Tortoise Rehab Center

Sometimes I feel like we are running a rehab center for tortoises. Our days involved making sure that Alex stays warm, gets plenty of sunlight beyond his UV bulbs, eats and yes....poop rocks! Which he still needs to do.

Everyday, we corral him in this box and make him atleast sit in the sun for 15 minutes because 15 minutes of natural sunlight is worth 12 hours from a special UVB lightbulb that cost us almost $40. We usually catch him asleep.

Like all reptiles, they love basking in the sun.

We caught him one day looking out the window after it had snowed. We were wondering what he was thinking....either he was longing to cruise outside or he was trying to figure out what all that white stuff was.

One of the other things we do is try to get him exercising.

I told you we were running a rehab for tortoises.

Long ago when we upgraded from one of those little hedstrom metal swing sets to a home built gigantic swing set with a huge platform and a really cool slide, Kirk sawed off the bottom of the old slide because Alex loved to walk on it like a treadmill.

His little treadmill came with him to Nana's house and then up here last summer.

Kirk divised a way to keep it up right.

The first time we set it up he cruised on that thing for over an hour in the kitchen.

Just a glimpse into the wierd stuff happening in the Headley House.

Toby

This has been a very sad week. We had to put our sweet Toby down last week. He was 17 1/2 years old and has been dwindling due to old age. Who would have thought that this huge cat that weighed 19 pounds would become a frail old man with stiff hips. His last couple days we spent almost every minute with him. We thought he would just give up over the weekend but he didn't. He just kept hanging in there. He continued to sleep with us with my hand on his side so he knew we were still there for him. If he thought he was alone he would meow out until I touched him. So sad. And with every little touch I made, he purred a faint purr.

He has been such a huge part of our lives. I went to Target one night in Phoenix(1996) and came home with a kitten. I did double check with Kirk. and called from a pay phone....Actually, it was more like a warning. We had recently put down a cat due to old age (she was 16) and our 18 yo Siamese was extremely depressed. She perked up as soon as she saw Toby. Someone for her to take care of. And she did exactly that and lived another two years until she was 20 years old!  He was the sweetest cat but extremely possessive of me. That was kind of wierd. As he aged he improved his behavior. I was always worried that he would smother the kids when they were babies. He was so big. He equaled their size and outweighed them at times. But he was always gentle and well loved.

We miss Toby.

We miss him laying all over the kids school books so they can't write on their papers.

We miss him lying across our laps while sewing.

I miss him pulling out all the straight pins from my pin cushion only to return to it and what appears to have been a pin explosion.

I miss him removing the pins in a pattern as fast as I am putting them in.

I miss him sitting on my lap while I am cross stitching and grabbing the embroidery floss as it is being pulled through the cloth.

I miss him playing with the yarn, the curly ribbon, the elastic, the string.....

We miss the time he took an entire skein of yarn and twined it under the kitchen table between all the legs during an afternoon of partying while we were away.

We don't miss the time he found Jared's rubber snake that he had just gotton from the zoo and chewed it up into pieces, leaving it on the floor. It looked disturbing because it looked real.

We don't miss the numerous barbie feet that he chewed off leaving the bendable filament sticking out from the ankles.....that looked gross too. We finally learned to not leave rubbery things out.

We miss him sitting in the high chair,

licking baby food off the tray, the baby's face, bib, hands.....he loved baby food. Loved, loved it.

He loved chewing on the girls little christmas tree that they had in their room for their dolls. They don't miss that. It was annoying.

We don't miss him finding ways to be close to the streamers. He had a thing for crepe paper too.

He had spent years drinking out of the goldfish bowl and even recently. Victoria was so afraid that he was going to eat her goldfish, Silly. He never did. I think the fish misses him too.

One time Jared saw me kiss Toby on the head when he was a baby. So he walked right over to him and licked his side. He came to me with his wet slobbery mouth, wide open with tons of fur stuck inside and outside his mouth. He never did that again.

Another time, Jared only knew how to crawl and was heckling Toby. He chased Toby out of the room as fast as his little hands and legs would go. All of a sudden he came crawling back into the room at the same speed with Toby attached to his back, nails included. I will never forget that. Jared didn't even cry. To him, Toby was a playmate.

We will all miss Toby.

And I know he loved us to the very last second.

I feel relieved that he is comfortable and at peace.

 

 

 



Reminiscing the Past

I was lying in bed this morning at 4:30am thinking about babies. Last night I exposed to many wonderful babies that are in families from Star Academy. I miss working in the NICU so much, hogging all those beautiful little newborns with their super soft skin.

I just love them.

I love my own kids too.

 I looked at my, taller than me, son from a distance. His head was significantly higher than the crowd of friends that he was talking and laughing with. I could feel Daphne standing right behind me like she always has, while I was talking to some of the other moms while my eyes were fixated on a friend's very handsome baby boy.

My thoughts wandered to this very picture!

 I have no idea why I thought of this picture but I am so happy to have it. It reminds me of a time of being a young mother and trying to capture those special annual Christmas pictures next to the Christmas tree with their little handsewn outfits. What a disaster! I remember being so frustrated because I couldn't understand why they just wouldn't sit next to eachother and smile. It started with Jared. He started to cry and then Daphne started to cry......I thought it was over. And this was before there were digital cameras. So you took a roll of 24 pictures and you get what you get. I must have taken the whole roll trying to get them to be happy and smile for me. And then I had to wait a week for them to be developed. They just weren't cooperating. I knew that one day I would look back at this very moment and appreciate my little ones idiosyncrocies. It happened this morning. I would give anything to squeeze them, hold them close and kiss their soft little sticky faces. I think they would cringe if I tried to do that now especially now that Jared actually shaves. Yikes!

 It all worked out. We never did capture them together in the same picture. And Daphne wouldn't take a picture unless it had the cat in it. (Toby is so young here, he probably won't make it through this winter. He's an old man now.)

And by golly, Jared got his way. All he wanted in his 10 month old little mind was to sit on the horsie by himself. Quite the cutie patootie with his little dimples. It ended up being a Merry Christmas after all in 1996.

Middle School and High School Art Class

Here is the pear that I painted as an example of what I was helping the kids achieve.

It always helps to have something to look at so the kids know what I mean. The downfall of that is that I usually don't have time to sit down and be creative. I end up squeezing in painting or drawing while I am making dinner.

Kaleb took his time and finished his pear at home. A benefit to having his mom as his art teacher.

I am so pleased at how this project turned out. There are almost 20 kids in this class so I missed quite a few pictures. A few of the kids made me promise I wouldn't let their mom see their painting. They intend to wrap theirs up as a Christmas present, so I didn't include any smiling, pleased faces with the pictures. Just to be sure.

This was a very fun project. I loved taking thick, creamy paint and just slapping it on the canvas. It taught the kids to just go for it and see what happens. Half way through there was quite a bit of moaning and groaning going on. They hated their pears and didn't think it was turning out at all. I had to reassure them that they couldn't make any decision until their paintings were complete.

 On the day of completion ( it took 3 weeks to finish), I think they were all very happy and satisfied with their paintings. I figure that if an art class can build confidence, it is successful.

Remembering that I have had no training as an art teacher, my goal in these classes is to show these kids that they can create something that is visually appealing to the eye. And in the process of that is where the real lesson is. Getting an opportunity to mush colors together with a paintbrush, or dripping watercolor paint into dabs of water on paper, or smearing charcoal with their fingers, or making something of a bunch of lines is where they find their confidence and emotional healing. They have to find their acceptance of themselves and what they did on paper in art. Their personalities come through. I love to point that out. Let them see that they have a style and it is individual. It is theirs. They like to see how they are different from the others. I try to help them see that.

Sometimes they just absolutely hate it.

BUT.....Like I always say....

There are no mistakes in art!

 The ultimate lesson is Patience.

Some projects take more than an hour to complete. Trying to pace a bunch of kids from rushing through an art project takes my own patience and encouragement to them to really look at what they are trying to do and take their time.

Alexander

We are co-habitating with our 27 yr old tortoise, Alexander.

My parents brought him up from Arizona with them this past summer. He hadn't been doing very well. He wasn't eating and was pretty skinny for this time of year. In October, we found an exotic veterinarian in Richmond to see him. Wait, he was a veterinarian who saw exotics. He was a pretty average guy but he does see horses, cows, sheep and pets....plus reptiles. At first I wasn't sure if we should trust him but I could see very quickly that he knew what he was talking about. We discovered that not only was he a moving target for the x-ray machine, but he had also swallowed ROCKS!

I recognize the size of the gravel from my parents yard where Alex was for one and a half years. Why would he eat rocks!? I have no idea. But it is making him sick.

So now we need to get him to .....

Yep, poop rocks!

 Well, he hasn't finished pooping rocks, but at least we have gotten him to eat. The key is to provide him with enough sunlight to keep him awake. He wants to hibernate but I think we are convincing him to stay awake. The boys and I have been feeding him critical care food with a syringe. Believe me, it is tricky prying open a tortoise jaw and squirting food in his mouth. It takes all three of us to do it. We also put him in a warm tub of water. I didn't realize that reptiles absorbed water through their skin. I do now. So he gets a daily bath. Everyday, he comes upstairs to bask in the sunshine shining in the window in our kitchen. He really enjoys being with us. It is usually during the time that the kids are trying to make their lunch so he is always being pushed out of the way to get into the refrigerator. He is like a rock with legs.

No pun intended.

He could die from this. I know that God can move mountains, so I pray that he moves rocks daily.

We must be the only family saying our prayers asking our Heavenly Father to make Alex poop rocks.

I love this picture of him. He is so relaxed and content with his legs all sprawled out. He has been handled the most he has in years and welcomes neck rubs. When we first brought him inside he was making quite a bit of hissing noises when we touched his legs. He was easily startled. Now he is used to being placed in a tub of water half asleep. I think he might be on the mend soon. It is a very slow process and requires lots of patience.

He's worth it.

Apologia Flying Creatures Class

I taught two classes this fall to the elementary age kids. Art, which I already posted, and a Birds/Insect class using the Apologia Flying Creatures book.

I had a great time. We started with insects and moved into birds.

I think the kids really got into it as well. They would catch insects or find an abandoned nest that fell out of a tree and bring it into class.

One of things that we worked on was a notebook where they could draw, write, describe and label. I love that science and art go together.

With that being said, we worked on paper mache birds that were small enough to fit in their hands.

I test everything out and whip up an example. I love paper mache and are always determined to perfect my skills.

Here is my little mountain chickadee.

We used paper towels this time so when we painted them it looked like we painted on canvas.

 Almost all these kids ended up being in my art class. So they would help me pack up everything and move whatever we needed to the next class. The boys especially, were very helpful and would tell me thank you every day for teaching the class. I think they really enjoyed it.

We had one mishap with these birds. I took them home each week.

Samson got to one of them and ATE the paper mache off the masking tape body.

He was so BUSTED!

He got sent to his crate for a whole hour. He knew exactly what he did wrong. And then I had to tell the poor kid whose bird got eaten. He was okay with it and later it became something that they all kind of laughed about. I brought the glue mix back and he re-paper mached it.

It all worked out. And the birds are adorable.

We had fun in this class.

Elementary Art Class

I added teaching elementary art to my schedule this fall at our Homeschool Co-op that I Co-lead called Cache Valley Star Academy. It was a little crazy teaching four classes for twelve weeks but I figured that I would want to teach the classes to my kids at home so I might as well do it for a class of 10 or more? These kids are pretty awesome. I have grown to love them all. I can give them direction and then they just get down to business.

I don't consider myself an artist. I have never really been trained as an artist. I took some classes in High School and loved it. I do know I have it in my genes. Truthfully, I knew that I would make more money as a nurse (which I did do) than working as an artist. Unfortunately, I am still living the life financially that I was trying to avoid by becoming a nurse.

I am married to an incredible artist.

The whole "starving artist" thing...

It is true.

 

 This was the our project.
A Pear.

The kids really were excited about the idea of "painting" with real acrylic paints. They really wanted to just paint whatever they wanted but unfortunately, I made them follow directions. I kept reminding them that they are learning important skills like blending, and the importance of the process.

 By the time we got to the background, I encouraged individuality.

There were many happy faces.

 Some of the kids were being shy showing off their paintings that they worked on for the past three weeks. We didn't have much time between classes to get them to loosen up and smile.

 I missed a few kids in this class.

I am so impressed with the results.

I am so thankful for Pinterest too. I run out of ideas sometimes or I just don't have enough down time to come up with more ideas on my own. . If you would like a tutorial on painting a pear check it out HERE! If I can impress my husband...the artist of the family, then I knew I did pretty good.

I will post my painting that I used for an example and the paintings from my teen class of 20+ kids soon. I am still waiting for Kaleb to finish his. He has the advantage of taking his time.