Two Tails Ranch

[taken in part from a friend's blog]

15 miles south of Gainesville in Williston is a large animal rescue/sanctuary, the Two Tails Ranch. We went there this week with our home school group to see elephants, zebras, giant tortoises, tigers, ostriches and more.

It turns out that the reason she was “dancing” is because elephants are so heavy, they have to stay in constant movement or their organs will become crushed under their own weight. This is also why they sleep standing up; lying down for more than 20-30 minutes causes fluid to build up in their lungs. Amazing.

The elephants at Two Tails are all Asian elephants, distinguished from their African cousins by smaller ears, lighter skin, no tusks for the females, two domes on the head instead of one, and a difference in toe count. The lighter skin pigment includes freckles, as see on this female’s face:


The information given was rather sobering. Unless current bans on importing elephants to the US are lifted and intensive breeding programs are implemented, these endangered animals will likely be extinct in the next 75-100 years. They require enormous amounts of land in order to thrive, as they are destructive of their habitats and must migrate often. Unfortunately, current preserves are insufficient, and elephants in Asia are being culled as nuisance animals in areas heavily populated by humans. Their shrinking habitat has also caused insufficient genetic diversity among potential mates for healthy offspring. Add to this the fact that elephants are actually choosy about their mates, and the birth rate is drastically insufficient to keep up with the death rate.

Luke, a beautiful male, did a log-manipulation demonstration for us. He also lay down for the trainer, which she said requires absolute trust, as that is the elephant’s most vulnerable position, since they can’t get up quickly.


This emu is about 4 months old, half the size of an adult. A handler picked it up and let the kids pet the feathers on his back.


The sanctuary also had several zebras. We learned that predators see mostly in black and white, so the zebras’ stripes make it hard for the predators to distinguish individual animals in a herd, which discourages attack. The zebras were fearless and came right up to our group to check us out:

The Buzz about Bees

We attended a presentation on honey bees at the Museum of Natural History. They all enjoyed the program. The learned about the different classes of bee (queen, worker, drone, etc.), the fact that bees can be promoted from one job to another, and what different “dance moves” mean in communicating the location of food. Apparently there was a movie and honey samples, so it must have been good.

Circle Camp Finale

After two weeks of our peace talk-themed summer camp, the kids put on an amazing performance complete with drumming, dancing, singing, and skits. Lots was learned in terms of talking with others compassionately and getting to feelings and needs instead of blame and hurt.

Geography Lesson

Ft. Clinch Camping

Enjoyed group camping for first time. Explored Ft. Clinch park. Cold water!!

Butterfly Release

Went to the Florida Museum of Natural History today. We looked at the exhibit of native butterflies and how they pick different native species of plants to lay their eggs, and watched the release of new butterflies into the tropical rain forest enclosure. We also visited the Fossil, Everglades, and Alien Invasion exhibits.

Can You Dig It?

We attended the Florida Museum of Natural History's annual "Can You Dig It" event tonight. We were able to see the live demonstrations of:

• an erupting volcano (talking about pyroclastic clouds as well as comparisons of the Pompeii eruption and the Mount St. Helens eruption);
• "magic rocks" which glow under UV lights (we got to see things glow orange, green, pink, and white) based on their component elements (like calcium);
• flint knapping, where master flint knapper Tom Nutter was making stone arrow heads the "modern way", and then discussed with us how it would have been done by Native Americans;
• the work of water and how it shapes Earth's surface and subsurface, including ridges and rivers and canyons;
• and the ground water system, complete with a 3-D model of a cube of earth down through to the deepest aquifer, and also a water model to show how pollution can get from contaminated sewers, septic tanks, and similar into our drinking water supplies.
  

We also explored mineral hardness and how a rock with a hardness less than 2.5 (which is the hardness of our nails) would flake when scraped, got to feel different stalagmites and stalactites, looked at shavings of different "rocks" under the microscope (including granite and limestone), and saw the gem cutting process (from mining the minerals to extracting the "pretty part" to shaping to setting for jewelry). We also briefly participated in the "fossil dig", but were less than impressed with it, as it was just a sandbox with different mineral rocks thrown in there -- there was no "excavating" required.

International Year of Astronomy

K and P attended a presentation by the Astronomy Department and the Santa Fe Planetarium on Galileo and his discoveries.

Hoggetowne Medieval Faire

Visited the Hoggetowne Medieval Faire today. P and his dad participated in a fencing tournament, which P won. P and K rode the hobby horses and looked at dioramas of medieval life. We watched demonstrations of weaving, armor-making, using weaponry, and acrobatics.

Inauguration Potluck

Today was an exciting day -- we joined with people of all ages, genders, ethnicities, and socio-economical position to watch the Presidential Inauguration. P was very excited, and listened to the conversations about this being an important event in many respects, not the least of which was the election of our first African-American president.

Following the live broadcast, P and K helped break down the decorations and clean up the large areas that were used for both the potluck lunch beforehand and the broadcast afterwards. They also engaged in conversation with some of the attendees about the event.

P and the new President

P said today, when I told him that we were getting a new president today, and then told him it was Obama (he knows who he is), he said, "I hope he will be a President of peace and understanding and not war anymore." How cool is that coming from a 7 year old??

Gibraltar and Spain

P viewed a map of Spain and Morocco. He looked at photos of Gibraltar and looked at how the forts on the rock controlled shipping in and out of the Mediterranean.

Winterfest 2008

Warhol Art

Today, we were talking about Modern Pop art, and found a fun project to do that mimics Andy Warhol's work over on Art Projects for Kids. We started with me drawing their outlines, based on a photo onto transparency paper, and they colored it with Craypas oil pastels.

P then wanted to draw his own outline and do an additional one.

World War II

While we were out today P pretended cracks in the parking lot near the restaurant were tectonic plates.

We continued our discussion with P about the causes and chain of events of World War II. Watched interactive maps on the year-by-year history of the campaigns.

European Theater Map





Afterwards we practiced the th and f sounds.

Tectonic Plates and World War II

We looked over the atlas with Parker and described the events of Word War II in general terms, and talked about all of the places where there were battles. We then talked about tectonic plates and shifting, looking at maps of how the Earth looked up to 250 million years ago, and the projected maps of what earth will look like 250 million years hence. P used his grits this morning to make 'continent plates', which he pushed together to make mountains.

Muskets

After reading a bit about the Revolutionary War and George Washington, P wanted to know more about muskets (and how they differ from Han's blaster in Star Wars). We watched and discussed the following videos about the length of time it takes to load and discharge a musket and the relative inaccuracy of them. We also talked about how battles were fought then compared to now, in terms of lines of men versus taking cover.

The Hobbit, in review

On the way home from dinner (kids eat free Tuesday!), Jeff and I decided to just start asking questions about The Hobbit to see if he remembered any of the details (the book was finished about a month ago, reading between half-a-chapter and two a night with Jeff).

Because P had just gotten a dragon painted on his arm by the clown at the restaurant, my first question was, "P, what was the name of the dragon in The Hobbit?" He answered, "Smog." right quickly, too!! We asked a series of questions both about facts, major plot points, and also overall comprehension of the underlying themes, and he displayed a very good understanding and an attention to the details of the book.

We are now considering which book to start him on next, either Harry Potter or maybe Spiderwick (we have tried The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe now twice, and he seemed disinterested. He is currently in the middle of reading part of the Random House Step Up Biography Book Series from the 1960s/1970s with such titles as Meet Benjamin Franklin, Meet Andrew Jackson, Meet Robert E. Lee, Meet George Washington, Meet Abraham Lincoln, Meet Thomas Jefferson, and Meet John F. Kennedy. (We inherited these from my cousins, who got them when they were little.)

US Presidents

P looked at the names of all the US Presidents. P then selected the books from his library that we had of Presidents for his reading for the next week. P looked at videos of JFK's inauguration speech and speech asking for appropriations for the Apollo program.

July 12th

P and Jeff finished reading the biography of John F. Kennedy. P then asked to look at the Kennedy home in Hyannis Port, the White House, and Dallas.

P and K practiced handwriting by tracing over their names.