Nocturnal antics

Life is full of surprises. We didn't set out to dissect owl pellets with our bare hands today, but somehow that's what we found ourselves doing.

The sun was shining, so the Man, the Girl and I had gone down to Five Rivers for a little hike. We managed the hike, though it was more of a squelch-and-slide. The snow has been alternately melting and refreezing, so where the ground wasn't boggy it was lethally icey.

When we got to the visitor centre we found we were just in time for the start of a talk on nocturnal creatures. We learnt about the habits of racoons and flying squirrels and owls, and in particular how owls eat their prey. They grind them up in their crop, swallow what they can digest and cough up the remaining bones, fur or feathers in a pellet. At this point the instructor presented us all with owl pellets, individually wrapped in silver foil like rather unappetising Easter eggs.

I found the remains of some sort of rodent in mine. The Girl picked through hers with gusto and identified a vole. She has brought another pellet home to examine later in her basement science lab.

The Boy, meanwhile, had been out all afternoon with his buddy, playing mini-golf and rollerskating. The buddy has ended up at our house for a sleepover, and the Girl also has a friend to stay tonight, so I'll leave you to imagine just how restful that scenario is turning out to be.

Balanced advice

I had another day of progress at the rink today - I started to get the hang of crossovers. That's when you cross one foot in front of the other, and the goal is to do it repeatedly so that you work up some speed. I've been struggling to get this right for a few weeks, but thanks to today's lesson (on top of a bit of impromptu extra coaching yesterday from Dean of Torville-and-) it has begun to make sense.

It's all about balance. As one of the instructors puts it, skating is like driving a manual car. You have to do a whole load of things at once, though with practice you do them all without thinking. And you have to find the equivalent of the bite point on the clutch - the perfect point of balance. The problem is, for each manouevre that point of balance is slightly different. There's a lot to learn.

Skating does not come naturally to me, I find it hugely difficult, and I'll never be great at it. But I really love it. Days like today give me a buzz. To anyone reading this who has the chance to learn something new and challenging - go for it! It's surprisingly fun to stretch yourself.

Cool Britannia

I observed another tracking class at Five Rivers today, and it was a useful experience. The kids (5th graders, so the equivalent of Year 6/top juniors) were nice enough, but very lively, and a bit shambolic. It took about twenty minutes to get all fifteen of them into their snowshoes, during which time half of them wandered off, twice, and had to be rounded up again. Then when we finally set off it was like walking in a clown parade, they just kept falling over, one after another.

I don't know how much they learnt about nature. I suspect for some of them simply being outdoors was a novelty. Walking, with or without snowshoes, was quite an effort for a few.

My accent was another novelty and a source of some fascination. One girl asked if I was Italian. Another wondered if I'd grown up speaking like her then learnt a different accent, and could she do that too? Ah, but it's great when you can open your mouth and say something completely mundane and be told you are 'so cool'.

Something to get my teeth into

It must be, oo, all of a few days since I last saw the dentist, but not to worry, I had another appointment this morning. The aversion therapy of all these visits is working a treat and I have totally lost my fear of dental treatment. I still feel pain though, since it remains physically impossible for me to 'open wide' for any length of time. Plus there's always that bit at the end when they tell me how much the session just cost...

Most of the rest of the day I've been working on a quilt for this year's school auction which is coming up in a couple of months. I know it's not for everyone, cutting up perfectly good bits of fabric just to sew them back together, but it makes me happy.

Lost the plot

No takers yet for the Blue Line to Wonderland challenge. So, here are some ideas from the Man and me for you to pick from. Or suggest your own:

#1 Young woman embarks on a series of fantasy train journeys in order to escape her hopelessly shallow life as a kooky Boston lawyer.

#2 Beautiful ticket collector secretly admires Harvard professor, but he doesn't notice her until one day she shows him her brilliant new twist on Superstring theory.

#3 Initially dismayed by a positive pregnancy test, Boston career woman learns to appreciate the joys of motherhood.

#4 Unlucky in love nurse finds her life taking a detour when her mother places a personals ad in the paper, while on the other side of Boston, a plumber is trying to change careers. (Actually that's the plot of a 1998 movie called Next Stop Wonderland. No, I'd never heard of it either.)

Come on, you can do better, surely?

Mass Transit

We rounded off our Boston trip with a little walk around the city this morning, starting from Cambridge, over the Charles River and through Beacon Hill to Boston Common and Downtown. At least two of our party enjoyed this, in spite of the perishing cold and the persistent whingeing of the other two.


It has been fun to get away for a spell and enjoy some different activities. Here are some more photos from our trip: enjoying the bracing wind on the harbour front...


...and dancing in the rain outside the Aquarium.

Blue Line to Wonderland

...said the subway sign, temptingly, but our destination today was the New England Aquarium.

Actually, the aquarium was quite a wonderland itself. We spent most of the day hanging out with penguins, seals and turtles, also encountering sharks, lion fish, seahorses and dragons and much else. For good measure we threw in an IMAX 3D movie about whales and dolphins.

Later we grabbed some food at Quincey Market, unusually quiet, perhaps because of the pouring rain outside. Then we scurried back to the hotel with its tellies and swimming pool.

But back to the title - unbelievably, there's no novel yet with that name. There should be, but what should it be about? Send in your synopses please...

Home suite home

We are in Boston for the weekend, staying in a hotel 'suite', which is a sort of tiny apartment filled with TVs. Well, two TVs, which is two more than we have at home. So the children are very happy, in addition because there is a microwave oven (which also looks like a telly) and we have made popcorn in it.

We arrived early this afternoon and took ourselves to the Boston Children's Museum. It's a huge place filled with hands-on exhibits featuring pretty much everything a kid might want to have a go at, from making tin foil boats to testing out an electronic dance mat. Science, health, multi-cultural experience, construction work, disability aids, art, recycling, invention - these were just a few of the themes covered. We really only managed to skim the surface of it in the two and half hours we spent there.

A couple of highlights:

The children reached the top of this incredible vertical maze and started heading down again - only to find themselves, Escher-like, back at the top...

The Boy pedal-powering a moving sculpture.

Of Mouse and Man

The Girl and her friend finally settled down around 11pm, not many minutes before the Man and I headed up to bed. I was counting on them lying in this morning, but no, the giggling started again before half six. How do they do it?

It's about time for a mouse update. The traps have stood empty since Sunday, when the Man and Girl released the (third? fourth?) last one. We're hopeful that we've solved the problem, though of course the alternative scenario is that they've just got wise to the traps and are hanging out elswhere in the house.

Anyway, here's a little video which we're planning to submit to the BBC Natural History Unit at Bristol. Alas, it comes too late for this year's Oscars (documentary category). In it you may observe that mice can move very fast, and the Man not quite so:

Jeepers sleepers?

Today the children and I met up with one of the Girl's classmates at a place called Jeepers. It's an indoor emporium of rides and game machines (points mean coupons!), noise, surly staff and luridly colourful refreshments. My idea of hell, to be honest, but the kids loved it and we were there for three hours before they could be persuaded they'd had enough. And then before we could actually leave they spent another half hour agonising over exactly what plastic junk they were going to exchange their hard-won coupons for.

The classmate came home with us, for dinner and a sleepover. She'd traded in her fistful of coupons for a whoopee cushion, which has given them all fun and hilarity like you can't imagine (unless you have children of your own, in which case you can probably imagine only too well).

As I write the three kids are playing a loud game together involving a plastic Noah's Ark in a tsunami situation. Not much evidence of yawning going on. Could be a long night...

Whiter than white

The snow has been slowly thawing over the past week or so, leaving grassy patches here and there. In very exposed areas the snow has gone altogether, but our end of the street is shady so the front and backyards are still pretty much covered, it's just that the snow looks a bit tired and dingey.

A fresh snowfall was just what was needed to whiten and brighten everything up again, and that's what we've had today. Though actually it hasn't been very committed snowfall, sort of a rainy mix. We'll see how things are looking in the morning.

Definitely whiter and brighter today are the kids' teeth. They went for their twice yearly check-up and cleaning appointment. Our last visit was not a rousing success (the children were too nervous to be 100% cooperative) but this time everything went smoothly and Girl and Boy came out with gleaming grins, and booty from the hygienist's treasure chest.

Timewarp Trio

The kids have the whole week off school. The Exile's family (minus the Exile himself, who was at work with the Man) came to play this morning. Most of them went home after lunch, but we kept Exile #3 and took her off to CMOST for the afternoon.

The museum has been rearranged since I last visited, though the exhibits remain largely the same. Computer screens and video presentations are more prominent than they used to be, which I think is a bit of a pity as they distract from all the other good hands-on activities. Ah well.

Our party had a great time as usual, and got to experience technologies ancient and traditional (like this dugout canoe)...

...and televisually modern.

Build-a-bear-thday

Today was President's Day, a day off for many. Also the Boy's birthday, which meant a return trip to the Bleed-Ya'-Dry Workshop. It was packed. We queued for well over an hour in stifling heat. Was everyone out on a mad spending spree to celebrate the stimulus package getting signed tomorrow? The woman ahead of us spent nearly $300 on stuffed animals and accessories.

This time the Boy fell for a lime-green frog which he has named Hoppit. We allowed him two accessories, which are this "Feelin' green" t-shirt and an "I-pod" which plays four build-a-bear tunes...endlessly. He is very happy, though of course he'd have loved even more "stuff" and rather wishes I'd apply to work at the store so I could qualify for a discount. But it might mean changing my name to "Albaniana Fluff-n-stuff", and I don't know if I'd be able to live with myself.

We then visited another toyshop where the kids ogled the Playmobil and the Boy started compiling his Christmas list... It never ends.

I think he'd say it has been a good birthday, with some great gifts from friends and extended family, plus permission to eat sweets and crisps [candy and chips] for breakfast - and let's face it, not much tops that.

Icy nature

It has been a beautifully sunny day, though below freezing and made to feel even colder by a brisk wind. We drove up to Thacher State Park with vague thoughts of a snowy hike, but ended up making an extended visit to the nature centre at Thompson's Lake instead. The Boy and I had been there before, back in the summer. The Girl got quite engrossed in various nature quizzes and in tallying the different species of birds (and a red squirrel) visiting the bird-feeders outside the window. The Boy particularly enjoyed looking through a microscope and making animal tracks in a sandbox.

America (this part of it at least) excels at nature centres and small museums. The place today was typical in being on a manageable scale so that it was possible to give full attention to each exhibit. The displays were clear and interesting to read, with enough information, but not too much to absorb. There were several hands-on exhibits and challenges enjoyable for children and adults. And there were helpful staff on hand to answer questions. I always come away from these places feeling like I've learnt something new and understand my surroundings a little better.

As for hiking, the most we managed in the end today was a slip and a slide down to the frozen lake behind the centre.

Here's the Boy - on his last day as a six year-old.

Iced gem

Mouse #3 in the trap today - or was it Mouse #2 again? We made a family outing to Five Rivers to release it. They're not doing so badly, these mice: slap up meal of peanut butter in a cosy snapless trap, then a short drive out to a nice nature reserve. They're probably phoning all their friends and sending them round.

But this blog is rapidly turning into 'Rodentiana'. I'll ease up on the mouse news for a bit.

Yesterday I was undeservedly bumped up into the top group at skating (there was a shortage of instructors). 'Ok,' said the teacher brightly, 'Today we're going to do some ice-dancing!' Whhhaaat? The other two students (lets call them Torville and Dean) went skimming away across the rink, leaving me standing (though not butt-down on the ice, at least). The teacher took pity on me, demonstrated the basics of the first part of the dance step, and left me to practise. Round and round I went following a circle on the ice. Round and round so many times that if I'd been on a pond I'd probably have ground right through the ice and into the water. But by the end of the session I'd more-or-less got the manoeuvre, so it wasn't all in vain. My muscles have been aching again today though.

Temperatures were around freezing this morning, so we went out for an ice-cream, because why not?

Very mouseterious

We caught another mouse overnight. Out it went onto the porch, still in its trap, to be dealt with after breakfast. Problem was, something else decided to deal with it first. The Man found the trap out on the snow of the front yard, opened and empty, and no mouse to be seen. Could a cat have got to it? Maybe - in which case the mouse was breakfast. But the part of the trap with the peanut butter bait on it had also disappeared, so I'm not discounting squirrels. In which case the mouse could just have done a runner and be back in the kitchen tonight. Sigh.

Twice Times Two

Happy Birthday to two great men - Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln - on their bicentennials. And also to my twin nieces, who have reached the grand old age of five.

Now for a mouse update: both traps were shut when we came downstairs this morning. One was obviously empty. The other - definitely occupied. Aha!

I dropped the Man at work then detoured home through some countryside and stopped at the side of the road. Here's our squatter, about to be decanted into a field. Cute, eh? I'm hoping he was a lone operator. I'm hoping he was a he and hasn't left behind a set of octuplets under the kitchen cabinets. I shall be setting the traps again tonight, just in case.

And skating latest: I spent a good hour at the rink today and established that in fact it is possible to skate backwards in a circle. I feel quite pleased with myself.

Keep yer traps shut

One of the mousetraps had been sprung when we came down to the kitchen this morning. It kind of rattled as the Man put it out on the front porch while we had breakfast and got the kids ready for school.

Once everyone else had left (kids on the bus, the Man collected by the Exile) I prepared to release our rodent friend into the wild. I didn't want it to find its way back to the house, so I popped the trap in the back of the car and drove about a mile to a field by the side of the road.

The trap operates by way of a see-saw arrangement. The mouse heads up towards the bait, activating the see-saw which causes the door to snap shut behind it. I could hear the see-saw rattling, but there didn't seem to be any scratching sounds. Whatever was in there was being as quiet as... proverb suggests it should be. Or perhaps the trap wasn't so humane, and the mouse had copped it? I opened the door gingerly, ready to shake out a little mousey corpse, but instead found...

...nothing! Darn it! I felt like a proper Charlie.

I've set the traps again, ready for tonight. Was I just imagining that squeaky snigger from under the cooker?

Mouseketeering

I hadn't expected to be using my tracking skills domestically. Though to be honest, it didn't take a training course at Five Rivers for me to work out what had moved into the kitchen.

The most obvious sign was the half-nibbled avocado on the counter. A little investigation revealed a mouse play-area under the cooker - only recently adopted, I think. Out with the Marigolds and a bottle of disinfectant, then, and a trip to the DIY store for wire wool (to fill up the possible entry-hole) and traps. Humane traps, of course, in deference to the kids' sensibilities and my own squeamishness.

Here's one of the traps. It's baited with peanut butter. Tune in tomorrow to find out if it works...

Thaw point

Over the last two or three days the daytime temperature has been consistently above freezing - for the first time in, oo, seems like months. The result is we've got a bit of a thaw on, and the result of that is that the Boy came home from school soaking wet.

Snow pants and snow boots are great in the snow, but not so useful (it turns out) when the snow turns into big soggy puddles on the school field. The Boy managed to soak his first pair of socks and trousers during morning recess, then did the same to his spare set of clothes in the afternoon. He was a forlorn and disgruntled figure getting off the bus in a pair of damp shorts and squelching boots.

Tomorrow I'll be sending him in with two spare sets of everything, and standing by to load the dryer at home-time.

Fishy horror show

I took the Boy to Proctor's Theatre in Schenectady this morning. One of his friends was holding her birthday party there. All the guests were invited to a screening of Sea Monsters, an Imax movie in spectacular 3-D.

I'd never been to a 3-D film before. Wow! It's like those fishes were actually swimming over our heads! I was full of child-like wonder. The Boy was more full of unadulterated terror, as prehistoric sea creatures swam right at us snapping their ferocious teeth. Not to mention the distressing numbers of fish that were being eaten throughout the movie, and the Boy has tender feelings for fish. He had to keep whipping off his cardboard specs to hide his face in my shoulder. By the end he was practically in tears.

Anyway, he later managed to recover his composure, enough to eat a large slice of birthday cake and handfuls of candy from a pinata, and by the time we were heading home he'd decided that maybe he wouldn't mind seeing that film again some time even though it was, you know, horrible.

Ho-ho hotel

Much to-ing and fro-ing today. Just before lunch the Boy was collected by his best buddy to go and see the movie Hotel for Dogs. I dropped the Girl off at Five Rivers in the afternoon for a Girl Scout outing to learn about plants. The Man and I took a Five Rivers walk ourselves, which gave me the chance to show off some of my newly acquired tracking skills.

Came home, with the Girl, and awaited the return of the Boy. Then I took the Girl and her friend to see Hotel for Dogs. They chortled throughout and didn't seem at all irritated by the saccharine happy ending. The movie has received only average reviews, but perhaps the reviewers were not kids aged between six and ten, who apparently think it is the funniest thing ever.

Nature quiz for you: whose prints are these?

Give me a break

Just been round babysitting for the Exiles, enjoying the peace and quiet of a household where the kids are in bed by 8pm (how do they do that?). I celebrated with a glut of telly-watching (we still don't have one). So many channels to choose from! So few worth choosing!

The commercial breaks had me spellbound: advert after advert for convenience food. Interspersed with ads for diet products and nutritional supplements, because if all you eat is what you've seen on TV then obviously you're going to end up overweight and under-nourished. It was quite depressing really.

On a healthier note, I've enrolled for more skating lessons so I was back at the rink this morning. My classmates from last time have been replaced by a couple of complete beginners, so I've shot to the top of the class by mere dint of showing up. Today I was trying to learn to skate backwards in a circle. I'm pretty sure it's actually impossible - but then that's what I used to think about skating forwards in a straight line without falling over, so maybe there's hope...

Good news day

On Monday morning I received a call from the hospital where I had my mammogram last week. The radiographer had looked at my results and wanted me back for more x-rays and an ultrasound. Although I was aware that the recall rate for these tests is quite high here and that it wasn't likely there was really anything wrong, still the last three days haven't been the most relaxing.

Anyway, this morning first thing I was back at the hospital being prodded and squished again, but mostly waiting around for results. Happily, after two hours I was told everything's fine and sent on my way - with a little skip in my step, I have to admit.

Good luck, bad luck: to some extent we make our own, but mostly it's completely arbitrary. Given that there was actually nothing wrong with me in the first place, I know it's nonsense to say I got lucky today - but the fact is, that's how it feels.

Fact-finding mission

I helped out at the Girl's Brownie meeting this evening. It's not much like Brownies as I remember it. For a start they only meet formally once a month. Instead of gathering in a church hall or some such the meetings take place in a room at the library, so there's no running around, it's all quite sedentary.

Also the group is very small, only eight or nine girls. Tonight they were making heart-shaped felt bags sewn together with ribbon, in honour of Valentine's Day. The leader had prepared the felt with tiny sewing holes, and (with safety in mind?) instead of needles gave them bag twist-ties to stitch with. So that was quite challenging. But they all ended up with a bag, which they filled with winnings from the bingo session which took up the last part of the meeting.

For next month's get-together they'll be learning about other countries, so they each had to choose a foreign land to research. The Girl eagerly picked Great Britain. She has to present three fun facts and find something interesting to bring in for a show and tell. She has plans to treat everyone to some British food - watch this space next month to find out what she chooses and how that goes down...

What fun facts would you choose?

Spending freeze

The Man writes...Sunday morning I found myself in an impatient, freezing group of people outside a gloomy furniture warehouse in a desolate part of the city. Presently, at exactly 11am the "Star Spangled Banner" rang out over a tinny tannoy and, at the most rousing point, we were finally allowed to file in, to do our patriotic duty and shop.

Afterwards I went to the nearby Hudson River to look at the frozen landscape by the Livingstone Avenue railway bridge. Built in 1901, it's a rotating swing bridge, but it doesn't look like any ships will be passing through this way for a while yet...

Lab report

It's Groundhog Day again. Five groundhogs (Dunkirk Dave and Saskatoon Evan among them) are predicting that an early spring is on the way, but another eight (including Punxsutawney Phil himself) suggest we're in for another six weeks of winter. Looking out at the snow still sitting in great mounds everywhere, my money's with Phil. I even think he's being a bit optimistic.

The Girl has decided to build a science lab in the basement. This evening she presented the Man with a list of necessities she'd written on the bus. It includes all a young scientist could desire in the way of equipment and chemical compounds (empty yoghurt pots, safety goggles, baking soda and vinegar, of course; but also balloons, ketchup and rice krispies). 'Everything but the kitchen sink...' I remarked over dinner, but as the Man pointed out, 'sink' is in fact on the list too. Luckily there's one of them down there already.

The Boy is very eager to be his sister's assistant, but has been told he'll have to undergo an apprenticeship first.

The Man has been co-opted as the adult supervision (for experiments involving fire).

And I'm attempting to keep well out of it.

Ski Sunday

The kids were invited out sledding with a friend, so the Man and I unexpectedly found we had an afternoon to ourselves. The sun was shining, it was mild out - we seized the chance to do a bit of cross-country skiing.

The Man had done it before, twenty years ago, but it was the first time for me. To begin with I wasn't completely convinced - seemed like a hard-work way to hike in the woods. But once I (more-or-less) got the hang of it it was a lot of fun.

I took one or two (ok, more like eight or nine) tumbles. As you'd expect, the Man showed due concern and rushed to...












...get the camera out.

I wasn't the only one falling over, by the way. But the Man had the sense to hang on to the camera for the whole outing. Otherwise, believe me, his humiliation in this blog would be total.