A Common Shepherdess

This is what happens when your lip is numb after a visit to the dentist and you don't heed your mother's constant refrain of "Stop chewing on your lip!!"

In the last couple of weeks we have had more opportunities to do more nature study. We took a trip to the Hassayampa River Preserve . (Yes, there are rivers in Arizona!) It actually rained on us most of the morning. The only animals we got to see were some ducks. The Hassayampa River is a year-round river. It doesn't just flow after a heavy rainfall. We went with a group of other homeschool families following the Ambleside curriculum. A few days later we took a trip to the zoo. A zoo isn't the best place for a nature study since the animals aren't in their natural habitats. But it gives the kids a chance to get up close to animals they might not have a chance of seeing otherwise. Like stingrays and sharks: and some kind of vulture (I don't remember):