Microscopic Organisms

Today the kids found some "tadpoles" in a bucket of water at their Oma & Opa's house. Upon further inspection we saw many tiny organisms in the water. One tiny thing did look like a tadpole. We decided to take a sample home and look at it under the microscope. The little tadpole like creature looked extremely strange. Like a cross between a worm, june bug and a lion.

Next, we examined a mosquito larvae. "Ewww", was the main description from the kids. We could actually see the fluid inside of it pumping up and down a tube. At the end of it's snake like body we could see tiny wings and legs forming. As Miss Lilly said in a facetious tone of voice, "Too bad they won't form all the way." She was right. After viewing one last worm looking bug we put them all in the trash.

We also looked at the stamen of a Stargazer Lily. On the stem we could see the strands of plant material, hair like and colorful. On the yellow crescent shaped tip we could see very tiny crystal like particles. I'm guessing that was pollen. We may have to do more research on flowers and pollen to be sure.

To finish off our interaction with nature today we made leaf rubbings. I'm not quite sure which plants they came from since the kids found the leaves with Oma but, they definitely had fun. This was Z's first time to make a leaf rubbing. He was full of excitement to watch the leaf appear. Now we off to play with friends.... social hour!

The Flu & Procrastination

I know it's been a while since I've updated this blog. Z and I've had the flu. Z's flu progressed into a sinus infection and a persistent cough. All of which made for one grumpy Z and one tired Mommy. We are beginning to get our schedule back on track and hopefully we will have more time to post what we've been observing in nature. However, I must say that after my last post about the rats I have avoided the backyard... like the plague. The rat and snake experience profoundly affected me even going into the backyard for about 2 weeks. David and my father worked on the playhouse today and I went out and enjoyed the beautiful sunny day. Hopefully, after ensuring that we are totally rat free ( this may take the purchase of a cat) we will begin to enjoy our own backyard again. Until then, we're finding alternate places to examine nature.

Believe it or not, we've had two nature experiences inside. A beautiful Monarch butterfly came to visit one night. It kept flying into the window by my bed. I heard it thump, thump, thumping on the window. Evidently, it was trying to get to my nightstand light for warmth. I let him in and showed the kids my "pet butterfly" the next morning. They couldn't believe a butterfly slept in our room all night. The next morning, he perched in the sunlight on the window sill in the warmth. He looked as if he was asking me to please open the window so he could go enjoy the sunny day. When I opened the window he flew out as if it was completely natural for him to sleep on the curtains at the head of my bed and fly away freely the next morning.

The second experience wasn't so wonderful. A skink found it's way inside. Lilly saw his tail and thought it was a snake. Screaming ensued until we discovered it was only a long skinny skink. Both of my attempts to catch it "without hurting it mommy!" failed. I first tried covering him with a bowl and slipping a paper underneath. He fell out and scampered under the moulding where we have a pocket door. My second attempt involved the vacuum cleaner. To make a long story short, our vacuum cleaner must not be strong enough to suck up the skink or he ran farther than I thought. We haven't seen him again. No pictures of him... sorry. But I do have one very clean vacuum cleaner!

Have you noticed the mushrooms and other fungi growing lately? The kids love examining the mushrooms especially. The intricate, soft folds underneath the tops fascinate them. Last week we found the most unusual fungi growing on a piece of mulch beside our pond. The kids examined it with a magnifying glass and tweezers. It is most unusual. If anyone knows what it is please let us know. The tiny seed type things growing in the middle would not pull out. Another interesting find in our FRONT yard. Whew!

EEEW!!!

Last week the children came yelling, "A rat is in the garage!". Zoe, our West Highland White Terrier is an expert rodent killer. I called her and ran to the garage. I saw the rat sitting in the window on the outside of the garage behind the boards we set up "temporarily" against the wall. Temporarily turned into a year with all the excessive heat this summer.

I began pulling boards off one at a time. As I pulled more and more off the stack I could smell the stench.... rat urine. Yuck is just not sufficient. Zoe began to get excited. I decided that there may be more than one... possibly two? So, I got our other dog Daisy. Daisy began sniffing and getting excited also. At this point I decided to position the kids on each end of the wall, up high and out of reach of any escaping rodents. I wanted them to tell me how many they saw and which way they ran if they slipped by the dogs.

I finally got to the inside boards. As I pulled one big board off I saw something totally unexpected. Not one, two, or even three rats. There must have been at least 9 clinging to this board 3 feet from my face. The dogs went crazy and the rats went scurrying away in every direction. I headed for Zane because Lilly decided to go in and get popsicles for everyone.

Zane was fine. He was not even phased by all the commotion. By the time all was said and done. I had definitely accounted for 6 rats. Four the dogs killed and two that scurried away in opposite directions--a few down the fence line toward the field in the back.

Needless to say I am reevaluating our backyard feeding of the birds. The rats were feeding on the scattered seeds. In my research I've found that the best way to get rid of rats and mice is to eliminate any food source. That means rethinking where and how to feed the birds and bringing the dog food in away from all the critters.

Considering all the snakes we killed were along that fence line, David thinks that the snakes were following their smell as they headed to and from the back field along the fence. They were looking for dinner too.

We may not have many posts of pictures from our backyard for a while. But, we will continue our nature studies. Lilly is learning keyboarding. As she gains experience I'm hoping to get her to post here as well. Below you will see some pictures of a few picnic & nature outings at George K. Fitch Park & Wolf Pen Creek. The kids love going both places. If you haven't been you should definitely go walk through the nature trails.

~George K. Fitch Park~ is located behind

the College Station Library. It apparently

doesn't get much attention from the city.

We found lots of trash laying around the

trails. On our second vistit we decided to

"adopt" the park and bring trash bags and

pick up a little trash every time we go.

On our outing to Wolf Pen Creek we noticed many new and interesting things. The picture to the right is of a Mockingbird that followed us all along the trails. The interesting thing was that he only had one leg. It didn't seem to bother him in getting around at all. We also had a squirrel follow us dropping nuts on our heads and at our feet. We saw a beautiful white cat along the creek bank. We tried and tried to get her to come out but never succeeded. Lilly was highly disappointed.

We also discovered raccoon tracks in the fresh mud. The kids were

excited to follow the trail and speculate which way it went what it ate and what it may have been looking for. They followed the tracks under a bridge and eventually lost the trail into the water.

Another nice thing we liked about Wolf Penn Creek were the signs that labeled the kinds of wildlife and trees in the park. This is a picture of a Mexican Plum tree. If you're interested in attracting birds to your back yard fruit producing trees and vines are a great way to do this. This is evidently a native species.

This log covered with a beautiful fern was

another find. The log or branch fell from

the tree and was covered entirely with

this fern. We noticed the trees had other

plants growing on them as well including

Spanish Moss. Next time we will be taking

out Nature Books, adding specimens and

writing down the names of the things we

find.

Time "Flies"

Time has definitely flown by the past few weeks. I wish I had time to write about all our adventures. More birds keep showing up. They are getting used to us and allow us to take pictures without flying away quickly. Some I still haven't photographed yet. The hawk is growing more bold in watching over our yard in hopes of having a Sparrow breakfast.

The cool weather has brought mushrooms and several caterpillar chrysalis'. David killed a hog nosed snake today. Sorry, no picture. I'm beginning to think we need to get a Guinea or some other snake alarm. Ich! I wish I loved them as much as all of God's creatures.

Lilly had a "Nature Sleep Over Birthday Party". You can read about it on our other blog: twojoyfullylearning.blogspot.com. Zane is loving the bird "seeing". He chose a birding guide along with binoculars at Half Price books last week and spent an hour on our bed "bird seeing". The Lord is gracious. The kids are much more fascinating to watch than all of nature. I've included a slide show of all our pictures. Some were taken by every member of the family. Yes, they are all from our backyard. Enjoy!

An Appropriate Ending

Ugh... I can't think of a better metaphoric (I'm sure that's not a word but my brain is overloaded) way to end a tough week. Well, really just two days. Yesterday my dad went to the ER with chest pains. I spent the majority of my day in the ER awaiting news with my brother and mom. Thankfully, he is on the mend. He had 65% and 90% blockage of the arteries leading to his heart. He's still in ICU but he is stable and will go home soon.

Second on my mind was 911. I don't think any American can go through today without thinking of where they were and what they were doing that tragic day 8 years ago. I usually deal with stress by trying to avoid it. That's exactly what I was doing today. Trying to occupy my mind with prayer, good things and trying to stay out of the funk.

Actually, I was updating this blog which I try to do once or twice a week. As I was typing I noticed the sparrows fluttering and chirping on one bush in our yard. Then, more came, and more--all chirping, fluttering and making a fuss. So much that I called my daughter to the window. I was thinking, "What berries or food have they found over there?" Then I saw him. "A SNAKE!!!!" I yelled! I went into mommy mode. This being the 3rd snake this year I've killed, I told Pocahontas to watch him and sit on top of the picnic table--the snake was far away. I told her to scream if he moved. I gathered my "tools" quickly and ran back to form a plan. The last time this happened I used wasp spray to stun the snake. Then a shovel to hold him down. I had to call my son, who had been napping to bring a baseball bat which I used to pound the poor snakes head.

This time I couldn't find the wasp spray, my dramatic daughter was crying at the "evil thing!!!" but I grabbed every sharp tool I could find in the garage and set close by so she could hand them to me if I needed them. Well, as luck would have it my first swing with the shovel struck the lower part of his tail. I didn't want him crawling under the fence so I had to leave him pinned under the shovel that I was holding. I told my daughter to hand me the other shovel. As luck would have it the shovel she handed me had a shorter handle. She was screaming by this time because he was striking the shovel I had him pinned with. Daughter screaming, birds squawking.... AHHHHH! To distract her I told her to go in and call Daddy and tell him what was happening. Hind sight is 20/20.

By this time all the tension and anger was just rising inside of me. I had her screaming and crying in the house and this bird eating, child biting snake on the other end of the shovel I was holding. The poor snake never stood a chance... even without the wasp spray to stun him. He was striking and striking. I finally thought, "Okay, this may be a short shovel and a long snake but this is it--YOU'RE DEAD!" I start striking and swinging the other shovel with my left hand. I finally got a good hit behind his head, pinned him down, grabbed the tree trimmers and snip, snap, it was over. I'm still amazed at the things us mommies do when it comes to our children. It's not just poop, snot and throw up. We truly can list just about everything under our job description. Yes, this is the actual snake. We had to get a picture for our nature blog. First things first!

I came back to reality and I hear my daughter crying and yelling into the phone, "No, I don't think the snake bit mommy!!!" My poor husband! I went to the phone, hugged my daughter and reassured my hubby I was fine. The snake was dead and I had to leave to go get my son from preschool. All in a days work I guess.

Tiny Birds

This week Pocohantas spotted a very tiny and beautiful bluebird. We is a little bit bigger than the hummingbirds, very shy and fast! We think it's an Eastern Bluebird. I wasn't able to get a photo of him so I went to the Texas Bluebird Societies' webpage and downloaded this photo.

We did get a great photo of the tiny woodpecker. We are not sure of his species. He is either a Downey Woodpecker, a Yellow-bellied Sap Sucker or a Hairy Woodpecker. I haven't been able to find good pictures at the right angles to see tail feathers, etc for identification. Oh well, right now we are just enjoying watching them and their behaviors!

Pocahontas is especially fond of the little girl squirrel (Little Lady). She's praying that she will be able to hand feed her someday.

Shadow Hawk

We've been found out! This morning I noticed the birds were considerably sparse. Then suddenly I saw a huge expanse of wings swoop down into view where the smaller birds are always pecking away at the seeds. I couldn't get a good view of the hawk (not sure what kind). I ran upstairs to get the best picture I could from my window. You can see the figure of a hawk in the shadows. We really need a better camera! Then, the hawks began calling to another. The birds were mostly gone all day until this afternoon. Some came to the other side of the yard to get a drink from the fountain. I did get a quick pic of Little Lady eating acorns high in the tree by my window.

Later, as a storm blew in we noticed this cute little woodpecker. We think it's a Downey Woodpecker. It's very small like the sparrows we see. He was feeding out of the hummingbird feeder, which the bee's have also found. The hummingbirds have a hard time shooing away the bees. But, when this little guy came in they all zoomed away. Maybe they'll all learn to share. As for the hawk.... I told the kids we all have to eat. Hopefully it won't be one of our little ones.