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| After school on Wednesday, I noticed this scene out our window, looking at the field in front of our school. It is very typical here for many grassy places in town - (like the athletic field at school, the yard outside our flat, etc). - that they don't mow the grass regularly, but rather to let it grow long, then cut it and leave it to dry. These people are evidently collecting the dried grass to be used as hay. |
Wednesday is always our free evening, so last night we did some cleaning in preparation for Tim's mom's upcoming visit, defrosted the freezer, did laundry, then headed to get some groceries that are heavier, like laundry detergent and fabric softener, etc. (It's funny how I gauge my shopping list on bulk and weight now, so that we can carry everything in back-packs on our bikes!! LOL!!) At the Billa ("beela") store, we ran into one of Tim's Friday night basketball buddies, who speaks no English. But he invited us to his home which is nearby, so we accepted the offer of a cool beverage.
It turns out that his wife, daughter, son-in-law (who speaks English), and two grandchildren were all there. Unfortunately I didn't have the camera, but their home and gardens out back were beautiful!! We sat around a table outside for a couple of hours, and Stefan and Tim ended up going inside and cooking up some eggs and fresh mushrooms hunted in the forest - YUM!! What a fun surprise on a "free" evening!!
This morning at school was a special school assembly, held outside, with hawks & falcons (and some other birds of prey).
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| These were many varieties of the smaller falcons. |
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| They set up right in the athletic field right in front of the school. |
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| There were a few owls too! |
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| The closest is a vulture, and then some bigger hawks/eagles. |
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| And there is Timko, wearing his IOWA Hawkeye hat, looking at the American bald eagle!! :-) |
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| Since I didn't understand much I'm not sure, (it was in Czech, which evidently can be easily understood by Slovak speakers), but this looks like a great horned owl. |
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| Another of the owls. (And some of my Sexta students in the background!) |
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| This hawk/eagle was released and flew around the area before returning - very majestic! |
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| It was so neat to see the raptors in flight! |
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| Most of the presentation was just talking about and showing the different birds, but the most exciting part was definitely the birds flying for the last 20 minutes or so!! |
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| This bicycle-style rig was set up with a long cord attached to the skin of some rodent like a weasel, and they would reel it in really fast so it looked like it was running along the ground. Then the birds would swoop down and catch it - really neat to see!! |
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| Towards the end of the demonstration, the bird handlers added a little more excitement by letting the biggest bird - the vulture - land on their leather-covered arm right next to the front row of the audience!! |
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| This bird didn't return for a long time. When it was released, it headed straight up to the tall trees on the right, then later just flew around for a while before coming back at last, after several of the other birds had taken a turn to fly! |
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| They even let a couple of students put on the glove to release and catch some birds! |
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| I'm sure the birds hadn't been fed breakfast yet, because the all seemed eager to return for their big hunks of raw meat after flying!! |
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| We got some good news today --- our work visa extensions have been approved!!! YAY!! So next week sometime we'll go over to Žilina again to pick them up. These two gals in front are two of the business office secretaries who have done a lot of work on our visa application documents, school contracts, etc. They don't speak English, but they're really friendly, upbeat, and helpful!! |
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| These are our three "anchors" and lunch buddies from the English department. Zuzka, Janka, and Katarina. They are absolutely WONDERFUL friends!! :-) |
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| This is one of the large display cases out on the driveway area leading to the school. Tim and the gals like to tease me about being a "rock star" here because of being in the paper and getting videotaped at the basic school - well I'm in all of these photos teaching various elementary classes, and student work from my classes is also displayed. LOL!! |
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| Tim with his two Slovak daughters and his Slovak younger sister, on the way to lunch on this hot summer day today!! :-) |
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| After lunch, Tim went home and changed into shorts, a T-shirt, and a baseball cap, so that he could teach his Septima class (7th year in the 8-year program) how to play American baseball. |
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| The pitcher was definitely aiming for the bat, and each student got a hit as they played work-up, since there weren't enough kids for two complete teams. They all enjoyed it, despite the heat --- it was at least 90 degrees out!! Ideal Iowa baseball weather - HA! |
CONGRATULATIONS ON PASSING YOUR BOARDS, BETH!!! YOU WILL BE AN AWESOME PHYSICIAN ASSISTANT!!!!
WE ARE SO PROUD OF YOU!!! :-)
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