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Ack, It's Thursday Already!
Sep. 25th, 2008 10:28 amWhich means I have to dig up the hand-outs from last Wyrdsmiths, read and critique them, figure out what I need to hand out tonight, and print off a bunch of copies. Plus, it's recycling. And I need to pickle some cauliflower for the apoclaypse. And bake bread. Oh yeah, and write some.
Sheesh.
Luckily, it's only 10:30 am, and I have a lot of time to get at least some of this stuff done.
Yesterday for Mason's "early release" day, he and I went on an explore of the Minnesota Valley Wildlife Refuge System. I have to say, I wasn't expecting it to be nearly as awesome as it was. There's a very short hillside trail that takes hikers down to a wetland observation point, which really isn't much more than a dock looking out over what to my untrained eye looked like a grassy marsh. BUT... by chance, Mason and I connected up to their meadow road walk (I beleive it's called), which we dubbed "the road of squished grasshoppers." Though it's a protected area, for some reason they were doing mantainance work on the paved/gravel path with these giant electric trucks. One guy really loved ripping up and down the road at top speeds. We got out of his way fast, but, alas, about a million and six grasshoppers, some locusts, and one sad garter/grass snake weren't quite as quick as we were. I worried at first that this would traumatize Mason, but, young scientist that he is, he LOVED looking at all the goo and bits the grasshoppers exuded. (Ick!)
The snake was rather cool because s/he only got hit at the tip of her/his tail. And though at first s/he looked quite dead, when we stood over her/him, s/he quickly "recovered" enough to zip off into the underbrush, startling the pants off Mason and me. There was much giggling after that.
The road goes quite a ways, but we only had a couple of hours, and Mason got to this little metal bridge that goes over the Minnesota River (which looked like a creek at this point), and spent a lot of time just wedging rocks into the slats. If he'd had his druthers we'd still be there.
I promised him we'd go back as soon as he had another day off. It made me sad, if only because Mason really LOVES these kinds of adventures and very quickly fell back into his "last child in the woods" mode, where he'd just stop and look at stuff for hours. We caught a bunch of grasshoppers (living ones, the road is apparently a good place for sunning one's self) and a tree frog. It reminded me, actually, of LaCrosse's very own RABBIT Trail.
Anyway, I should off to work. I blogged a bit writing realated things over at the Wyrdsmiths blog. Check them out, if you're so inclined.
Sheesh.
Luckily, it's only 10:30 am, and I have a lot of time to get at least some of this stuff done.
Yesterday for Mason's "early release" day, he and I went on an explore of the Minnesota Valley Wildlife Refuge System. I have to say, I wasn't expecting it to be nearly as awesome as it was. There's a very short hillside trail that takes hikers down to a wetland observation point, which really isn't much more than a dock looking out over what to my untrained eye looked like a grassy marsh. BUT... by chance, Mason and I connected up to their meadow road walk (I beleive it's called), which we dubbed "the road of squished grasshoppers." Though it's a protected area, for some reason they were doing mantainance work on the paved/gravel path with these giant electric trucks. One guy really loved ripping up and down the road at top speeds. We got out of his way fast, but, alas, about a million and six grasshoppers, some locusts, and one sad garter/grass snake weren't quite as quick as we were. I worried at first that this would traumatize Mason, but, young scientist that he is, he LOVED looking at all the goo and bits the grasshoppers exuded. (Ick!)
The snake was rather cool because s/he only got hit at the tip of her/his tail. And though at first s/he looked quite dead, when we stood over her/him, s/he quickly "recovered" enough to zip off into the underbrush, startling the pants off Mason and me. There was much giggling after that.
The road goes quite a ways, but we only had a couple of hours, and Mason got to this little metal bridge that goes over the Minnesota River (which looked like a creek at this point), and spent a lot of time just wedging rocks into the slats. If he'd had his druthers we'd still be there.
I promised him we'd go back as soon as he had another day off. It made me sad, if only because Mason really LOVES these kinds of adventures and very quickly fell back into his "last child in the woods" mode, where he'd just stop and look at stuff for hours. We caught a bunch of grasshoppers (living ones, the road is apparently a good place for sunning one's self) and a tree frog. It reminded me, actually, of LaCrosse's very own RABBIT Trail.
Anyway, I should off to work. I blogged a bit writing realated things over at the Wyrdsmiths blog. Check them out, if you're so inclined.
