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Outdoor Education

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Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) published a self-promotion story on the bird sanctuary at the kids’ school where I spend a few hours each week. Borton Environmental Learning Lab (BELL) is a patch of desert that a few parents and I have been cultivating for the past few years. The committee is mostly driven by betts, though other parents contribute significantly. We try to get the kids outside once a week on top of the planting, watering, and clean-up we also do once a week.

It’s great to see the kids outside, but the ventures into BELL aren’t to replace recess. The kids are involved in meaningful learning. They take in their surroundings through careful visual, auditory, and tactile observation and then journal about the experience. There’s a great deal of science and writing involved. There’s also the occasional cactus prick and bug bite.

The kindergarteners and first graders I’ve taken to BELL learned about symmetry when comparing mesquite, palo verde, hackberry and other tree leaves. They’ve learned about Precolumbian people and uses for the desert plants. They’ve learned about habitat, adaption, and how they relate to each other. They’ve learned some state history too. My next goal is for them to create their own desert story using the information they’ve gathered. I’m not an educator, so we’ll see how that goes.

I’m proud of the students’ work and would post it, but it’s not my intellectual property. Let me just tell you, it’s incredible. At the beginning of the year, students were unnerved by crickets, unsure about sitting on the ground, and asked about polar bears. Now they run to the bee bush to see if it still smells like lime gummy bears. They are much more confident in that couple of acres of wilderness.

Kids are too smart to be taught how to take tests or to write to arbitrary prompts or to sit in front of a computer. For that matter, teachers are too valuable a resource to be scripted. I’m probably biased toward an inquiry curriculum since I work for the woman who put it “out” there, but to teach all subjects to a child’s imagination is a powerful thing. I’m thankful for this school, principal, and teachers. Every child deserves these opportunities.

Be Gone Bunnies

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Being a mom seems so easy, so natural, so effortless for some women. When it comes to feeding, clothing, roofing, and educating my children, I certainly meet the world’s minimum daily recommended allowance. Beyond that, I struggle, I obsess, I cringe. Tucson is a hard place to live for the mother of a kid with a dust allergy. I’m sure this is hard on my son too, but this is my blog. If Parrish wants to post about the cough that keeps him up all night when I don’t manage a thorough dusting, he has his own blog.

Today I learned that along with being slow to care about the PLUs on produce and not playing Baby Einstein to the zygotes I gestated, my dust bunny ranch is ruining my kids. I don’t know why I bothered to breast feed when I was just forcing fire retardants down those innocent, vulnerable baby throats.

Apparently, those dark dwelling dust bunnies have their own culture, whole lives built up around a sedentary lifestyle and, oddly enough, disco. I should have known by the way they swirl around my broom. Some people think of dust bunnies as pets, but dust bunnies have a darker side. They don’t merely reproduce. They mutate – first as hibernating bears and then as devils. I believe it. Dust bunnies are evil!

American Standard, who would like to sell you air quality products, conducted a 20 city census. Check out their Dust Bunny Barometer to see how concerned you should be about your domestic neglect and its possible poisoning of your babies.

If I were a better mom, I would eradicate dust bunnies in the home. Dust bunny removal requires a specialist, I’ve decided. A Hoover engineer well versed in the use of one of those dust sucky things. This ain’t no DIY project. I should probably be able to round up the bunnies and combine them with dryer lint to knit reusable grocery sacks, but I’m not that mom. I’m the mom that waits for snotty noses and lethargy before moving aside heavy furniture.

(Art stolen from MYRANT. That’s my new vision of a dust bunny full of crap that could irritate your kids’ respiratory system at the least and give them cancer at the worst.)

Tree Room Star


George’s class made the newspaper! This time it’s for their work and not the MRSA scare, which wasn’t an issue at Borton to begin with. George’s class designed and executed a newspaper publishing operation. The front page article was a blurb but on 4A is this article.

As the daughter/great-granddaughter of a public school teacher (my mother is still in public schools as a speech pathologist) and the daughter of a former newspaperman, this project was fun to see come together. It brought back vivid childhood memories. Dad read the paper to us and frequently had smudgy inky fingers. His work was a madhouse! He taught me to use a dictionary with the command, “Summon your elder sibling.” My mother’s teacher lounge was endlessly fascinating with an old duplicating machine, typewriters with no letters on the keys (click, click, zip, bing!), and a vending machine. She was an English teacher and so I learned classic stories like that of Abelard and Heloise and in 5th grade, she helped me memorize the Emma Lazarus poem on the base of the Statue of Liberty. But back to George…

George is quoted in the article and to the right of the screen is a photo gallery that includes this picture of me looking every bit the exhausted mess I am. (Would somebody please shove me in the shower once in a while?!?) Molly, who is also quoted, is Parrish’s teacher. Don’t worry about her skipping math instruction. She has a math focused master’s degree and so her students get lots of it. The more I know Molly, the more I like her. Dana came to the U.S. last year from Iraq. During my tour, he pretended to be interviewing the president.

+++ rant on NCLB, scripted/corporate curriculum, crippling mandates and so forth deleted to highlight how looking at teachers as degreed professionals who teach between the cracks can make awesome things happen +++

Toilet Surfing White Lab Rats

The other night, I snuggled between the sheets to watch season 3 disk 3 of Six Feet Under and enjoy the ice cream sandwich I repeatedly denied to my kids. While savoring the moment, my cat stretched her tiny body out and farted. More than any other member of my family, including the dog and the guinea, that cat has the must putrid, wretched flatulence. I wanted to kick her, but Jesse is in Mexico and she’s the only security I have against toilet surfing white lab rats.

Oh, and I’m not even joking about toilet surfing white lab rats (story two). I am blessed to live in that one, small, midtown area plagued by toilet surfing white lab rats (story three!). I’m to understand these couldn’t possibly be coming from the university labs across the street. Well, maybe, but they still have to explain the toxic spill sewer roaches with super creepy powers from which my cat also protects me (along with lizards and other wee beasties that make the mistake of movement).

Penny Pincher

“She’s so frugal, her pennies will forever show her thumb and finger prints.” My family didn’t make up the phrase, but did oft apply it to me. I thought economy long before I thought green.

About five years ago, I read the Tightwad Gazette and Cheapskate Monthly issue for issue. I was fascinated with tips such as recycling paper coffee filters and even tried it with success. I calculated the cost of everything I did, but mostly purchases of consumer goods. I was on a mission and completely blissful.

These thoughts (d)evolved leaving me now lost in figures relating to my water, gas, and electrical use. I read my bills; I’ve figured my meters; and I compare month to month behavior. As Jesse points out, it’s still about money. For example, I knew we had a gas leak in our water heater, but lived with it until the gas company hiked their rate by 30%. Nevermind how it may have impacted the health and safety of my family.

One of the largest energy users for residential domiciles is the refrigerator. Last week, I pulled mine back from the wall and saw a huge wad of Boris hair mucking things up. Being a good housekeeper, I swept it up, but didn’t think much of it except that it satisfied my fear that someone might someday want to look behind my refrigerator. I mean I knew, but I didn’t really think about it. But guess what! Cleaning refrigerator coils makes a HUGE impact on energy use and there is a right way to do it.

I guess I’m not all that green. At my core I just don’t like waste but do like manipulating the numbers. I do it while driving too. If I’m headed to Oklahoma at 80 mph and it’s 1000 miles away and I’m held up by icy road conditions, how long before I yell at my kids to quit touching each other?

Kakefuda Furoshiki

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I haven’t, and may not find time to, wrap my Christmas gifts. Maybe that’s a good thing because I just stumbled across this You Tube video.

This is furoshiki, the Japanese art of gift wrap. Kakefuda in Kyoto, Japan is such a cool place. Judging by the website, that is. Go see it. I visited Kyoto in 1991, but was so busy looking for a McDonald’s that I never saw such a store! Not that I would have had money to shop, but I could have looked.

Fruits and Their Labels

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I adore the look of Daryl Hannah’s website. I need to be idle rich so I can find my inner artist. But enough of my sour grapes. On her tips page, she gives the lowdown on figuring out if your produce is conventionally grown, organically grown, or if it contains genetically modified organisms. Such useful information!

It got me thinking about reproductive issues. Or it could be the desert brush (broom?) plant in blooming in the bird sanctuary, apparently a female. In nature, plant breeding occurs between sexually compatible organisms. Isn’t this the argument used against gay marriage? So, maybe I should be in favor of GMOs or should I be against gay marriage? Or is it possible that you can be in favor of abortion and against the death penalty or vice versa? Cognitive dissonance? False polars? I’ve always enjoyed thinking over seemingly conflicting beliefs. I’m getting away from my point.

My point is that if you are a huge company profiting from GMOs, then you should provide benefits to nontraditional spousal partners as well. No it’s not. My point is that if you want to know what is going into your aging body, the tiny bodies of your children, or the heart-attack-waiting-to-happen body of your husband, then learning to read labels seems an important skill. More importantly, would someone please give me a website and lifestyle like Daryl Hannah?

Husband Hunt Big Mammoth

I can’t believe I’ve been desperate for rain for so long, then today, the day I invited three sets of friends on a mammoth hunt with my husband, it poured rain. When we arrived at Jesse’s site, he and his crew of volunteers were tying tarps up to protect themselves and us from the rain while in the bone bed. Archaeologists have some quirky behavior that I can’t wrap my brain around, but their ability to deal with extremes of weather and large amounts of soil inspires awe.

Whereas we couldn’t help, but could greatly hinder the efforts, my friends and I set off with our children down the wash to the river. We romped in the San Pedro with the most fantastic Labrador who happens to be a member of my very own family. Once the cold and wet, by desert standards, beat us down, we walked back up the wash to Jesse’s mammoth site. He oriented us to the river and pointed out that the site elevation topped the cottonwoods that had just loomed over us.

Sitting on dirt buckets in the bone bed, Jesse showed us the mammoth tusk (and the scapula) as well as artifacts associated with the mammoth. He discussed the prehistory of the area, first Americans, megafauna extinction, and so forth. Then Jesse took us to a cut bank with an eroding mammoth tooth on display. Nearby was evidence of pot hunting, broken screens left behind by people who indiscriminately tear up these sites for personal profit. Rather than focusing on that, Jesse used the wall of the bank to demonstrate how archaeologists “look through the windows to the past” using marks like the black mat. Our finale took place at the Moson homestead, which retained its full foundation, including some of the ORIGINAL adobe brick that the rain slowly washed away.

We were cold and wet, but the snow covered Sierra Vistas were beautiful. Meanwhile, back in Tucson, everything is dry as a bone and all that once lived in my yard now crackles brown. But for a few glorious hours, it rained upon our heads ensuring continued growth.

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Black Friday: A Mad, Mad World

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My kids have their toy catalogs circled in fat sharpie. Family have requested the lists. I know at least two people who plan to get a 4 a.m. head start on Black Friday. Bah Humbug. Sigh, not really. I like buying stuff and I’m not immune to marketing. I’m thinking about my shopping to-do list too.

I will do most of my purchasing for kids at Kid’s Center, which is nearly the best place on earth. Their website isn’t that exciting, but their tiny store is incredible. Their sales staff knows every thing about every great, fantastic, spectacular toy and book ever. Kid’s Center is pricey, but soooo worth it. I’ll do a fair amount of shopping at other places.

A Greater Gift has a catalog of fair trade items from around the world. Purchases benefit the artisans directly. I have bought clever wooden puzzles and a few other things and have been pleased with the value and quality. It’s like shopping at the UNICEF store. For fair trade clothing, I shop at Fair Indigo. Think Land’s End with a conscience. Not much organic, but we all start somewhere.

Speaking of green choices, my sister-in-law Jennifer, the one in CA and not the one in TX, though I don’t think the one in TX would be opposed, just that I have two sisters-in-law named Jennifer and the one in CA turned me onto Greener Choices. It’s a Consumer Reports site that should aid in determining if a product is truly green or if it’s a green wash. The easiest green gift guide I have found is, of course, at Tree Hugger. You browse by the interest of the person on your list.

Heifer International has been my place to go for wedding presents of late, but not everyone appreciates a rabbit trio they don’t get to keep. Then again, if you are thinking of getting my kids rabbits, we would like to have them kenneled in another country. Donations to charities are perfect this time of year and great for the taxes in April. Speaking of which, I know a church in need of $90K towards their HVAC. You might be able to find their link to the left (the GSP website is temporarily down).

A Borton parent/pal, Alex, put me onto Etsy where people sell their folk art. You can even look at artists near you and purchase locally. There’s plenty of knitery, jewelry, and stuff you wouldn’t want. But there are also beautiful quilts, funky accessories, and, uh, stuff. I wouldn’t have a use for these gloves but you have to admit they are CLEVER.

In the past, I’ve tried to ask people to not buy us stuff. We don’t have the room, it sends the wrong message, blah blah blah, whatever my reasoning was. In retrospect, that’s a ridiculous selfish request because people like to give, especially at Christmas. Darned everyone’s generosity! I can only control my own choices and I won’t be fighting the crowd at the mall grabbing one of a million factory produced doo-dads that we “must have” and try to pass it off as specially chosen for the special people in my life. I will try to focus on the people on either end of my purchases – those from whom I buy and to whom I give.

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God Bless the Rain

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Did the prayer vigil work? Georgia got rain, but nine people in Tennessee were injured by the storm’s winds, including children injured by flying glass. Oh, and the storm also damaged the roof of a Baptist church. Georgia’s Governor Perdue said he wasn’t gloating, which I think is secret code for “nanny nanny nanny!”

Consider Luke 18:
10. Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. 11. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men [are], extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. 12. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. 13. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as [his] eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. 14. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified [rather] than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

First, if God sent a storm because we asked for rain, did he also damage the church and hurt the children in response to our prayer? Call me unpatriotic, but I don’t think God works like that.

And B, what if Perdue focused slightly more on the fact that PEOPLE could have answered/prevented the prayer through less wasteful, more sustainable behavior? What if he asked forgiveness for his abuse of the gift God gave us? It’s telling that not enough rain fell to ease the trouble for Georgia. Perhaps more humility is in order for all of us.