Frightful's Mountain

Tomorrow the boys and I will start reading Jean Craighead George's book, Frightful's Mountain. We've read the first two books already, which are My Side of the Mountain and On The Far Side of the Mountain. After the boys enjoyed those two so much, I knew I'd have to get the third book. I didn't realize, however, that Frightful's Mountain was written a good 40 years after the first book. Jean wrote it only after being asked by a young girl what happened to Sam Gribley's peregrine falcon, Frightful. At the end of the second book, Sam has set his falcon free. I was just reading about the last book and saw that it's written entirely from Frightful's point of view. Knowing how much my boys love birds, I'm sure they'll enjoy this.

The picture above is of a peregrine falcon just like Frightful. I took this picture when we were at the San Diego Wild Animal Park in California last year. The bird was tethered and some man was standing around talking about it. When he asked the crowd if they knew what type of bird it was several adults yelled out things like, "It's a hawk" and other stuff. Nathan was kind of in the back and said, "It's a peregrine falcon". The man didn't hear him, but everyone around us did. Smart kid really knows his birds! They're beautiful creatures. We saw some peregrines nesting on the cliffs when we went to Point Reyes National Seashore in 2006. They make an incredible sound and are so fascinating to watch.

Yesterday we finished The Indian in the Cupboard. Nathan and Neil really liked that. All their little plastic cowboys and Indians have enjoyed being played with for the first time in awhile. Last night we got the movie from Netflix and we enjoyed that. Every time I open a cupboard though, I'm surprised to find little plastic cowboys & Indians inside. That would be Neil's doing. When he gets into something -- he really gets into something!