April's Gifts of Nature

We enjoyed many of nature's wonders in the month of April.  During one walk, we happened to hit the jackpot with several never-seen-before or rarely-seen specimens.  There, of course, was also the expected beauties, like:

Review time!  That's dead nettle (Lamium maculatum) on the left and henbit (Lamium amplexicaule) on the right.  Both are edible and nutritious.  Flower nectar is sweet.  Leaves are rich in nutrients.

From the edge of our yard, I peeked down the creek.  I love seeing all the redbud trees (Circa canadensis) blooming!

Violet! (Viola sororia)

A view of part of our front yard

This was exciting for all of us!  This is a rarely seen—I'd never seen one before—Eastern gray tree frog (Hyla versicolor).  It's in the gorgeous gray phase; they can also be seen as green and brown in order to be camouflaged with their surroundings.  The reason they're not often seen is that they tend to stay high in treetops, but they can sometimes be spotted lying on low branches during mating season.  We had walked past this gem. I only saw it when sneaking back from where we'd come to look for a turkey we'd flushed.  More on that later in this post.

A yellow-bellied racer (Coluber constrictor flaviventris), an aggressive, but nonvenomous snake

I got a picture of a tiger beetle (one of many species in the subfamily Cicindelinae, family Carabidae).  We love whenever we're able to see one of these spectacular green iridescent beetles.  It was amazing it stayed around long enough for me to get a picture.

Carpenter ants (Camponotus sp.), not sure of species, going in and out of the hole

Wild plum (Prunus americana) with shelf fungi covered by webbing

I honestly do not know...yet.  I've seen one before, I think.  Anyone know?

Believe it or not, there is a turkey in the above picture.  I blindly shot pictures in its direction, knowing it was about to fly, just hoping I might luck out.  Wild turkeys are so difficult to sneak up on.  They're rarely even seen.

All the above pictures are a select few from one day and one walk.  Below are pictures from other days.

A walk down the road

Rue anemone (Anemonella thalictroides), ranging from white to periwinkle

If I remember correctly, this bird of prey was a red-tailed hawk. Judging by its feathers, I'd bet it is.

It was a delight to watch this squirrel in our yard, with a walnut.  These pictures were taken through a not-perfectly-clean window, though.

Because it stayed mostly hidden while I was taking pictures and video, I can't be certain, but I believe this is most likely an orchard oriole or a Baltimore oriole.  I'd almost bet it is an oriole of some sort because of the beak.  The other black birds with orange do have shorter, straighter beaks.  I've been comparing the sounds on the video footage I took to sounds online and am not certain about anything as of yet.

Nature Fun Walk, First Kings of Israel, and Hibernating Animals

For the week of December 9-15, 2012:

The first day of the week we did not do any survival learning.  Instead it was a free day.  I really wanted to write a long email to a beloved friend, and Nathan wanted to go to Kansas to hunt on a client's property for which he got a year's lease in return for installing a thermostat.  Pretty good deal!  So the kids watched several Care Bears episodes.  There are at least two seasons worth that are Amazon Prime eligible.  I like the Care Bears, because they teach morals and how to be loving and kind even to your enemies.

The kids did free drawing, painting, etc., especially William.  He traced his hand for one picture and then made a chicken out of it:

He has some pen sketches in one of his journals that I really like.  He drew various birds, and he drew a couple pretty good drawings of trucks.  He worked a lot on drawing inventions this week, too.  He goes through phases where he does a lot of that.  He has a very inventive mind.

I found Trusten producing a page of various interesting irregular shapes, which is something I remember doing quite a bit of as a child.  I remember one time when I was ten I made a page of them and handed the page to my best friend Lindsey for her to name.  She then wrote names beside each shape. I wonder whether I still have that.  I know I kept it for a good while, anyway. 

We read about the first three kings of Israel, covering three chapters in Mystery of History, and we read "Town to City, the Late 1800s" in A Street Through Time. 

During a nature walk, we took a route I'd never gone before (only Jade has with Nathan) on one of our good neighbors' property, up a trail to the top of a hill.  Before heading out I wrapped tape inside-out on the older kids' wrists so that they could make nature bracelets (idea from Big Backyard magazine), and we took along Jaden William's autumn fundana to find everything on the game squares.

Fundanas are fun!

The start of Liv's nature bracelet

Still on the road, the kids posed for me:

Happy was snuggled up to me, as usual:

Can you tell the wind is blowing?  Sadly, this picture came out blurred.  I forgot my hat, so I used the fundana (and Elizabeth usually pulls of her hat, silly girl, but she snuggles against me, anyway).  If you look closely, you can see a dirt mound in the distant background, which is where Nathan is working on digging a pond.

The boys found two bones, believed to be from a donkey or perhaps a cattle. 

Starting up the trail, the boys are happy to show off their newly-found animal bones

We were pleasantly surprised to make a discovery of two puffballs in our pathway:

Jaden William releases spores from a puffball with his bone tool

We reviewed how fungi reproduce by spores and how the puffballs release their spores in a cloud when disturbed.

After we reached the top of the hill and walked out of the woods to the clearing where the high-lines are, we then turned and went back home to eat but not before I snapped another picture:

Our road is between this hill and the one next one you see behind the kids

 On the way back we noticed how one of the trees that was injured a few months ago by the tree-trimmer the county sent down our road has filled its wound with sap:

I'm pulling for this tree to make a full recovery

When we got home I sealed the kids' nature bracelets with another layer of tape.  I'm glad I'd taken a picture of Liv's bracelet early on, because a couple of those goodies were lost somewhere along the way.

These were fun, but the kids were ready for me to cut them off immediately.

We did some reading throughout the week from a book called God's Children.  It's Jaden William's, and we used it a lot when he was younger.  I like most of it, though there are a few things I skip, because it's Catholic stuff.  We read from Proverbs and some from Matthew.  Jaden played a lot of Bookworm on my laptop, and Trust and Liv also played on "their iPod" (my old iPhone).  Liv loves to take pictures with it.  They have little games on there, too.  Trust and Liv watched sight words videos.  Jaden worked on grammar, spelling, etc.  We read some books, but we hardly touched our periodicals.  We did go through some of Trusten's and Liv's Weekly Reader/Scholastic News that discussed animals in the winter and how some hibernate, and they learned about different habitats for animals (mountain, desert, rainforest, etc.).

Trust and Liv get separate issues for one thing, but their Science Spin is the same for their levels.

Overall, we had a pretty good week!  Until next time...