Flying Kites

It feels like early summer around here, and we went kite-flying on Friday (and on Saturday as well). Supriya's friend Duncan gave her a shark kite for her birthday, and they had a good time running around with their kites. It is interesting what kite-flying means to the kids. They think the whole idea is to run around with the kite, with about 10-15 feet of the string unwound. Supriya actually complained if the wind caught the kite and made it fly. I on the other hand believe in making the wind do all the work. When the kite is near the ground there is a lot of turbulence. As it rises the wind gets steadier, and that's where I like my kite to be. It's sort of like fishing in fact - I am standing there with the kite soaring, doing nothing in particular except the occasional adjustment to the kite! (Of course the string-tension thing is reversed from fishing - it's good when there is steady tension from the kite's pull.)

Aseem, Supriya and I went to the Great Blue Hill Observatory for a field-trip recently with a group of our homeschooling friends. It was interesting to see all the instruments and read about the history of the observatory ("Great Blue Hill is Home of the Oldest Continuous Weather Records in North America"). The best part of the trip was the kite we built. It's called the Frustrationless Flyer, and it does fly very well, much better than the kite we bought from Walmart.