Wilderness Wildlife Week 2011, Recap #3

Wilderness Wildlife Week is a great place for all ages to go to. I like it because it talks about a lot of history and culture of the Appalachian people. One of my favorite classes was the “Walker Sisters of Little Greenbrier Community.” I did not know anything about the Walker Sisters, so it was a great opportunity for me to learn. Greenbrier is in the Smoky Mountain National Park. There were 7 Walker sisters, but one died early in life and one got married. So there were only 5 left, they lived in the house of their parents and tended the farm until they died.

The lady who spoke was named Robin Goddard. She showed some pictures of their house and farm. Robin knew the Walker sisters from the age of 3 until they died.  I like learning about other people who live in other times than we do, because we learn they are people just like us.

Learning to play the spoons.

We also went on an Owl Prowl. This is when you go out in the woods in the middle of the night and you call and watch for owls and listen for them. It was bitterly cold and snowy. We saw one Barred Owl, but did not hear any. We were listening for the Barred Owl, Great Horned and Screech Owl, all which are in the Smoky Mountains.

 

Kae-Kae

age 12

Wilderness Wildlife Week 2011, Recap #3

To see our other Recaps of Wilderness Wildlife Week, click here.

This is Gracie-Girl's Narration of her favorite things at WWW.

My favorite thing at Wilderness Wildlife Week were the Bird Shows.  The bird talked in a microphone.  They flew over my head.  There were parrots, prey birds, owls and little birds.  They were fed peanuts and little mice. 

Here is the family at an art class.

Gracie-Girl
age 6

This is Joy- Bug's Narration of WWW.

My favorite class was the Safari Animal Show with Amazon John.  There was a 10 foot Burmese Python that I helped hold.  He weighed 25 pounds.  There was also a bunny and he said it was the scariest animal in the world because it steals carrots and thumps field mice on the head so he can eat them!

He also had a frog named Bubba and he at up all the other baby frogs in the puddle.  He was an African Rainforest frog.  He tried to feed it a mouse but it did not want it.  There was also an animal that looked like a monkey, but it was not.  It was a marsupial.  He also had a black vulture and a dog named Bear. 

Joy-Bug
age 7


Gracie- Girl and Joy-Bugs classes at WWW

• O! Possum!- live animal show
• Knoxville Bird show
• Silly Safari Show with Amazon John
• Do it yourself: Build a backyard bird habitat
• Hiking and Backpacking Play

Wilderness Wildlife Week 2011, Recap #1

This week Kingdom Arrows is going to be recapping our time at Wilderness Wildlife Week (WWW) in Pigeon Forge, TN.  Some of the reason I want to do this is to get the word out about this absolutely FREE, wonderful week.  I feel like it is teacher's in-service for me and my kids feel like it is one long, awesome field trip.  It is always the second week of January.

First, I want to tell you about the hotel, River Bend Inn.  For our family of 6, we paid $25 a night, with an indoor pool and breakfast.  It was in the parking lot of the Pigeon Forge Convention Center, where WWW was, which was great since there was still plenty of snow when we got there. 

Since this is MY post, and the guest posters will be writing the rest of this week, I wanted to list the classes I took (for FREE), so you can see the variety. 

• O! Possum! Live animal show
• Wild Wonders: Knoxville Zoo and Bird Show
• Owl Prowl, one mile hike after dark for 2 hours listening and looking for owls
• Bird Songs of the Smokys, class specifically about bird identifying
• Do it Yourself, Building a Backyard Habitat
• Coloring/ Drawing a Nature scene
• Learn to play the Washboard, Spoons and Fiddle Sticks
• Slow Jam with Sweetpea, my mountain dulcimer
• Interactive play teaching hiking and backpacking tips

As you can tell, I went to many classes that my littles went to, and if on my own, I would have chosen a little differently. 

My favorite "class" was the one mile Owl Prowl.  We left at 6pm, and went up behind Gatlinburg into the Park.  It was led my our new friend Stever Garr from Birds-I-View.  There was still about 5 inches of snow on the ground and the moon was full.  It was so bright the trees left shadows on the diamond sparkling snow.  Steve took us out and we stood still for about an hour in the 20 degree temperature looking for and listening for owls.  He would make the sound of the three owl that habitat around there- the Great Horned, Barred and Screech Owl.  We never heard an owl, but I saw a Barred that flew over head, just after we stopped walking and Steve started calling him. 

I learned that the expression chilled to the bone really exists.  It took me until 3am to get all the way warm!  Kae-Kae and Joy- Bug went with me and had such a good time that they went the next night and took Dad.  It was only 34 degrees that night and felt like a heat wave!

Since Dan is not going to be a guest poster this week, I wanted to share with you this painting he did in his class this week using some of the tips he learned from the drawing class he took at WWW.  Here is his most recent painting (thanks Mom and Dad for the class)!

Heather