SCHOLA: Wildlife

Wednesday, February 04, 2004

Wildlife

We have a new friend, a white heron the kids are calling Skipper. He's been hanging around for the past few days, and while we were afraid at first that his unusually friendly behavior might indicate illness, he seems to be fine, and is no doubt hanging around for the big bag of shrimp the girls talked me into buying.

They're almost able to hand feed him. I know, bad for the wildlife, but HE came to us.

This tiny guy was named Squirt. I found him stranded on the sand during a morning walk and brought him home. He had some red, goopy stuff hanging from his belly, and at first it seemed something, a raccoon maybe, had attacked him, but a call to the turtle patrol rep in our area assured us it was unabsorbed egg sack; he had simply hatched a little early. They came down, picked him up and promised to release him in several days when the sack absorbed.

SCHOLA 101

schol' a: 1) An intermission of work, leisure for learning, learned conversation, debate, disputation, lecture, dissertation. 2) A meeting place for teachers and pupils, place for instruction, place of learning, school. 3) The disciples of a teacher, body of followers, school, sect. 4) An acronym for my tortuous blog title "Secular Classical Homeschoolers' Odyssean Learning Adventure." 5) How my Boston cousins pronounce "scholar." 6) Someone who studies at 10 o'clock for a dilla or a dolla.

These are the blatherings of an introverted, autodidactic, champion of The Enlightenment raising three daughters. At one time or another we have homeschooled, public-schooled, Catholic-schooled, cyber-schooled, unschooled, and even threatened boarding school. We have been inspired variously by The Well-Trained Mind, A Thomas Jefferson Education, and Climbing Parnassus, tempered by the writings and wisdom of Charlotte Mason, John Holt, Benjamin Franklin and Michel de Montaigne.

I try not to get wrapped up in labels, but we are secular and we are classical-ish.

We travel. A lot. Sometimes to the other side of the state and sometimes to the other side of the planet. Join us on our journey as we search for our home, navigate the waters of self-education, lounge with the lotus-eaters, and bash a Cyclops or two.