Saturday, July 28, 2012

Male Juvenile Cardinal


SmugMug Daily Link

I watched the father cardinal feed this male juvenile 'baby' for a few minutes while I was preparing dinner last night.  I can always hear their distinctive chirp, chirp when they come to the feeder and birdbath.  I missed the daddy putting the sunflower seed in the baby's mouth but was able to capture this pose of the baby on the birdbath.

Monday is back to school for the boys, and we've been school supply shopping!  In our state and our county, we are asked if not required to buy quite a long and expensive list of supplies to send in with the kids.  This is most of of the stuff for Johnny who is entering second grade.  Although there are some variations from teacher to teacher and grade to grade, the bulk of the lists is the same featuring items both for the student's private use as well as some items for use by all the kids (i.e. plastic bags and baby wipes).


SmugMug Link

Grouper from Haag & Sons Seafood.


SmugMug Link

1 comment:

The Vollmers said...

We have a VERY long school supply list here too. Set by school and by grade level. Walmart has photocopies of the lists for us, so I have them but I haven't bought anything yet. FL has a tax-free shopping weekend the first weekend of August and Walmart will put a lot of the stuff on sale and that's when we'll go.

Florida law says that we are not required to purchase anything on the lists, and that our kids' education cannot be impacted by our inability to provide it (sounds sorta guilt-ridden, doesn't it?) The relevant statute is printed at the bottom all the schools' supply lists.

I will get extras of many of the sale items and send them in with the boys -- like when crayons are 25 cents/box.

While I wouldn't do otherwise (and neither would you), it's interesting watching the lists grow longer and longer...and this year for the first time the 5th graders in our district have to pay $40 to cover their science lab expenses. Which means funding for something as fundamental as SCIENCE has been cut.

Boy do I miss Nebraska, the lists are VERY short and they're not normal school supply items like a towel for naptime and old t-shirts for crafts.