Nature Calendar

I'm going to try something new on my blog. I found a wonderful nature calendar over at Holy Experience. We have been doing the little activities every day for the past few weeks and have been enjoying them immensely. They don't take very long to do, and we are learning alot. I'm going to try and do a series of short posts about the daily nature activities we have done from this calendar.

The nature calendar is from a book called "Natural Science Through the Seasons: 100 Teaching Units" by J.A. Partridge. It is an older book, published in 1946 and is out of print. I looked around on the internet and could not find a copy. My library system had only one copy stored away in a back room that I could look at but not take out of the library. I looked at it and it was a great book. Hopefully I'll stumble upon a copy one day. Ann at Holy Experience has taken photos of the calendar pages in her book and posted them on her site. I printed out a copy of March's nature calendar from her blog.

Anyways, today's task was: Watch for moths coming out of cocoons.

I have never found a moth cocoon. I thought this was an interesting task. I did find two websites about moth cocoons though, here and here.

We did not see any moths coming out of cocoons today, but we were out in the backyard making mudpies, filling our birdfeeders, and looking at some moss we have in a dish (it was a task from another day).

I'm going to link future entries at the bottom of this post so you can follow along with us if you like!

March

7th: Sun rise Sun set Length of day

8th: Get books on attracting birds and birdhouses.

9th: Watch for canada geese flying north.

10th: The song sparrow is due.

11th: Place a twig with tent caterpillar eggs in water.

12th: Watch for the red winged blackbird.

13th: Make a home for a bluebird.

14th: Observe how the water in a stream wears, carries and deposits soil.

15th: Sunrise Sunset Length of day

16th: It’s time for the meadowlark.

17th: Learn of the shamrock and St. Patrick.

18th: Our orchard friend the bluebird, settles in their new home.

19th: List the winter sleepers that have come out. Raccoon? Chimpmunk? Bat? Bear? Skunk?

20th: From maple sap to maple sugar.

21st: Start garden seeds indoors.

22nd: Sunrise Sunset Length of day

23rd: Prune roses 6 to 8 inches from the ground.

24th: Place twigs of cherry, apple or plum in water.

25th: Have you seen the mourning cloak butterfly?

26th: Look for frog’s eggs.Watch a few develop in a jar of water.

27th: The chipmunk comes forth from his burrow.

28th: The first wildflower, the skunk-cabbage, is a cousin of the calla lily.

29th: Sunrise Sunset Length of day

30th: Be sure you water your garden seedlings.

31st: Look for robin, killdeer, grackle, cowbird, heron, brown creeper, phoebe.

Risk Analysis

Exploring nature involves certain risks. I analyze these risks, usually at 2 am, and wonder if our nature experience was worth it. Staying inside poses a different set of risks, so just staying at home isn't an option either. The gifts and joys we receive from learning about nature are too great to pass by out of fear.

Can we reach all the way around this oak tree?

Often the hazards are small, of the everyday sort that you would encounter outside if you were exploring nature or not. Bug bites, sunburns and scraped knees are just part of daily life with little kids. We have to navigate traffic and parking lots. I have to make sure none of the kids wander away and get lost.

However, some dangers do keep me awake at night. Recently I wrote a post about visiting a favorite place, and due to a lack of parking I had to move on to somewhere else. This week a high school student stabbed another student in that very same forest I was going to visit with my children. It has given me something to think about.

The park where the stabbing took place.

On another trip with some friends we were exploring a ravine. There were large culverts and drains, and abandoned construction materials. Needless to say it was not a relaxing visit. With three children of various ages and abilities, and all of them very mobile, it required a lot of supervision and awareness of their movements. It can be a challenge to keep them in the same area, as they explore in all directions at the same time.

The kids had a great time, but the bottom line was that it was too dangerous. We won't be visiting this spot again until they are all a few years older and wiser.

There are some things I have been doing to lower the risks we face in our nature studies. It is important to find a safe place to explore and then return to it again and again. Together we discover where the dangers are in that environment and how to deal with them safely. Nature is so rich and diverse I believe it would be very difficult to exhaust the discoveries that just one park holds. We haven't even learned all there is to know about our tiny backyard!

The other part of lowering our risks involves training the children to respond immediately to my verbal directions when we are out (and the rest of the time too!). I cannot be three places at once, despite my best attempts. The Chickadee must stop when I call 'No!'. The Bluejay must return when I call 'Come back!'.

They are all travelling in the same direction! Yay!

Lately I have been telling the Nuthatch that 'with freedom comes responsibility'. He is allowed a wider circle to explore, but must always be able to see me. I have also been encouraging him to watch out for and protect his little sister.

Nature holds many amazing riches for us to explore and discover. However, we must do so with awareness and respect. 'Be prepared!' as the boy scouts would say. We can train up our children not only with a knowledge of nature, but also with the outdoor survival skills necessary to explore in safety. And then we can all sleep better at night.

Random backyard photos

Spring is in full force. Along my back fence I have a woodland native plants garden. It is a rather understated garden, I have gradually been filling in the bare patches as my plants produce little seedlings. It also is full of spring ephemerals, which means that it looks really nice right now, and then it dies when the heat of the summer comes along and the trees leaf out and shade the plants.

These trilliums are in my garden. When I first planted it there was only one blossom. One year a critter ate my plant and I was worried it was gone forever, but it recovered the following year and now I have two.

I have several of these small trees in my yard. They are some variety of ornamental plum. I should try and figure out what kind they are.

This is the real reason I was outside with my camera. Every year I give the grandparents a nice 8x10 of the kids for their respective mantlepieces. This year I have been sadly negligent at getting these photos taken, so I was out trying to remedy this situation.

Here is my sweet Chickadee. I managed to take this picture just before she covered herself with sand.

20 Minute Makeover

Our city is having a 20 minute makeover today. The idea is that everyone is supposed to go outside at 2 pm and pick up garbage for 20 minutes. Since the afternoon is naptime, we decided to go this morning. The Nuthatch decided he wanted to get the garbage at the edge of the road. He was quite interested to learn that the street sweepers will come by one day and clean up that garbage.

The Bluejay picked up some garbage, but for the most part was just happy to walk along in his own little world. He was rather distracted by the backhoe loader that was repairing the street, and forgot what he was doing.

Last year I picked up some gardening gloves for both the boys. They are wearing them to protect their hands. The Bluejay called them his 'garbage picking gloves'.

At the end of our trip around the block we had a bag full of garbage.

The Nuthatch took this photo and was quite pleased with himself. I was pleased that the subject that he chose was his sister. Very sweet. I think the blur in the middle is where Chickadee moved her hand.

Winter gear

My boys drinking hot chocolate

With a little magic from photoshop, you can make your child look like you have chained them to a bench.

Jokes aside, our local groundhog announced an early spring, but it hasn't arrived yet. I know it's the end of the season, but I'm going to do a post on how I dress my kids for the cold weather. These photos were taken today, it was a balmy minus two degrees Celcius (28 F).

A few things have made all the difference this year. First, all the kids have fantastic mittens. They're water repellent, and they have a gauntlet that covers their wrists, keeping the snow out of that space between their mittens and coats. Mittens are also warmer than gloves. After I got these mittens my kids were happy to stay outside in very cold weather for a few hours, their only complaints were about being tired.

They also have water repellent snowpants. They're fairly thin, which lets them move around easily. These ones happen to come over top of their boots, keeping the snow out.

Lastly, they all have a good set of long underwear. Cookie has an infant's long underwear set, I especially want her to be extra warm since she is not active when we are out. I put her in a one piece fleece sleeper to keep the heat in as well. Her mittens are on top of the stroller, she's drinking hot chocolate out of her sippy cup.

Cookie has been in the jogging stroller all winter. It has large tires and can handle snow that is a few inches thick. When the snow was too deep I used my frame pack, although I'm finding she is getting rather heavy. I should have tried putting her in a small sled. She's young enough that I really needed something I could strap her into so she didn't crawl out when I wasn't looking. She seemed very comfortable in the jogging stroller so I stayed with it, although it limited our explorations at times.

Sunglasses for the kids would have made today's trip more enjoyable. The sun on the snow was very bright. We used to have 4 pairs and now we only have one.

My friend Woman North, living north of the arctic circle, has highly recommended wool to me. She says it's even better than fleece. Next year I hope to knit some wool sweaters, and maybe socks, for the kids.

I have a very warm and soft sweater from New Zealand that was knit using possum wool. Apparently there is a possum epidemic in NZ, and making sweaters out of them is good population control.

These pictures were taken using my digital point and shoot, a Canon Powershot G7, which I got mostly so I could take small videos of the kids, something I couldn't do with my digital SLR. It also fits in my pocket, something else I can't do with my SLR.

A girl called Cookie

My youngest child

We call her Cookie. I'm not sure how she got this nickname, but there it is.