt something tickly on my leg so I stomped my foot and felt something fall onto my foot, I flipped on the light and saw a tiny mouse scoot under the computer desk.

My first thought is I am a grown woman and do not need to make a fuss but my second thought was I would feel much better if I vented. So I started screaming and ran upstairs and woke up my husband yelling that I had a mouse in my pants. Of course, the girls were quite upset.

I went downstairs and found the sticky trap we had leftover from the chipmunk incident. That little creatures was wandering around without a care in the world, as if he didn't see me at all. If I had something, I could have caught him but he scooted when I got close to him (mice are extremely shortsighted and this one seemed especially so (Hmm...I wonder if that is the origin of the song Three Blind Mice)). I placed the trap and went upstairs.

I was in our bedroom changing when K came running in screaming that the mouse was at the bottom of the stairs. C was in the doorway at the bottom of the stairs preventing the mouse from escaping so I grabbed an empty peanut butter jar and tried to catch it but the jar was a bit small, so C got me a shoe box sized Tupperware. I managed to pin the little creature between the stair and the box and so I put the pb jar by his head and let the box go and so caught him.

He was absolutely adorable. Mice are cute - Beatrix Potter's illustrations prove it. However, unlike that fine woman, I am not interested in having one living in my house.

So we released the little guy at a nearby park and then proceeded to harass him by following him around and taking photos of him. Fortunately, I only put a 256 memory card in my camera and could only take 30 shots and was so forced to leave him alone.

I am OCD, I've washed my hands so many times today that they are drying out. :)

While I was obsessing to Tim, he asked me a simple question. "In the twelve years we have lived in this house, how many rodents have we found in it?" I replied "Two." He said, "No, three." He's right we've had a deer mouse, a chipmunk, and now this little field mouse.

the aquarium at MOA

While I would never visit the MOA as a tourist destination, there are definitely benefits to living near it. Yesterday was my nephew's third birthday so we met his Mom A (my sister) and his Dad R at MOA to go to the aquarium.

My sister A is pregnant with twins and is due mid-June. She looks great (of course, I didn't ever take a picture that featured her belly).

The aquarium recently changed hands and they remodeled it. They've added a ray pool with a bubble where you can see them up close and personal.

Of course there is the old stand-by the invertebrate pool where you can reach in and touch starfish and sea urchins etc. I love how A and R are interacting with the kids here.

Here is a display of garden eels, I was having fun using my flash to create reflections so you are going to have to work harder to see into the tanks but if you look you will see the garden eels - they look like funny single stalks of sea weed waving on the bottom of the tank floor.

Isn't this starfish cool looking?

Sea jellies.

One very cool thing about these tubular aquariums that you can walk through is you get to see the bottom side of fish. It is really amazing to see a shark's teeth.

Look kissy lips!!

They are still working on one area to convert it to a rain forest. I got a kick out of the sign which read "Please do not touch or feed the animals, it is bad for their health."