Banana Slug!

I snapped this the morning of the California reception to show Suzanna.  It was on the stairs going up to Emma's new in-laws' house.

Of course, I can't entitle this blog without hearing the "RingRingRingRingRingRingRing" of a previous meme...

Maurice Mondays.

Yes, the animation is quaint at best.

But it's Carol King singing, and Maurice Sendak lyric-ing. That's good stuff.

Turtles!

I work for a quasi-state agency charged with making the world a better place. We do environmental things. Most of them are pretty mundane, like recycling old tires or treating wastewater.

But a small segment of what we do is really cool. A few days ago, the baby terrapins hatched!



Each of those little cuties is about the size of a quarter. We hatch them from eggs, and then turn them over to elementary school classes to raise. When they get bigger, we release them onto one of the islands we are building in the Chesapeake.

Here are some older turtles, frolicking in a container while someone cleans their aquarium.

Animals!

Driving through suburban Baltimore last night to pick up Suzanna from her harp lesson, I suddenly veered to the left, nearly driving off the road.

"A fox!" I cried out. "Look, Max! A fox!"

Max has driven with me before, he is not alarmed when I bring the car to a sudden halt to look at wildlife.

There is a small herd of deer that lives in a copse of woods in the middle of a cloverleaf ramp onto the interstate near us. Max is in charge of looking for them so I can pay attention to the road.

Our kids know to never approach or try to touch wild animals. That being said, they still love to chase squirrels around the yard. Or rabbits, when they are about (I think we had a clutch of babies living in one of our bushes in the spring, there sure were a bunch of little bunnies around).

One thing we MUST remember to pack whenever we spend the night at the beach are our headlamps. Looking for ghost crabs after sunset is a tradition.



I love the wonder of seeing animals in the wild. I am grateful my kids indulge my whims, and seem to enjoy the wonder of it all themselves.

Dad! I Saw the Bat!

Most school days, in the morning, we only get to family prayer right before Sam heads out for middle school. Two weeks ago, right after we had prayed and Sam had left, he burst back into the house shouting that he had seen, "The Bat"!
Sure enough, we had a little bat hanging from our porch roof. It looked liked it was breathing, and moving its ears a little. I told the kids to stay away, just in case it was rabid.


Anyone know what kind of bat this is?

Fathers and Sons

Dude! Check out that cabin. I wonder if there's anything insi-AUGH!WHAT ON EARTH IS THAT!

So we went on the Father's and Sons campout last weekend. The map said a bathroom was behind the Nature center, but what was there was a primitive cabin instead. When I stuck my head through a window, I was greeted by a horrible screeching, a creature of enormous size jumping at my head, and the impression of great filth. A Buzzard had made it's "nest" inside the cabin! You can see the egg on the floor in the first picture (and can see Momma jumping through one of the windows, too).

As it always is; kids party, Dad sleeps. Dad drives, kids sleep.