Move Over, Charlotte

we had a really great homeschool weekend (I know, maybe I should let the kids rest, but homeschooling is life, right?)  Saturday had us at a Scout car rally since my oldest placed first for the Bluewater area a few months back.  None of us really,  really wanted to go, but we knew that the other family competing with us were some good homeschool friends.  What we didn't know was there is a wee black history museum nestled in the corner of the building we would be racing in.  Chatham, Ontario, is a place full of history, being on the underground railroad route (I find myself completely fascinated by black history and wanting to learn more and more).

Yesterday we went to church and then felt a need to celebrate the first warm weekend yet by spending the rest of the day gathering and burning brush.  We live in town, but we can have a fire if we also have a water source or fire extinguisher near by and are also cooking (hotdogs and smores always count).  In the process we not only saw a great toad, and helped him move in,







By the time we had also witnessed a rabbit, a woodpecker, multiple robins and squirrels, this little toad had completely buried himself and, we hope, settled in for a long summer of garden life.  (I have to refrain from posting all the pictures so my boys can have a post today, too!) If we hadn't had our eyes open, all this would have still happened but we would have been none the wiser.  Imagine.  I wonder what else simply passes us by because we are too busy to take the time to reflect?  I am beginning to practice the art of seeing by "being".  I mean that I am trying to remember to take some time each day, in the middle of whatever it is that presents itself as pressing, to stop and observe what is happening on the outside of my concentration.  I think it's working.

While I was off at another rehearsal, my husband and boys took a bike ride.  Normally they would go the "back way" downtown, but last night they took a detour to Bear Creak and were rewarded with the sight of a muscrat ... as close as 5 feet the boys estimate.  No one else to see it but my three.  The muscrat swam straight down the overflow of the dam, too (a small waterfall, but cool to see him in action).  We already own a muscrat skull from a previous adventure ... now to do some more research to add to our science notebook.  What did you see this weekend?