Order Rodentia

     It's fairly safe to say that we are full swing into a unit study on the order (or is it class, phylum, family?) Rodentia.   Tobin is now the proud owner of two gerbils.   Welcome, Cooper and Ralph.   A total of three rodents in the house.  And  the traps are set for their cousins, the field mice who may wander in from the cold.   It is actually fascinating to note how much like a fat little pom pom the hamster is compared with the jack rabbit-like leanness of the gerbils.  We observed and listed anatomical reasons for this difference in agility.  Science is all about observation, right?
     Tobin lead us to the gerbil dealer's house by way of a good old fashioned map of Oakville.  He looked up the street on the index, found the coordinates, circled the location and legally sat in the front seat and navigated our way first to Oakville's museum and from there to our friend "Barrie" the gerbil man.  With Black History month coming up and Oakville being a bit of a jaunt to fetch vermin to bring into your home, we decided to make a field trip out of the afternoon and visit the multi-media exhibit about the underground railroad that they have on display at the old estate museum.   I can tell that the stories of injustice and slavery hit home for Isaac because he brought up some abolitionist arguments when asked to do the dishes after supper.   He said that I was a slave catcher and he had to run and get further from the border to be safe from a life of work with no pay.  He should wait until the weather gets above -20 degrees.  I read about a prisoner that escaped this week but turned back to the warmth of his cell when he got a little chilly in his prison issue pants.
     Barrie, the gerbil farmer is not your typical middle aged Oakville resident.  His house looks like he built it himself with his brother named Limpy back in Gr. 8.  It's on a ravine so if you look away from the street and plug your ears it feels like you're at a backwoods cabin in Virginia.  But you're not.  You're in Oakville.  Ed has built houses 5 blocks away whose owners flew to Egypt to select the marble for their bathroom vanity.  Barrie could walk to the downtown strip of boutiques to find 75 dollar tee shirts with nautical themes and khaki trousers to match.  But his gerbils seem healthy and well cared for and mine and Tobin's life is more interesting for having visited his curious little patch of land.   At the rate we're going with collecting animals, we're well on our way to being eccentrics ourselves. 
      Skating and read-aloud after supper and the end of another beautiful day of learning together.