Early Spring Animals

Gramma had some passes to the Toronto Zoo, which a friend had given her quite a while ago. Finally, last weekend, we used them. As usual, we got going later than planned, and things were a bit confused... but in the end it worked out to be probably the best Zoo visit yet.

One of the crucial elements to the trips success was bringing the scooters (which Grammie got them for Christmas), for the kids to scoot around on. This made traveling between exhibits a lot less of a drag, and kept the kids from tiring out very quickly. The scooters were perfect; light-weight and easy for us to carry when needed.

The gorillas were one of the biggest hits. We spent a lot of time with them. The antics of the littlest gorilla (seen here) were highly entertaining. At one point this little guy came and hung out on the ledge of a glass observation area, immediately right in front of the kids, much to everyone's excitement. (There are some pics of this in the album.)

Istra became strangely fascinated with this weird device at one of the exhibits (an example of an old African research station, or something). I asked her if she knew what the thing was. She did not. So, I spent a while explaining the concept of a typewriter, and how they came before computer keyboards. She wants to try one someday.

Emeth really wanted to find peacock feathers. If you follow them long enough, surely they'll drop some eventually?

Lots of things to see.

Click the lion to see more of what we saw....

We floated north last Easter long weekend. We spent some time at the cottage, and some time at Grammie's. Easter egg hunts were everywhere.

Wild ginger coming up?

One afternoon we wandered around in Grant's Woods, which is a little conservation area on some land near Orillia that someone donated. It's pretty amazing the diversity of neat things that take hold when land is left to do its own thing for a while. I was especially interested in discovering wild ginger, which I had not know of before.

At the cottage we plays with Anne and Mo, and the midges.

At Grammie's place the big eggs came out. Until they were all found, and brought in.

And we explored even more... and even after my camera battery died.

Here's the slide show.

Zeebie

Several years ago, for her 5th birthday (top photo), Selena's friend Rachel gave Istra this cute striped sock horse that she made. Several years later, soon approaching her 7th birthday, Zeebie has become Istra's Velveteen Rabbit. Wearing thin in some areas, with seams which have had to have been restitched in a few places, Istra insists on sleeping with her belovèd Zeebie every night. (See bottom picture.).

As the famous passage from the story describes:

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

So, Zeebie is well on its way to becoming real around here. It may be a bit of a strange thing when that pink and black stripped, big-nosed, fellow starts clomping around this place on it's own. But it's okay, because we'll  understand.

Sometimes it's hard to know what is going to become the most real for us in the future, and what is going to break or just slowly fade away. Anyhow, in this case, as it works out, it couldn't have happen to a nicer horse-zebra.

Cannington Bridge...

View all

Here we go again... this is a little explore we did on the way to, and in, Orillia. Istra resisted, not wanting to stop anywhere... but afterwards announced: "that was fun!"

Turtle Racing for the Birds

Some photos from our travels today. I'm hoping to fill this entry out a bit later...

Cuckoo banana face

Emeth, going fullcuckoo banana face
(also with a cuckoo visiting his shoulder).

Emeth's favoured pejorative these days, which he applies liberally to all sorts of people, situations, and things, is: cuckoo banana face.

I just think this should be recorded for posterity.

As a clueless old guy, clearly out of touch with life (a cuckoo banana face, one might say), I'm not exactly sure what a cuckoo banana face is, but I'm imaging it's something like the cuckoo banana face pictured here...

Keeping track of the books...

For some time I've been keeping track of the books I've read on a site called Goodreads (which I seem to be doing a lot of, particularly lately). Recently Selena has joined me over there. More recently still, we decided to hook the kids up. They were interested in rating their books, too.

It's kind of interesting to us to see how they rate things: both the ratings they give, and the process of them deciding on a rating. It's hard to tell what goes through their brains, to bring them to their judgements. Of course, they have a somewhat generous tendency towards "amazing", but I've been surprised at how nuanced they can sometimes be with their stars.

One star means you did not actually like the book. Two allows that the book was "okay". Three indicates that you did actually like the book. Four says you really liked it a lot. Five is simply "amazing". 

Anyhow, as an easier way to keep an eye on things for myself (not unlike the cat in the picture), I've created a new page on this site (with a link over on the side), that displays the most recently read books for all of us. If you're curious, feel free to have a look at our Family Reading.

(Goodreads also has an interesting recommendation system, where based on your rated books it suggests other books you might be interested in. It's not the most accurate thing in the world; but it's interesting to see how Istra and Emeth's recommendation pages have already diverged based on their rating, despite having read quite a bit of the same books.)