Catching my breath

I've been up to my armpits with work (feeling under the weather hasn't helped either) and I'm sorry if you've been looking for farm updates or other things of interest. I've just been too overwhelmed with life in general to write a word.

In the middle of re-enrollments, faculty contracts, state inspections, testing, new student recruitment and all the other fun things that have been coming my way (like interviews for new jobs where I'm not the boss of everything...) I've had one excessively odd and fun job - the hunt for Sandy the Hamster. I'm not sure if I've mentioned Sandy before. She is Monkey's class hamster. She comes to stay at our house every school holiday and we are very fond of the fat little rodent.

Sandy has developed a rather annoying habit of late. She's become a successful escape artist. On past occasions it's been easy to track her. She leaves gaudy little piles of beads and seeds behind toilets or shelves. On her last escape at school (she doesn't escape at our house) I found her dozing behind a toilet plunger with a hoard of dried beans she pilfered from one of the pre-school rooms.

Sandy's latest escape has left us a little dumbfounded and frustrated. The teachers and students have been looking for her daily. She's managed to elude our searches. She escaped last Tuesday and we are saddened (no really, there has been weeping from the 4 year old quarter) that she's still on the loose. At first we found her normal piles of beads and a few marbles, not to mention hamster poop... But the trail grew cold last week and we thought all was lost. In our search for Sandy we've found lots of things we thought lost and gone forever, but no fat hamster.

On a more cheerful note, today I found a sign that she's been hanging out in one of the preschool rooms (a nice tidy pile of hamster poop and colored rice behind the math shelf). So my search continues with new zest; a welcome change from being chained to my desk. I am the official Montessori Hamster Hunter. I'll keep you posted.