Wildlife Center & Various Updates

After swimming lessons today we enjoyed a picnic lunch and a visit to a local wildlife center. The center rehabilitates native animals that are sick, wounded, or orphaned. When possible, the animals are nursed back to health & then released back to the wild. If there is some reason the animals aren't able to survive on their own, the center becomes their new home.

When I signed in at the office & paid our money to tour the place, I told the lady behind the desk we had never been there before and asked if there was anything I should know. Because they were slow today, she offered to send a guide around with us to show us all the animals & to explain why they were at the center. So, we ended up with our own guided tour. I'm not sure the kids really appreciated the stories behind all the animals, but I thought it was interesting and the kids enjoyed having someone new to talk to.

We saw various types of owls, hawks, raccoons, a red fox, opossum, skunks, pigeons, turtles, snakes, and a coyote (who thought he was a dog). They had a small pond on the property and dozens of nets for the kids to dip in the pond to see what they could find. The kids had fun with that. Tyler and I caught a couple little minnows. Danielle didn't catch anything but she really wanted to catch the resident water snake. We also enjoyed walking on the trails (Tyler liked all the little flowers on the white "flower") and watching the birds & chipmunks from the porch of the office. A hummingbird hovered about 2 feet in front of Tyler for a couple seconds, and a woodpecker stopped in the tree right next to us. It was pretty cool. On the way back to the car, a tiny toad hopped across our path. Danielle didn't want to put it down! Holding the toad was probably the highlight of the trip for them.

Various Updates:

The butterflies have been in the pupa stage for 10 days now. According to the information we received with the caterpillars, they should emerge 7-10 days after forming a chrysalis. I don't see how we could have done anything wrong, so I'm clinging to the hope that they're still alive, just slow bloomers. It's kind of hard to see them well through the netting, so I used a flashlight to see them a little better. When I did, I noticed that orange wings were visible through a couple of the chrysalids (which also provides some hope that they're still alive). If you look closely, you can see the orange & black wing in the chrysalis at the top right. The kids were able to see it and thought it was pretty neat.

Tyler is making great progress in his swim lessons. Today the instructor had them jump from the block, which terrified Tyler at first. Ultimately he did it, though. I cut off the first 50 seconds of this video where he stands on the block and considers jumping in. Notice the huge grin on his face after he does it, though.




I have been impressed with both of our children. I didn't expect swim lessons to be such a character builder. Although they both had moments when they were so afraid they were close to tears, they both bravely tried anyway. I think I probably would have stubbornly refused.