Tick Season

Yesterday, we went on a hike in the Albany Pine Bush with the Cub Scouts. What a nice oasis in the middle of such an urban environment! You can hear the traffic from neighboring highways, yet there are quite a few trails that wind around and you can pretend you're in the middle of nowhere. It's unusual in that they have controlled fires to maintain the habitat there. The endangered Karner blue butterfly lives there and it lives off of wild blue lupine flowers. So that the pitch pines and scrub oaks don't take over that flower, they regularly burn them off. The area used to be a glacial lake, but over time the lake went away and left sand dunes. It's pretty interesting, and the Discovery Center has lots of hands-on activities. Check it out here. But beware of ticks! We found one on Nolan when he woke up this morning, and one of the other Cub Scouts brought his dog who had over 10 on her!

Other interesting news this week. I subbed as an aide at another elementary school this week while Thomas was at school. I really liked it. It's the first time I did something that paid in 9 years! I can't wait to get the paycheck. It will probably be about $15 after taxes, but still! Tomorrow the boys are home for Veteran's Day. I'm not sure what we're going to do yet--maybe go to the Schenectady Museum. Wednesday, Nolan has a field trip that I get to help chaperone to Proctor's Theater. They are going to watch a short movie on Antartica and then talk to a pilot from the local Airguard about the flights they regularly make there.

This weekend, Chris is going to a Cub Scout training thing, so I get to be Mom Taxi and bring the boys from basketball to swim lesson to play date to birthday party. And the boys are already counting the days to Christmas. 45 days!