Eviction Notice

The house across the street from us has been bought, and they want the foxes out. Apparently, the burrow is making the cement front porch weak.

It's been interesting watching pest control personnel as they have tried to get the foxes to leave. First, they placed a bunch of wire cages around the main hole in an attempt to relocate them. They ended up catching three of the pups (there are actually six total), but because they didn't catch the mom, they had to let them go. Mamma fox was freaked out after that. She would jump at any car that passed by, and hid when people walked down the street. Papa fox wasn't as jumpy, but he was a little more protective.

Pest control tried a new tactic. He wired the cages open, hoping to get Mama accustomed to them. He also hoped that she might have gotten freaked out enough to leave. Neither worked. She wouldn't go near the cages (though the pups played all over them), and she wasn't going to leave her fox hole either while the pups were still nursing.

Well, our neighbors decided to try a different pest control. A couple days ago, we saw them dig up all along the porch. we thought that they were trying to dig out the burrow, but it turns out we were wrong. They were placing a wire fencing under ground so that the foxes couldn't dig out through the front. The had to dig out through the side where their main hole was located. That spooked Mama again. I haven't seen her since then. Yesterday, we saw an addition to the wire fencing. Over the main entrance to the burrow, a metal cage was placed that would let the foxes out, but wouldn't let them back in.

It seems to be working.

We've been seeing the pups roaming all over the place. They can't get back into the burrow and have fallen to exploring. Luckily, the pups are now old enough that they are starting to hunt for themselves. I haven't seen Mama or Papa fox. Looks like this last plan worked.

Count down

We have three weeks left of this school year! We only have four weeks to do it in though. This is the first year that I've actually kept track of the days, and it's been a little more difficult then I thought to fit them all into one year.

Colorado law says that you have to school for 172 days each year. That's about 35 weeks worth. Considering that there are 52 weeks in a year, that may not sound like much, but it can be. I've been sick a lot this year (because my forever sick two year old keeps giving me his colds). There are also unplanned visits, vacations, and so forth. I cut it a lot closer this year then I meant to. We've been behind since last summer when we took an extra week off because I miscalculated our vacation time. If I'd followed my original plan, we would have only had about a week left right now instead of three. Oh well. It's one of the benefits of homeschooling. Things are flexible.

But flexibility has it's limits. Sigh.

Three more weeks. We can do it! Just three more weeks.

Then we have a two week break before second grade starts. Oh well. Enjoy the break while it lasts.

My Way

It’s official. I am now registered for my first ever triathlon!

The one I’ve chosen to participate in is My Way or the Tri Way on Saturday, July 25th down at the Aurora Reservoir. There is a 750 meter swim, 14 mile bike, and 3.5 mile run. Participants can compete in any mixture of the three events. They can do the standard triathlon of swim-bike-run, or they can mix it up in any order. There is also the option of doing only two events, doubling one (i.e. bike-run-bike or swim-bike-swim, etc.).

Me, I have chosen to do a reverse triathlon; run-bike-swim. I figured I’d do the hardest first and easiest last, so that when I’m dying, I can at least take it easy.

You see, I swam competitively for over ten years, so that’s my easiest event. Biking, I don’t think is going to too be much of a problem, I just have to work on distance. Running, well, I’m still working at it. I can currently jog for only 2 miles straight, so I’ve got a ways to go.

I get to start my training next week. It’s a twelve week program that has swimming, running, and biking twice a week, weight lifting once a week, calisthenics twice a week, and a brick (transition from one sport to another) once a week. Workouts vary in length, generally getting longer as time goes on. The first swims are 20 minutes long, later ones are 40 minutes. Runs start at 35 minutes, increasing only one of the days in the week and keeping the other at 35 minutes. The longest run is 60 minutes. Biking also only increases the time on one day in the week, starting at 45 minutes with the longest at 90 minutes. Oh, and supposedly I’ll need an extra hour of sleep every night.

Sound like fun? Wish me luck.

I have Options!

I’ve decided to put Sierra in public school next year. I’d do the same with Bailey, only her birthday is two weeks after the district’s cut off, so they won’t let me. I’ll be putting her in the year after.

Why have I decided to do this? Well, I think it will be the best thing for my kids. They’ll get the social interaction that public school offers, make new friends, and have multiple teachers. It will give them a chance to get out of the house. They’ll have a lot of extra curriculars, which I won’t be able to give them, and I’ll get to have a full day to myself each week.

Oh, did I mention that they’re only going to be going to school one day a week?

That’s right. I’m still going to be homeschooling my kids. It’s just that now they get to go to school in a classroom setting one day a week with other homeschooling kids.

The Aurora Public School District here in Colorado offers this “Options” method of schooling so that parents can benefit from the tax money they pay and give kids those added experiences that they are often missing while homeschooling (ie, classroom settings, group activities, extracurriculars, and occasional homework). They have several locations in most of the larger cities throughout Colorado. Longmont is currently working on getting a second. Among us homeschoolers, it’s a very popular program.

Basically, once a week, my kids go to “school” for 7 hours; six one hour classes, ½ hour lunch, ½ hour recess. Kindergarten and first grade have a sort of fun/play/experiment day similar to an actual school setting, but focused more on the fun stuff. Once the kids reach 2nd grade, they get to start choosing their classes (with their parent’s help, of course). Some of the options for classes include dance, art, drama, choir, keyboard, cooking, computer skills, Spanish, science, history, math games, literature, etc.

As an added benefit to parents, they can check out popular homeschool curriculum for the year at no cost, grades k-3 get two free consumable workbooks of their choice, and juniors and seniors can get two college classes per semester paid for (as long as they pass, that is).

And all of this costs a measly $25 per student per year.

Who ever said you couldn’t have your cake and eat it too?

When it rains, it pours . . . or in our case, it blizzards

This spring had been an onslaught of one thing after another. First, I had to get some dental work done. On my way home, it was a blizzard, and I got stuck within blocks of my home. Then, I got a sinus infection. Once I acquired the prescription for that (after the blizzard finished), I came down with a head cold. Fun. The sinus infection and head cold combined got to be so bad that I couldn’t even breath through my nose, at all, even standing up during the middle of the day. Turns out, my allergies had decided to act up at the same time.

I took the allergy meds, and because I was able to rest A LOT, my head cold cleared up in a few days. It took longer for the sinus infection to clear up completely though, and before it had, I got yet another head cold.

Then it was time to go back to the dentist to have my wisdom teeth removed. Not fun. That knocked me out for another couple of days. Things were good enough by Easter that I could at least have chocolate, but nuts and jelly beans were out. Waah.

A few days ago, I was starting to feel good. Things were starting to go well. Then, Blake came down with a bad case of croup. And on top of that, we’re having another blizzard. Sometimes, life just sucks.

Triplets!!!

Well, we've had yet another surprise coming from across the street. Spring and the warmth brought out a new sight. Our mamma fox had babies. . . three of them, and they were out where we could see them enjoying the warm day. Here are some pictures and a short movie clip. Enjoy. (Sorry the video is so shaky.)

Wildlife from Our Window

Around Christmas time, the house across the street from us went up for sale. I believe it went into forclosure like so many other houses are doing now, and it was soon vacated by the owners. It now stands empty. Well, almost. . .

A few weeks later, some time in late January or early February, we started noticing a fox prowling around near the house. We’d seen foxes in the neighborhood a couple times before, so it wasn’t completely surprising. Later, we saw it sitting on the porch of the empty house. Weird. I guess it knew that there was no one living there or something.

Well, a couple weeks ago, we heard someone looking at the house mention a foxhole. Apparently, the fox had decided to take up residence underneath the front porch. It dug a burrow under the cement, next to the house, where it could stay warm during the winter months. As the weather warmed, we started seeing more of the fox. I even saw it thrashing a dead animal around (which turned out to be a goose) in the front yard with no worries. It felt completely at home, sitting on the lawn and the front porch at other times like it owned the place.

I called animal controle about it at one point, worried that it was going to eat the neighborhood cat. They told me that by law, there was nothing that they could do about the fox. Because it was a “harmless” wild animal, it was allowed to live wherever it chose to. Welcome to Boulder County!

Two days ago, after our big snowstorm, we saw not just one fox, but two sunning themselves out in the street where it was warm. The second one looked smaller, not quite full grown, but not a baby either. It acted like a baby though. I guess the mom made the foxhole under that porch in order to have her baby.

I wonder if they’ll move on during the summer. I’m pretty sure they’ll leave if someone actually buys the place (though them being there has made it a lot less attractive to potential buyers). In the mean time, we’re enjoying watching them from our large bay window. It’s nature at our doorstep, literally.