We all played outside together on the days the weather was nice. Sometimes I'll be so enthralled by what the creatures are doing when I'm hiding that I'm tempted to burst from my hiding place to get my camera without delay. When I finally am found or decide to make a run for it, I go get my phone right away.
I heard the scratching, clicking sound at first. I turned around and watched in amazement as ants dragged shells or some sort of hulls along this tree.
I watched for awhile, then I moved down into the creek and sifted my hand through small, sandy gravel and happened across what appeared to be a tiny bivalve mollusk or a nut or other seed hull loosely connected, but open, with a dried, shriveled-up occupant. The outside of the shell looked identical to the shells the ants were carrying.
I kept the shell, and once I was able, I fetched my camera, placed the shell, which had broken at the loosely-attached hinge, on a plantain leaf to photograph it.
I later took out what appeared to be a seed and photographed the outside of the hull halves. I do not know what kind of plant the seed is from, do you? The hull is very hard. The tree was a sycamore, so the seed does not belong to the tree. I think the ant must be a harvester ant of some sort. My guess is that it is Pogonomyrmex occidentalis. I'm still not sure why the ants were carrying the shells/hulls across the tree. Why did they not go find only the seeds and carry those to eat? I read about some harvester ants in the genus Messor in the area of Israel and Turkey that took snail shells and built up their mound with them. Apparently Pogonomyrmex builds gravel mounds.
I had to pause our outdoor game to photograph the irises in partial bloom. They look a bit like purple tulips here! I think the freezing overnight weather was more than they could take. They didn't bloom fully and stay well. Furthermore, these are the only two flowers that made a showing. More irises are on the hill behind the house, but none have bloomed, so I fear they may not.
We all do cooking. Even Elizabeth is getting to do more and more, even though she doesn't do anything completely by herself, yet. I made the baked potatoes with garlic, rosemary, and Greek seasoning.
I also made homemade tortillas for the first time in a few years. Wow, were they ever good! They're whole wheat, freshly ground, of course, and so they don't roll like the store-bought tortillas. They taste so much better, though.
We ate vegan chick'n fajitas one day for lunch. Those are cheddar chunks, not eggs.
Carissa made her "potato no-name dish" concoction another day. Those are delicious, too.
I made up some white rice so that I could make some fried rice (with a couple eggs) with organic maple chicken sausages and sauteed onions. It's sooooo good. And yes, this was different than the experiment I had Carissa fix last week, but the two dishes were similar and both good.
One night Carissa baked our spaghetti squash and made up a homemade salsa to mix with it and made up two pans of nachos. The squash made for an interesting meat substitute. Trusten and Elizabeth were not impressed. I thought it was ok. Carissa and Olivia were approving fans.
We got in our Universal Yums box. We've so far enjoyed everything this go around and figure we will enjoy the remaining items.
I made my second mug with horses for Olivia. Carissa hasn't made a second mug, yet. She worked on her avatar and has not quite finished it, so I won't be picturing it, yet.
Nearly every day that Elizabeth writes in her journal, she writes about animals. (She had to go back and add the date afterward.) Here is an entry about tigers, and she happened to have her tigers and other cats (as well as some dinosaurs and a horse) keeping her company. These days she really likes cheetahs. She wishes she had a cheetah.
My sweet girl really enjoys her Zoom meetings on Fridays with her class. They're never academic; the time is devoted to visiting with each other and playing games together.
The kids are still working on geography skills. I want them to really improve in their geography knowledge.
I have gone a few days without reading out of our group book, Words on Fire, but we will get through that. It's interesting so far.
Trusten finished reading Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry, and I assigned him to draft a closing argument (as either a defense attorney or prosecuting attorney, his choice) to defend the main character Kira or to doom her. Since it's been a few years since I read the book with Jaden and so could not adequately come up with an argument/debate assignment without reading it again, I looked online for help, so this is what I decided upon. I got the idea from this Gathering Blue novel packet for 7th grade.
That's about it for now.
Until next time...
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