Gently Giants

This week we've begun the long awaited journey of talking about genetics. Key learning words for this week have been allele, chromosomes, dominant, gene, traits, and heredity.  We had a bit of a celebration in store as Astor had his 7th birthday. He has been obsessing about animals lately, planning an animal rescue mission with his cousin. He asked if we could go see the gentle giants at Young Living's farm in Mona, Utah for is birthday. It was arranged and fit perfectly with our science lessons this week. There was a lively discussion about where we get our different traits from with an object lesson. Astor received as a gift, a pair of horses with a surprise foal inside and we talked about how the foal has some things from the father and some things from the mother and it introduced our birthday activity perfectly. 

Young Living's horses are nothing short of entrancing...We went to the show barn and made friends with a few gentle beasts. These Percherons are aptly called the gentle giants because they are just that. Easily taller than my 5 foot 7 inches at the rear, 7 feet tall at their heads, incredibly gentle and curious. 

The Percherons were by far the most fun, as we've never seen anything like that big of an animal to be up close and personal with. But we also visited  the Fresian barn, saw some gorgeous Andalusians, and made friends with Petey the pony. It was a perfect opportunity to see what strictly bred horses are like ant talk about the different traits. At first glance the Fresians and Percherons look alike, but their bred traits are very different from eachother. The massive feet, well, massive everything, of the Percherons is unique to them as much as the Fresians arching neck muscles and slender yet strong gracefulness. We were ale to compare and have a plentiful supply of future observation at our fingertips. 

Other things that happened this week were:

Ada got her first piece of magical mail corresepondence and has responded in kind...

Nahuel continued helping Papa fix up the car and learned all sorts of things about using tools and friction...

Leonardo has been waiting to learn about volcanoes and finally got the chance...

Astor got lots of animal toys for his birthday; horses, a big beautiful shark, and a wolf with a wolf book and is making marvelou
s progress with reading...