adventuring

Everyone went adventuring today!

To the cork floor: the Ninja Cats pursued stage building…

…and prop- and costume-making

To Glen Canyon:

…where the Fish became nesting birds and cracked out of their shells. They played out the courting rituals of the birds they’ve been learning about and tried out ideas for their nesting performance coming at the end of the arc. The extent of their knowledge about birds and their habits is really astounding!

To Atlas Cafe:

Rocket Dog Rescue, a non-profit that helps dogs from overcrowded shelters find foster or permanent homes, held an adoption event a few blocks from the school, so the Ninja Cats took a bike ride over to help out the volunteers by hanging out with puppies and get a little furry love.

Then they rode back to school for a little Wee Free Men and the end of the day.

To the east of San Francisco:

The Undead Goats set off early in the morning and headed east on their bikes instead of west. They rode along the bay side of San Francisco and explored the remains of the industrial part of town.

supports

The building cohort of the Ninja Cats’ performance group headed out to Half Moon Bay to find eucalyptus supports for the theater that they’re building.

Eucalyptus grows like weeds in California, so it was no sweat to find a small grove to chop down some lumber.

Then they loaded up Gever’s truck and headed back to Brightworks.

Everyone helped unload!

Bike repairs and rides for the Goats.

The Flying Fish went to Glen Park Canyon (unfortunately with their camera sitting on the kitchen counter) to check in on the owl babies that they went to find a few weeks ago. Before they’d gone even a quarter mile into the park, they found hummingbird nests, a robin’s egg, dragonfly wings, a gopher skull, and nesting house sparrows with their nut hatches. They lay on the ground for ten minutes watching the sparrows fly in and out of a dead tree where they were nesting – a restful moment away from the hustle and bustle of the city.

Mackenzie reported that they found the owl’s nest, but it was empty. The Fish decided to head up the creek and were thrilled when they came across a group of birders in the process of releasing one of the owl chicks that had been injured in its first attempt to fly. Moss, an avid bird nerd and photographer (his site is here: urbanowls.net), explained how he had come across the runt of the nest in the creek with broken tail feathers.  He and his fellow birders took the chick up to Wild Care in Marin where they ran some blood work and mended the feathers. They had just released the chick back into the wild as the Fish came upon them, and they peered through the tree branches to see the check balancing precariously on a branch. The kids could hear the owl parents calling to its baby, and finally the chick flapped awkwardly down to the creek to follow the calls. They were able to see the owl chick up close. Moss shared owl stories and was impressed by the Fish’s enthusiasm for birds.

skulls, wagons, lunch

We had a small group today – about half the kids went up to Point Reyes with their families for a Brightworks camping trip, and the rest of us did fun stuff at school! Henry and his dad made lunch, the Goats went on a bike ride with Josh, the two Flying Fish and a Ninja Cat went to the California Academy of Sciences with Mackenzie and I to learn about the animal skulls they found in yesterday’s owl pellets, and the remaining Ninja Cats worked on their own independent projects: a pioneer wagon and a Maker Bot.

Some photos from the day:

Off to Point Reyes for camping!