Science? Check!

Let me share this story of nature and life lessons with you. Please don't walk up to Kaeley and talk about this. You'll make her very upset. So we live in a large apartment complex. We are sheltered, so to speak, from nature. We see many squirrels who love humans. We see doves, sparrows, scrub jays, and what not. We have almost no worms. We do see snails often when it rains. That's about it. I guess that is a lot of nature, but we have to drive to woods, and even then the woods are fenced in as a park. So, here we are, a Charlotte Mason homeschooling family looking for nature to observe.

Just in this past month Nathan told a neighbor's little "pet" squirrel to shoo. The squirrel challenged him, squared off, and then chased him several feet until Nathan stood his ground and let out a terrifyingly funny shriek! Alynna ran up and started swatting at the offender with her purse. The squirrel is so bold, thanks to neighbors leaving out walnuts and a water bowl, (which Alynna also likes to drink from... sigh) there were times I thought for sure the squirrel was going to jump into our apartment when the door was opened or perhaps attack me after a trip to the grocery store.

There are snails we almost step on after it rains. These snails are all named Charlotte by Nathan and are said to be his pets. Pets that need no maintenance or to come into the house or vet bills? I can get behind that. We love Charlotte. All of them!

There was a female and male duck sitting by our front pool. I thought that was kind of cool until we learned from the managers that ducks will poop in the pool until it's a pond for ducks and not suitable for humans.

We have mail-order butterflies living in the house at the time. Let me take a time to vent now and tell you that I think we've ordered butterflies for four or five years in a row. I have yet to see a butterfly break out of the chrysalis. I'm just about ready to set up a webcam! I'll go on a walk with the kids and come home to find a butterfly. Yesterday I took a nap and woke up to a butterfly! It's like they wait for privacy. Anyway. I don't get that.

Well, we have a small wooden cabinet hung up above our car. It's empty. I'm not sure what it's meant for, but it's certainly not meant for us. It's the apartment complex's property. The door is often unlocked and will sometimes swing open during a windstorm. For several months now two little love birds, doves actually, have been courting in our front tree and we see them flying around the car port. They built a nest in this little empty cabinet. It was somewhat fun to see the process. If you've ever known a young person, watched them grow-up, and then marry, and then that couple go onto have children, then you understand how affectionate we might feel towards these little birds. I guess we can't have liked them all that much, because we never tied the door shut. Do you see where this is going?

So after a couple of weeks of silence there were lots of little chirps coming from the cabinet. It was a fun thing to see happen in our habitat of concrete and cement. It was fun until the other day the cabinet was wide open and the nest was gone. I figured our very sweet handyman had had a nasty streak hit him and had cleared it out.

Now the other day we left on time to my schedule, walked downstairs with bikes and helmets and all that, and we were going to ride our bikes to the local grocery store. This was at 10:30am. It was going to take us two hours to walk to the store, choose our groceries without stress and maybe learn some real life math while we were there, and then head back home for lunch around 12:30pm. I leave the kids a few paces behind me as I bend over to get our stroller, which is illegal parked in front of our car. There was a tiny little gray baby bird gasping for life lying there in front of the stroller I needed to take the desired walk.

Wiggles and stretches through themselves through my arms and legs and neck as I danced away from the bird. Not the best choice. Now the kids knew there was a little bird in front of our stroller. There was sympathy for the baby and the parents. We wondered what might have gotten to the nest. Well, a few minutes later I was ready to have this bird respectfully taken away by someone so I could get to my walk.

I probably could have swept it up myself, but considering I'm rather squeamish I figured we'd walk over to the manager's because they get paid for such things as this. The manager said if we could give her a few minutes she's would take care of it.

We walked back to the car and waited... and waited... and waited. While we waited the children grew in their compassion. Of course they were sure they could nurse this baby back to life. They would find the worm. We don't have worms? No problem. There's always cow milk! They don't drink milk? Maybe if we put the baby (which is just about dead remember) in a box the mother could find it again. Maybe we could drop the baby in someone else's nest. When that wasn't working Kaeley finally decided that since Remona and Beezus buried their dear cat Picky-Picky in a box of blankets and pillows we should do the same. Now that I could get behind.

So we took a small cardboard box and stuffed it with the leftover nest Kaeley found nearby. She ran upstairs to put polyester filling in it and sacrificed a small section of scarf she had started. The box was ready. Now we waited. By this time I had just about prepared myself to sweep the baby bird gently into the box myself. But I still needed some support and encouragement. Kaeley was out of the picture. She was compassionate to the point of being out-of-commission. Nathan and Alynna were behind me a hundred percent! They would help me! I got the broom and bin.

Who should pass by but our dear older man neighbor Mr. Ron. I grabbed him and convinced him he should take care of the job. Thank goodness! There turned out to be three baby birds tucked near my illegal stroller. Kaeley was in tears and convulsions. Nathan couldn't figure out if he should cry like Kaeley or possibly explore this interesting circumstance like Alynna was. Alynna was all about the dead birds! She inspected them (with her eyes only thanks to constant reminders not to touch the birds), saw their veins and shouted that she could see their blood. I felt for poor Kaeley.

Our stroller was finally out and unfolded. So it was forty-five minutes after the time we were supposed to leave, who's counting when you're dealing with real-life lessons? Kaeley very much disliked this truth, but we had no dirt in which to bury a box of dead birds. We ended up respectfully placing the box in our dumpster, praying, and then slowly and reverently finally began our walk to Ralph's.

What a lesson in the sadness of life. We who buy chicken nicely cut up and cellophane. I serve hamburgers to the family and the kids are so far removed from the process of this life that they still call it chicken. I shivered with grossness the first three times I made a whole chicken for crying out loud! Here we were "burying" three dead birds in our concrete jungle.

But the beauty of life? At home there was a new butterfly waiting for us.

So I say, "Science? Check!"