Nature Day

Yesterday, our nature group went on its monthly Nature Day. What an amazing day! The weather was in the mid-80's and we had a great turnout. About 10-12 families with around 45+ people. Our first stop was in a classroom where a park ranger at the W. G. Jones State Forest give us a talk about woodpeckers, snakes, and safety in the woods.

The Jones State Park is actively trying to safe the endangered Red-Cockaded Woodpecker. This is the only woodpecker that makes its cavity (the hole where they nest) in a LIVE pine tree. He showed us an amazing video of how they band the baby woodpeckers. They build their cavities high in the tree. To protect their cavity, the woodpeckers make holes on the tree beneath their nest which makes the sap run out. The sap is very sticky and discourages "visitors." Above is a photo of a man-made cavity that they sometimes place in trees with cavities have been knocked down by storms or for whatever reason. They actually cut a hole out of the tree and use a special epoxy to glue it in place.

The park ranger then talked about the 5 different kinds of venemous snakes in our area. He actually catches these snakes to preserve to show classes! He said his job doesn't pay for his medical bills when he gets bit (which he has) because they've told him it is dangerous and not to do it, but he does it anyway.

Lastly, he talked about safety in the woods. For example, when you have to walk over a log in the wood, take a wide step on and a wide step off. Snakes love to curl up right near the log and will bite if frightened. And, never - never put your hand in any hole in a tree or in the ground - it's probably the home of an animal and he will try to defend himself!


He also talked about what to do if you get lost. Stay put! He said he's been on lots of search & rescues and the people they find the quickest are those who stay put. (Alexandra got to be the demonstrator.) He said if you're lost, there are 360 degrees in a circle and so 360 ways to go and only 1 is right and the other 359 are wrong. Great lesson to teach the kids as the rescue parties will start where they think the lost person is and they walk slowly - a lot slower than someone lost & scared and trying to get home!




A nest that had fallen - there's a piece of a broken egg shell in the nest, and I love the large piece of plastic trash the bird used as building material.

I believe this is a type of leaf-footed but, though I haven't made a positive identification yet. He was a beatiful pale lavender and black!

Beautiful lavender flowers - part of the butterfly garden which had dozens of butterflies

My favorite find of the day - which was pointed out to me; I didn't find it - a grey treefrog! It was a beautiful pale green, almost white. He was sitting in the butterfly garden on one of the leaves!

Cicada skin

A chrysalis - with the butterfly still in it! It was on a tree near the butterfly garden

A bunch of cicada skins on one tree! Later in the day, when we went to the second stop just about a half mile away, I only found one cicada shell! There were lots on this tree. Check out this site about a family who searches for cicadas before they shed their skin!

Our nature group "leader" teaching us how to watercolor a leaf - by tracing the shadow of the leaf so you don't break a fragile one! Then, she watercolored it and used the "wrong end" of a paint brush to draw in the veins. It was a neat effect!

Daddy Long Leg - I remember seeing tons of these at camp as a child and haven't seen any in years

I guess this is a gall on the trunk of a tree which has been broken in half

My photo doesn't do this justice - a tree had a huge break in it and there was lots & lots of sap. I'll see if anyone else in the group got a better photo.

New Look

After more than 2 years of pink, I was ready for a change. Welcome to the new look! :-)

Nature On My Own

What can you do when your child has a class and you've got some time to kill? Take a nature walk on your own.

That's what I did today while Alexandra was in a class. And it was so much fun! This was our first truly Autumn-like day with temperatures in the mid-80's. Beautiful!!!


I found this interesting butterfly that I wasn't sure wasn't a moth. Thanks to Beautiful In Its Time, I was able to identify it as a Esmeralda Longtail Butterfly. (And, she has a much better photo than I do and has so incredible images all over her blog!) That explains the strange wings that I found so interesting... and confusing!


I believe these are 2 types of galls. But, someone asked me how I could tell they weren't insect eggs. How can you tell the difference?

Another cool type of gall. (I think.) They were actually hard and kind of sharp to the touch.

A green anole. I followed this little guy around for about 5 minutes taking photos, but he was just a little too far away to get a good, close shot.

Purple Beautyberry. (Thanks, Marjorie, for the help identifying this!) I love how they grow in clumps along the stem.

I wasn't sure what this was at first. But, I figured out it was sap from the pine tree next to it. I'm not sure what the small white things are - they didn't move. Wish I would have had my magnifying glass! I think they might be a small insect.

The pine tree that was dripping sap. A lot of sap was coming from holes made by woodpeckers, I believe.

A curl of a tree.

Again, thanks to Marjorie for helping me identify this. This is a False Turkey Tail fungus. Isn't that a great name for it?

A woodpecker - I believe a red-bellied woodpecker. He was up high in the tree and I didn't have my binoculars! (He's on the bottom side of the horizontal branch.) He was building (or digging out) his nest! I watched "him" repeatedly go into the tree and evidentally dig more out. Each time he came back out, fine bits of wood would float down so I knew he was digging, even though I didn't hear him. Earlier in the day, I had seen 2 woodpeckers (same kind) and they were traveling from tree to tree together. Perhaps this is their nest and I'll get to check it out each week.

I know I had more questions than answers tonight. I'd appreciate any help in identifying these different nature finds!

More on Oak Galls

I have started reading two "new" (to me), wonderful blogs by "Barb-Harmony Art Mom." She uses Charlotte Mason techinques and I love her blogs! She's inspired me so much in just the past few days I've been reading her posts. In fact, we started nature journals today because of her inspiration - though there have been others who've inspired me along the way. I guess I was finally ready and saw that sketching can take us beyond my photographs. When you sketch, you have to pay more attention to the details!

Anyway, she found an oak gall a few weeks ago and has done some research about them. It is so fascinating that these galls are actually houses for insects! Each type of house looks different, and she posted a link to a cool oak gall poster here.

Later this week, we are going on a nature walk with our local group and our topic happens to be trees. So, I'll be keeping a lookout for some galls. And, I hope to photograph... and sketch them!

Until then, here is a poem Barb shared from the Handbook of Nature Study:

"A green little world
With me at its heart!
A house grown by magic,
Of a green stem, a part.

My walls give me food
And protect me from foes,
I eat at my leisure,
In safety repose.

My house hath no window,
'Tis dark as the night!
But I make me a door
And batten it tight.

And when my wings grow
I throw wide my door;
And to my green castle
I return nevermore."

Another Amazing Insect

I did contact the county extension office as someone recommended. I sent them this photo and they told me it was a weevil, but not a cotton boll weevil. It is actually a PECAN weevil. They do damage pecan crops and are only in some Texas counties, but ours is one of them. I thought I'd leave the rest of this post as-is since I found out so much about the boll weevil. :-)

Today, we had another beautiful backyard find. After taking about 30 photos of him, he suprisingly flew away. (He'd been so still and patient with us that I figured he couldn't fly.) So, we went inside, downloaded the photos and grabbed one of our insect guides to look him up. So, what is he? (As always, he looks so much more amazing if you click the photo to enlarge it!)

A Boll Weevil. Yes, the kind that causes so much trouble to cotton farmers.

Our next step was to go online and do a little research on this tiny little insect. (That's Alexandra's hand in the photo - the weevil is sitting on the leaf.) This beetle migrated from Mexico to the US, across the Rio Grande into Texas, in the late 1800's and had spread across all cotton growing areas by the 1920's, devastating the industry. Pesticides such as DDT were developed after WWII and farmers could once again grow cotton profitably. But, of course, such pesiticides were costly and very damaging to the environment.

"The boll weevil infestation, however, has been credited with bringing about economic diversification in the southern US, including the expansion of peanut cropping." (from this site)

Being a Texan, I find it interesting that the spread of the fire ant (something we have to watch out for daily here in south Texas!) has been a factor in the decline of the number of weevils.

Anyway, I wonder what this little guy was doing in our backyard. I guess he just came to visit so we could have a little nature study. What's in your backyard?

The Barber of Seville & Oak Gall Ink

Yesterday, we spent the day with 2 other homeschool families. First, we attended an outdoor opera, especially for kids and in English, of The Barber of Seville. One of the main characters is Figaro, and you're probably familiar with the opera song that repeats his name. The story was great and had a lot of humor and the opera performers were wonderful. We all enjoyed it.
This photo is of the characters warming up. The singer for Figaro actually had a sore throat and wasn't able to perform all of his songs on his own. So, his understudy sang near the piano (it had live music and the pianist was wonderful) while the actor acted and mouthed the words. It worked out very well and it's a great time to talk about what an understudy is.

This was our 4th children's opera, I believe, but I think it was the first for the other 8 in our group. We enjoyed how the singers/actors stayed out on stage afterwards and talked about what part they sang in the opera (ex. baritone, the lowest of the men's voices) and answered questions.


Afterwards, we had a picnic which turned into a small nature study. We found some growths on an oak tree and didn't know what they were called until the 13-year-old girl told us they were oak galls. And, she told us they used them to make ink! I was shocked that she knew this, and intrigued! So, I did some research. (Above: kind of blury photo of oak gall.)

So, here's some of what I learned:

What is an oak gall?
"Galls are irregular plant growths which are stimulated by the reaction between plant hormones and powerful growth regulating chemicals produced by some insects or mites. Galls may occur on leaves, bark, flowers, buds, acorns, or roots. Leaf and twig galls are most noticeable."
Also called iron gall ink, just what is it?

Definition: "Iron Gall Ink is a highly acidic ink produced from oak gall nuts. It fades to brown in the light, and its corrosive effects cannot be halted. The acids in iron gall ink react with the collagen in the surface of parchment, making it highly permanent, unlike carbon inks which easily rub off the impervious surface. However, the acids can also destroy documents, creating a challenge for historians, who have to read the holes burnt in ancient papers, and conservators, who need to find a way to neutralize the acid. For this reason, it is advisable to choose a modern archival ink in preference to making this traditional ink." (Above photo and definition taken from this site shows how the ink can burn holes in ancient papers.)

Who used it and what has happened?
"Iron-gall ink was the most important ink in Western history. Leonardo da Vinci wrote his notes using iron-gall ink. Bach composed with it. Rembrandt and Van Gogh drew with it. The Constitution of the United States was drafted with it. And, when the black ink on the Dead Sea Scrolls was analyzed using a cyclotron at the Davis campus of the University of California, it was found to be iron-gall ink."


Why is it brown?
"IRON GALL INK is naturally a purplish-black, but with time and exposure to light, it changes to a brown color. Its essential ingredients include plant tannins extracted from gall nuts, to which are added iron salts and gum arabic. This ink has a natural acidity whose corrosive effect on paper can often be seen in old master drawings." (from this site)

So, when they used this ink, it became this highly recognizable brown color as shown in the ink sketch by Rembrandt above. Can't you just picture da Vinci's drawings and notes from his notebooks?
Well, I just found this whole topic intriguing. And, I asked the girl and her mom where she learned this from and they didn't know. The mom said she just knows lots of "stuff" because she's always reading! Another reason to read!

Fall meme

Dawn over at By Sun and Candlelight came up with this fall meme that I really enjoyed. If you'd like to join in, consider yourself tagged and let me know you posted! Hapy Fall!!!

When does fall begin for you? Hmmm... I guess the 1st of October. It's just so warm down here in Texas that we don't feel it until the end of October or so. But, I can still dream of fall!

What is your favorite aspect of fall? I love watching the leaves change colors, which takes a long time around her - some have barely started to change, but others won't change until around Christmastime! I also love getting pumpkins and candy corn.

What is your favorite fall memory? My sister, brother & I used to make "bird nests" of all the raked up leaves back in Kansas. Then, the whole neighborhood would get together and we'd pretend to be birds. It was nice and snug! A wonderful memory and I got to make my daughter her first "nest" while visiting my brother last Thanksgiving.

What do you like to drink in the fall? Hot apple cider and hot chocolate with marshmallows. Yum!

What's your favorite fall food? My mom makes wonderful banana bread in an old coffee can - without the nuts just for me! And, I love her homemade caramel corn, too. Oh, and candy corn!!!
What is fall weather like where you live? Not much different than summer. :-) We are still usually wearing shorts on Thanksgiving Day.

What color is fall? Brown & Orange.

What does fall smell like? Fireplaces (though not around here!)

Holiday shopping in fall: yes or no? No. Let's wait until December. :-)

If you could go anywhere in the fall, where would you go? The East Coast!

What is your favorite fall sport? High school football. Another fond memory from childhood.

Do you have a favorite fall chore? Planting mums & impatiens! My daughter was born near Halloween and I planted some flowers just days before she was born.

What is your least favorite thing about fall? That we don't have much "fall" here in Texas! (But, I love Texas!)

What is your favorite fall holiday? Thanksgiving Day.

What's your favorite kind of pie? Either apple with vanilla ice cream or pumpkin with CoolWhip.

What was your favorite Halloween costume? My mom made me a flower costume when I was little - maybe about 7 or so. I wore a green leotard & tights & she used some kind of wire to make loops around my head and a thin fabric for the pedals. She made 3 homemade costumes that year and we accidentally missed the judging! My cousin won dressed as a clown - and his dalmation was a clown, too.

What was your favorite Halloween candy? Candy Corn - have I mentioned that before? :-)

What was your least favorite Halloween candy? Mounds

Which do you prefer, the Farm or the Fair? I'm not sure what you mean - we go to a pumpkin patch this time of year and it's a lot of fun - you get to take photos with the pumpkins, have a hayride, and ride a few rides.

Do you have a favorite fall book? Too Many Pumpkins

How about a favorite fall poem? No - I guess I need to read more poetry!

Happy Fall!

Finishing Up Explorers

We finished up our study of the explorers. Next week, we start our study of weather with our KONOS group. I wanted to post the rest of our resources for our explorers study:

Resources:

• Around the World in 100 Years - I read this book about 6 months ago on my own - this book really does a good job telling the stories of a lot of explorers
• The Discovery of The Americas by Maestro - we liked this book - it had usually about 2 pages per explorer - nice, short, interesting summaries
• Sir Walter Raleigh by Schlesinger - I read this whole book and then just "told" Alexandra about it - fascinating guy!!!
• A Picture Book of Christopher Columbus by David A. Adler - we always enjoy these books!
• The Lost Colony of Roanoke by Jean Fritz - we read the second half of this book to find out more about the possible explanations as to why this colony was lost!
• The Story of Chocolate (DK Readers) - we read this book because chocolate was introduced to Europe because of the explorers. This book discusses Montezuma, Columbus, and Cortez among others. Great story! And, you've got to eat a little chocolate while reading this book :-)

A Moldy Mystery

For the past few months, Alexandra and I have really been enjoying three book series by Kane Press: Science Solves It, Math Matters, and Social Studies Connects. These are great books that give "Did You Know?" facts on many of their pages. And, they usually have some "Try It Yourself" type activities at the back.

This weekend we read A Moldy Mystery by Michelle Knudsen and Alexandra wanted to grow some mold herself. So, we found an old container (which we'll throw away when we're done with it!) and added some food - a piece of cheese, pizza crust, a strawberry, and a few other things. We stored the container in the dark closet - since molds love dark and warmth! Within 48 hours the strawberry had a huge amount of fuzzy white mold growing on it. Yuck! (Since I can't take the lid off, it was kind of hard to photograph.)

So, we're going to keep watching it for another week or so. After we see what grows the best mold, we might try to vary this and put a strawberry in the dark and a strawberry in the light and see what happens. It's a fun... and gross!... experiment.

Cicada

While we were sitting in the living room tonight, my husband and I kept hearing something hitting our back door. I went out to take a look and found this cicada. You've got to enlarge this photo to appreciate the beauty of this cicada!

I've photographed a few of these during the past month or so, but they usually end up buzzing and flying straight at me - to the point of running into me! (And, yes, I scream!) I think that must be a defense strategy. Anyway, this one just sat there and let me take a bunch of photos.

I'm amazed at his beautiful coloring and am very curious about the 2 white spots on either side of his back. I wonder what they're for??? (Anyone know?) Also, on this second photo, you can see 3 small "eyes" - 2 white and 1 red. I read tonight that these are called the lateral ocellus (lateral meaning side) and medial ocellus (medial meaning center or middle). (I found information about the cicada's anatomy at this site.)