on sunday, we went to The Wild Center--The Natural History Museum of the Adirondacks for the bahzillionth time this winter. ava participated in the sunday art project (painting rocks, one for her (white) and one for carter (blue)), and carter ran around gleefully finding all his favorite animals, plants and minerals. at 2:30 the "otter enrichment program" began. this is fun because they usually feed the otters, and often it is fish. this is an amazing thing to see, because the fish are fast, but the otters are faster. amazingly fast. we had seen this 2 weeks ago, and when the otter-person-naturalist guy brought out the bucket, we were all excited.

whoosh! the bucket was dumped into the otter compound. zip! zap! zing! the otters had caught nearly all of the fish, sometimes handling 3 at a time (one in the mouth, one in each paw). they are very cat like in their pursuit and desire to "play" with their prey.

this all happened in about 20 seconds, and then sudenly (as the otters began to bite into their fish), carter began saying, quietly at first and then louder: "eat fish, no! eat fish, no!" i leaned over to hear what he was saying and when i got down on his level and asked him what he was saying, his eyes welled up and his chin started trembling, and he repeated it over and over--i whisked him up and ran off, getting him away just in time before he started sobbing. SOBBING. he was absolutely completely distraught that the otters were eating the trout. it took about 5 minutes before he would even look up from my shoulder, and even then he collapsed in a heap of empathy for his beloved trout. i felt like crap. of course, i had no idea, and he had seen them chase the trout 2 weeks prior, but still. and what was i to say? oh, they'll be alright? no. give him a lesson in the inevitable violence of the food chain? not a good choice either. so, all i could do was to hold him and tell him that it would be alright. rather vague, but i had no other answers.

so, no "wild kingdom" in our future for a while.

fortunately, he recovered, but now i wonder what he thinks of the otters. at least he did not hear the naturalist guy say that sometimes they eat baby beavers.

he and i skiied this morning (where we saw some ice-mobiles, and people riding their iceboards, and the ice guns were blowing snow--oops, i mean ice). we picked ava up at school went back to the mountain, had some cafeteria food, then he went to the nursery (joyfully) and ava and i skiied. we came back, got carter, then the 3 of us did 2 runs. back inside, off with the gear, stuff it into the bag, go get the car, load 'em up, and off we went. it all went very smoothly, though i have learned that a day of snowplowing behind little children will sear your thighs. it may not be the same as doing 6 runs from the top of the mountain, but it is a very very directed workout. ava asked if she could go into the half-pipe. i said 'absolutely not.' she begged and begged, and i finaly said, ava, that thing is about 4 stories high, solid ice, and steep. someday, yes. today, there is no way that i am letting you anywhere near it. then sh saw a kid drop in, and she said "there goes a little squirt mom!" and i said "that little squirt is about 14. he just looks like he's 4 because the pipe is so huge!"

she finally let it go, but not after begging to do the 10 foot jumps. aaaaah!!!!!!!!!