Botswana Birds - African Hoopoe

The birds we continue to see -- in our own backyard! amaze me! What a treat! (I'm becoming a bird-watcher.) This guy (or girl - not sure how to tell the difference between the male and female yet) is an African Hoopoe. Here's what my Beginner's Guide to Birds of Botswana says about this beautiful creature: "Fairly common throughout the country, the African Hoopoe is a well-known, russet-colored bird with a large black-tipped crest, and black and white wings and tail. It spends most of its time on the ground probing for insects with its sharp, down-curved bill.


When disturbed it lifts its head and raises its crest like a fan (like he did in the first picture!). Its call of hoop-hoop repeated several times, has given it its name." (Sadly, we haven't heard a sound from this species of bird.)

We have been blessed to see this bird - or this species of bird, in our backyard every day for the past 4 days. When the girls spot him they come running to me so I can get my camera.

Meet "Melman"

We have a new 'friend' in our house. His name is "Melman". With girls, it seems we name every stuffed animal - including wood carved animals, too. ("Melman" is the name of the giraffe in the Madagascar moves. Those movies are some of our family favs. B does a very good impersonation of "King Julian". R's favs are the penguins.)

We've been wanting one of these tall giraffes since we first saw them here in Gabs. The only place we've seen the tall ones (above 4 feet tall) and at a reasonable price, is Bull and Bush - a restaurant/bar. The wood carvings, metal sculptures, etc. are brought down regularly from Zimbabwe (where they are made by hand) and sold outside the Bull and Bush. "Melman" is our first purchase from these wonderfully friendly Zimbabweans. We hope to get a nice sized (large) hippo from them sometime before we head back to NC. And maybe a Cape Buffalo...zebra....elephant....

"Melman" will look nice in our foyer back at home in NC. That will be our Africa wall. Oh the stories we will have to tell!

Love Letter

As a mom with children that are growing up way too fast - I treasure each and every "I love you Mommy" note from them. This masterpiece was created by our youngest. (Sidenote: When I pulled out the camera she KNEW the pic would end up on the blog. She wasn't too happy about that. "Mom! It's private!" I told her my friends in blog-land would really like it - so she smiled and posed for me.)

And what pr0mpted this love letter to Mommy, you may ask? Spelling! I am using Spelling Power© this year with this girl. So far, we both like it better than what we had been using. B's favorite part is the 'spelling review time' from the Spelling Power Activity Task Cards©. Today she used the label maker to type out and print the spelling words she had missed (hockey, bottom, hospital).....we made up a funny sentence with those words "The hockey player fell on his bottom and had to go to the hospital." We thought it was funny. Anyway, she went beyond those three spelling words and created this love letter for me. It's a keeper!



Here's the closeup.