a full summer

Where do all the days go? I have had a house full of kids all summer, which has been truly wonderful. I love that I can work from home and I love that my kids' friends come over and stay and play and they run all around the cul de sac and everyone knows one another. I love the kids' school (Holy Trinity Episcopal School) and the kids there, and one exciting thing is that my daughter's class got selected for a Take Pride in America Award for their conservation work they've done so will receive the award in Washington DC in September!! Their school is listed on here: http://www.takepride.gov/volunteer/spotlights_continued.cfm

I have been working hard, writing away. I finished one article on Kemp's ridley sea turtles, FINALLY finished my sample chapter of my book, and am finishing another on sand mining. I have a zillion errands to run around town, getting everything I might possibly need in Australia (it's not like it's a third world country! I kill myself. lol). I needed a new tripod since I left mine in Peru, and I decided to buy my kids an inexpensive digital camera. Once you've gone digital baby, you'll never go back!

The kids each had a cheap camera, but the film and developing costs are just not worth it. For less than $100 you can have a nice digital plus a memory card. And they can take as many pics as they want. It kind of plays into my article on Australia anyway, which is can I make a nature lover out of my tween (Savannah) who is more into video games and books than nature. I think getting to photograph things will inspire her, the way it did for me when I first went to Australia. I got my first 35mm cam upon my return.

OK all for now, back to the grindstone... I will upload some ugly sand mining pics from being out on the river the other day soon! Eegads this company is just spewing muddy water into the river. I laughed at the conversation of the biologists I was with. There was a guy going out on a boat with his kids on the river, and they were like, Can you imagine what it's like to be the one who pollutes the river and having to go out on the river? And the other was like, That IS the guy! He goes out on the river while his lackeys run his operation. And the other says, How could I be so naive? Well anyway the conversation went something like that!

Update: this photo takes two glances to appreciate. The left part is NOT the sandy bank, but silty water being actively dumped by a sand mine. To the right the water runs so lear you can see fish. The sediment is so heavy and persistent that it affects the river for twenty+ miles downstream. Of course this causes all kinds of problems (read my 2 articles on sand mining at CleanHouston.org to learn all about the problems and solutions)!