atc swap

My finished ATC's on their way to Glenda in Saskatchewan!!!

Don't smoke!!!!!!

Last night Laurences friends phoned to ask him to sleep over. They are 12 years old. They have had 5 friends sleep over this week. This is common in their house. Laurie sleeps over there most weekends.....they often have a crowd of kids sleeping there.....

Anyway this week is a little different. Their Dad had a heart attack! I thought I was hearing things! They phoned to ask Laurie to sleep over oh and by the way our Dad had a heart attack! He's home though and doing ok!

So Laurence asks if he can sleep over!!!!

Uh.........NO!!!!!!

I'm sorry but I don't think it's appropriate or FAIR for kids to be sleeping over there right now!!!!!! Ideally I would have said the boys could have slept here instead but they already have other kids sleeping over at their house!!!!!!

Is it only me that thinks that is odd????? Why would their parents say that is ok? Wouldn't the Dad want peace and quiet??????

Oh well......that aside....It was a good chance to sit down with my kids and talk to them about the dangers of smoking. The boys parents are YOUNG - very young to have heart attacks! They are about 40!!!!! They are slim, they are active - they hang out at the golf club in Summer and the Father works in a car repair centre - so they are active parents - BUT they are both HEAVY SMOKERS.....so I wanted my children to understand that this played a BIG role in the Dads heart attack - yes genetics may have had a part etc etc but heavy smoking MUST have had a part in it!!!!

I know they are just kids but I wanted them to see that they will be 40 before they know it and I don't want them to start smoking.

Chris said something along the lines of how he is the younger generation and his generation isn't stupid - they don't smoke!

Hahahahahahah - my Nephew Daniel is the same generation - well he smokes!!!!!! So Daniel I think your cousin just called you stupid!!!!! And I explained that maybe his friends NOW don't smoke but come High school maybe they will - and maybe now Laurie doesn't smoke but in a couple of years Lauries friends might start copying their parents and I don't want Laurie copying his friends......

Early Forties is far far FAR too young for a heart attack :(

Thursday.....

This morning Lloyd worked the conference again for BCAL....he finished at lunchtime so he was home in time to come to the Raptor Centre with us :)

Chris got a phone call this morning to invite him to West Edmonton Mall for the afternoon - so he went off with a group of friends to the waterpark - which made up for yesterday as he didn't come swimming with us :) He won't back until about 11pm tonight.

I had a lovely phone call this morning :) It lasted a long time - I take that as a good sign :)

No news on my bees :(

No news on my butterflies :(

Lloyd needs to get his butt in gear tomorrow!!!!

Dinner was jacket potatoes and salad. I started my Hottie atc's.....Lloyd played out on his tractor......

Things we saw and touched :)

This is the table of goodies we passed around, saw, touched and generally learned about....including pickled feet, pellets and feathers.....

Saw-Whet Owl

These are teeny tiny owls!!! 18 - 23cm tall!!!!!! Like little pocket owls!!!! Quite common in this area!!! Isn't it just the cutest thing? Such a sweet face :)

Great Horned Owl.....

This is the Great Horned Owl that they have outside.....

Magnificent Golden Eagle

Love birds.......

These two birds are Hawks......one is a Ferruginous Hawk and the other is a Red-Tailed Hawk....one male, one female. The lady at the centre thinks they are becoming 'romantic'.......although they are not the same kind of Hawk, it has been known for them to mate together...so maybe!!!

Our visit to the Raptor Centre

This afternoon we were invited to the Raptor Centre www.raptorshelter.org/
for a tour of the shelter. It was such a wonderful afternoon! When we got there we met Karl, the guy who runs the centre, and then we went inside the centre. We watched a slide show all about owls and birds of prey of Alberta and got to ask questions and hear all kinds of facts about them.

Jennifer I thought of you because every so often a joke picture of a Turkey Vulture would pop up and he would tell us a fact about them like that they scare off predators by vomiting in fromt of them :) I like turkey vultures more and more :) I think they are COOL!!!!!

I finally got ask an expert about the bird of prey we have on our land - last year in the Summer we had a bid that visited us every night. Around 3am it would sit on our roof and then fly around our land from post to post and it would screech. It iisn't a screech owl becaus screech owls don't screech. So we had no idea what it was! No one seemed to know! So I asked Karl! Turns out we are actually lcuky enough to have the Provincial bird living on our land! It is a baby Great Horned Owl! The beautiful owl you can see in the pictures below is the owl that lives on our land and it nests here because the owl that screeches is actually the baby - they only screech until they are 6 months old!!!! The Raptor centre actually has one that is 6 years old and because it never learned from an adult NOT to screech, it still does it!!!!

So the owl that we have flying around our place now is the adult version - I love it because it teases our dogs! It will call out to them for ages in a teasing manner and drives them crazy :) You can hear it sitting out there...maybe on the workshop roof......taunting them with it's call :)

After the slide show we met up with another guy and went outside to see the outside birds including the Great Horned Owl and the Golden Eagle.

Then we went upstairs into the building and met with a wonderful lady who showed us all kinds of interesting things...from jars of pickled feet from birds who had had their feet electricuted from sitting on the electrical wires and having their wings touch another........to pellets with WHOLE skulls in them......to bandaged wings, to nasal gastric tubes and machines to measureblood levels to see how hungry an owl is..........

They even have a real baby incubator in there used for owls.

We then went in to see more birds who are in recovery stages inside. A tiny Saw-Whet owl (we are putting bird boxes on our land for these) and the most STUNNING Great Gray Owl! It looked like an old Professor!

We had the most wonderful afternoon! The voluntary staff there are amazing and really know their stuff! The birds are stunning...poor little things were probably terrified, but are so beautiful. We really are very lucky to live in a part of the world where these creatures live wild and free for the most part....and there are places like the Raptor centre that nurse them better. They say that many of the birds are there because they are hit by cars - the birds fly into the road to get near roadkill or get mice etc and get swiped by cars :(

Thank you Raptor Centre :) What a great place!!!!

Lots more pictures to come!!!

Great Horned Owl...