Frozen on Hudson

Anyone who has been reading me for any length of time knows I'm obsessed with the Hudson River... So it should come as no surprise that I love taking photos of it, even in winter (or maybe even especially so.) The ice floating downstream on the current often harbors bald eagles, and the snow on the opposite shore shows up the contours of the land like an x-ray revealing skeletal structure. Anyway, here are some shots I took today...









And, yes, those are eagles in the last shot!

Snowstorm with Haiku

After we left Poets House, we crossed the street and admired the beauty of Rockefeller Park in the snow. Mikro and a friend even enjoyed the snow covered playground and rode the bike carousel. Then we walked back to the subway and headed home.

The snow and Poets House inspired me to come up with a couple of haiku, which I scrawled on the back of an envelope...

Carousels are meant
For warm spring and summer days
Yet are fun in snow.





Pale green and blush pink
The buds of new life appear
Wearing icicles.



Mother Nature turns
Gingerbread iron work to lace.
Paints it blizzard white.





Open wide, stick out tongue.
Not for the pediatrician.
Catch yourself some snow!



The Hudson was full of ice flows, and at times the fog and snow obscured the opposite bank. Mikro probably annoyed our fellow passengers singing this song:

Tugboat pushin' that barge along
Whistle blowin' that sweet river song
Smokestack black like a Hudson night
Tugboat pushin' that barge outta sight!

I think he's ready for the next Clearwater Festival!

Poets House Class Visit 2

Our homeschool group had another class visit to Poets House this week, during the snowstorm, this time for kids from grades 2 to 5. Annie and Mike were wonderful with them, and there is something magical about listening to poetry while the world around you is transformed by softly falling snow.

Zentangles

Mikro and I have been having some fun with Zentangles. We took a look at this book:



I drew some outlines, and Mikro filled them in, some with patterns, others with little "hieroglyphic like drawings" as he calls them...



And, of course, I had to play, too:



I love that Mikro is starting to sign his work! He uses "M 2011". A year ago, he would never have asked to do this project, much less been invested enough in it to bother signing!

New Digs for Amicus

Our baby beardie is getting big. Mikro's dragon outgrew her enclosure, so Kev spent the weekend building a stand for her new home: a 40 gallon breeder tank. This should be big enough to keep her happy into adulthood.


Our girl is now 14.5 inches long from nose to tail tip.

Poets House Class Visit for K-2 Kids

On Wednesday, we took a tour of Poets House with our homeschool group. The kids got to visit the grown-up poetry library, look at the cool shadow boxes commemorating the annual fundraising walks over the Brooklyn Bridge, see the program room where readings happen, listen to rhyming poems, haiku and free verse, and explore the Children's Room.

Thank you, Mike and Annie, for an enjoyable visit!



Mikro was inspired by a book of winter acrostic poems, and the puppets and stuffed animals in the Children's Room, and dictated two acrostics:

L ong tail
I n his territory
O n his prey
N ot surrendering.

O ut of his shell
Y ellowy
S lime
T trapped no more
E scaped
R unning

(He kept pulling the Oyster puppet out of its shell and pretending it was going wandering..)

And now he is eagerly pouring over LEGO catalogs, and requesting one of the Atlantis sets (8061), which he has dubbed "Cephalopod Casino." I have *no* idea where he gets this stuff! He definitely has a thing for mollusks...

Contagious and (Finally!) Connected

You know you are addicted to the internet when 24 hours of DSL outage is absolutely nerve wracking... No email, no friends blogs to read, and since I am sick as a dog, not much else to do but drink tea and wallow in my misery while tossing books at the boy. (And today he had me cutting out micro-organisms-- "Hey mom, can you cut me out a paramecium? How about a euglena?"-- and wondering what the critters in the back of my sore throat look like...) I am so dizzy I don't consider myself safe to drive-- for about the 4th day now. And I have about 20 overdue library books that are just screaming "Get well soon and stop the fines accruing..." I think I'm giving my quarterly report to Kev to mail tomorrow, rather than drive over and hand deliver as I usually do... At least so far, I'm the only one sick...

A Quarter's Worth of Books

Long overdue, and I'm sick enough that I would procrastinate some more if my Quarterly Report weren't due at the end of the week, but I need to figure out what we covered so I can report it anyway, so, here goes... For Mikro's reading log: