Where's Bob?

There he is! He's taking a sledge hammer to the kitchen tile. For three days he tortured his ears, breathed cement dust, scratched himself with broken tile, nails, and chicken wire. Why? The house is going on the market and an updated kitchen will pay back the cost five-fold, or so he's told.

What a mess! There is a fine layer of dust throughout the house now - not the usual furry kind, but gritty cement powder that defies vacuuming and sweeping.

Bob had company, too. Rocket and Nick stayed for the week. Nick had a job painting elsewhere. Below is Rocket on his favorite perch. From here he can see to the kitchen and down to the front door.

Rocket, doing his cat imitation.

Below, is the kitchen tonight, a scene of multi-tasking. It will be even more fun when he has to remove the sink tomorrow. Bob is now onto stripping wallpaper that has melded with the skim coat of drywall mud behind it. NEVER, I repeat, NEVER put up wallpaper!!! You or one of your survivors will pay dearly someday.

Plans call for granite counters and new sink, recessed lighting, cabinets professionally painted white with new hardware, new flooring, new counter depth refrigerator, and no wallpaper.

So poor Bob will not be hiking, doing night photography, consulting with Obama, or his other usual hobbies, although he will get some relief on bird rescue days. He is getting an education, though. To be continued.

In Middle America

I just returned from a week in Belleville, Illinois, to visit my daughter Andria and two grandkids. Her husband Dave is on a six week training in Virginia. We made three trips into St. Louis, MO. This post does stray from my usual nature blog, but we did do quite a few nature activities, plus, I haven't posted for quite awhile.

The Saint Louis Zoo is one of the finest, as far as zoos go. It is also free! Here, Nora and Soren touch the sting rays and horseshoe crabs.

Below, I enjoyed these wild and free animals that visit the zoo.

A common grackle hanging out at our lunch table...

with a "St. Louis" cardinal.

Some evenings we caught fireflies to bring into the house for the night, and would turn them loose in the morning. They are actually beetles.

We also went to the Science Museum. They had an enclosed freeway overpass where you could look right down on the traffic through port holes and also clock vehicle speeds with radar guns.

There were several display cases of space memorabilia which I was drawn to after seeing Megan Prelinger's book on the subject.

On Father's Day, my surprise was a trip to "The Tie Dyed Iguana" in Belleville. It was a very clean reptile store that is about the only place in town with a refreshing hint of counter culture.

The counter had an interesting collection of stickers such as, "If you remember Dead Tour you weren't there."

Nora bought some night crawlers to put in a habitat we made from a gallon juice jug. Unfortunately, we put in too much compost, which got really active and cooked the worms. We had to recompost the whole mess two days later. Biospheres are tricky business, to say the least.

OK, below we have the awesome and unique "City Museum" in St. Louis. Over a number of years, about 20 artists converted an old shoe factory into a very tactile kind of art piece made of found objects in industrial St. Louis. Kids and grownups can hurdle down three story fire escape slides, climb through webs of welded steel to considerable heights, and crawl through dark tunnels that come up in various unexpected places. It is too much to describe - you have to see it and experience it.

This was my first look from the parking lot. Yes, that is a school bus teetering on the roof.

This is the entryway. Everything you see is made of recycled objects.

Here, Nora braves crossing a "pool of acid."

You could climb through steel webs to get to two airplanes. It is a little scary as some of the gaps seem just a little too big, and there are places you know kids could hang themselves on. On the City Museum's website, they have a section on "frivolous" lawsuits.

Putting faith in artist/builders.

The four of us had the ball pit to ourselves where we enjoyed pummeling each other.

This wall was made out of bottles.

That is quite a vault door!

We walked through this giant kaleidoscope...

and felt like pet rats on this wheel we turned by walking (and crawling).

Nora exploring inside a giant Slinky.

Here we feed the kids to the sharks. Actually, we are traveling through an underwater tube in the shark tank. That is a sea turtle by Soren's foot. Well, that does it for now.

Rockets

When I'm not stomping around in the tules, or helping at IBRRC, I actually have a real job teaching three days a week at Napa High. The last two days we literally had a blast firing the rockets my students made. Made from 2 liter soda bottles, a wad of clay in the nose, cardboard, duct tape, and powered by water and compressed air, they go amazingly far (but not always where you planned). The record today was 481 feet down range.

Pressure being applied the old fashioned way. The launcher - custom built by Bob.

The range. We had some rockets go just about to the end of this field.

Blast off!

Newton's Third Law of Motion, "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction".

All eyes aimed down field. In the middle is Valerie, my co-teacher, who has the other two days of the week.

The peanut gallery watches, and heckles.

Teacher tries to show up the students, but fortunately fails. Thankfully, we finished the unit with no injuries or irate PE teachers. Six more school days!

Evening Walk

It was a beautiful evening in the Napa Marsh. I got there when it was still light. Some of the birds I saw were American White Pelicans, Black Necked Stilts, Avocets, Mallards, Great Egrets, Snowy Egrets, Great Blue Herons, and many Black Crowned Night Herons feeding along the canals. I hiked out a couple miles and took a few long exposure photos when it got dark.

Moon Walking

It was a perfect night for a walk in the marsh - full moon, left over rain clouds, and plenty of animal action.

Puff Remembered

Today was Puff's birthday in 1985. She was our loyal cocker spaniel for 17 years, and was one of the sweetest dogs ever. If you had food in hand, she could also learn new tricks in a flash.

Puff's puppies nipping at Nick's toes in 1987.

Andria and Puff entertain the class with Puff's amazing tricks.

Serious Moments

At IBRRC, we have many laughs throughout the day (often when someone is struck by projectile feces or barf) and good times chewing the fat while we chew our lunch. You would never know it, though, from the photos of us when we have birds in hand, and the birds are at our mercy. Thanks, Jeanine, for sharing your photos.

Framed by the bill of a Brown Pelican.

Here, Monica and I assist Marie in washing an oiled Common Murre. He would have died from the large oil patch on his abdomen, but was brought back to health and released a week or two later. Monica is an intern from Norway, who just turned 20. I think IBRRC is the land of current and former redheads!