Alina's Adventures

Claire Datnow's wonderful, Alabama-based eco-mysteries for middle schoolers.

Pond Slider Turtle, Limestone Park, Alabaster
(photo taken Boris Datnow at bioblitz in Alabaster, Alabama)

At the Alabama Writer's Conclave last month, I had the exciting opportunity to attend a workshop on eco-Mysteries and ecological fiction sponsored by the amazing Claire Datnow. I learned about how her love for Alabama's ecology led her to write eco-fiction for middle-schoolers in order to empower, inspire, and educate them about ecological principles. And then I bought all the books in the Adventures of the Sizzling Six for my children.

The first book in this series, The Lone Tree, is only $2 on kindle and $7 for print. Here's the synopsis:

They thought it was going to be a boring summer. It wasn't! When six determined teenagers decide to save a magnificent old white oak their adventures begin. Can they save their tree and the animals living in it? Will they get to build their secret hideout in its great branches? What could go wrong? The Sizzling Six will have to reckon with a ticked off neighbor on the city council, an unusual teacher, a thickheaded bully and his ditzy girlfriend, a mysterious dreamtime eagle, and an awesome night bat.

Given the extent to which young people (especially young females) are bombarded with advertisements and media which celebrate looking "cute" and trying to "make boys like you", Claire's fiction provides a counter-narrative in which the heroines are driven by eco-fascination and the desire to preserve something they love. 

Because what Claire writes is not likely to be bestseller Y.A. material, we have to ask ourselves more about this amazing woman that spends her time reaching out to Alabama's youngest citizens. Claire in her own words:

Born in South Africa, I immigrated to the US having lived in California, Minnesota, Alabama and Canada. I am a mother, grandmother and wife, and my family is the core of my life. All that I see, feel, experience feeds and inspires my writing. What I have learned in college and through wide reading informs my writing. I earned MA degrees in education of the gifted and talented, and in public history.

The series of YA Eco mysteries for 4-8 graders, The Adventures of The Sizzling Six, reflects my passion and awe for the natural world. With the trusty aid of Boris Datnow, my technological guru, the third book in the series uses QR codes to transport readers from the printed word on the page to video clips that let readers see and hear what the characters in the story are seeing and hearing! My memoir, Behind the Walled Garden of Apartheid, drew inspiration from a beautiful country scared by the iniquities of apartheid. The Final Diagnosis: What The Autopsy Reveals About Life and Death is a tribute to my husband, an autopsy pathologist. My historical novel, The Nine Inheritors, pays homage to my grandmother and two aunts and all those killed in the Holocaust.

What's next? On my trip to Australia, I found inspiration for the fourth book in the eco mystery series for middle grades, The Adventures of The Sizzling Six: Who Kidnapped The Koala? My newest books are published as Enhanced e-books as well as electronic books.

On her website, Claire offers an incredible amount of resources and activities for home educators. In her words:

Each time I write a new eco-mystery for the series, The Adventures of The Sizzling Six, I am amazed at what I learn about the species central to my story. I have developed this unit to share the excitement of learning with students. It is my hope these lesson plans will inspire them to take action in their own communities, and, ultimately, become wise stewards of the earth’s precious natural heritage.

Feel free to download and print the curriculum unit How to Become and Eco Detective. Lessons can easily be correlated to the Common Core State Standards Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science and Technical Subjects. You can also print up the Role Playing Cards and the Driving Questions for use in your classroom.

I would be honored if you would share your students’ work with me at: [email protected]

Free handouts and teacher activities including Eco-mystery Writing Contest. But my favorite by far is the printable Lessons for How to Write Eco-mysteries, a free printable PDF packet. If you take nothing from this, print a copy of this packet and plan a roam school today. 

Since Max enjoyed Claire's mysteries so much, he did a little email interview with her. I am so grateful that she took the time to answer his questions. 

MAX: Did the oil spill from the Canyon Gulf really happen, or was it based on the Deepwater Horizon spill?

CLAIRE: Indeed, the oil spill in my eco mystery is based on the Deepwater Horizon explosion that occurred on 20 April 2010. NOAA continues to assess the fish, wildlife, and habitat harmed by the spill along the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Alabama, and Florida.

MAX: What Functions do Diamondback terrapins have as a keystone species?

CLAIRE: So why all this effort to save one species? If terrapins no longer live in the marsh the eco system will become less stable. These terrapins can be considered a keystone species—if you take them out, certain invertebrate species, like snails, will keep on increasing, and they will eat more and more of the marsh grasses that many other species need to survive. That will cause a shift in the important balance of living things in the eco system.The terrapins help to maintain a healthy salt marsh that is a nursery for crabs, fish, oysters, and a large variety of aquatic life. (Max, you will find the more answers to this question in the eco adventure.)

MAX: Is Shelley Island a real place?

CLAIRE: Yes, the island is based on the site of Cedar Point along the Alabama Dauphin Island marsh where the female terrapins come to lay their eggs in summer. (For more information Google Cedar Point along the Alabama Dauphin Island marsh.)

MAX: Are all your stories set in Alabama? 

CLAIRE: They are all set in Alabama with the exception of The Adventure of The Sizzling Six: Who Kidnapped the Koala, which is set in Australia. The inspiration for that book came while I was visiting my family in Australia.

MAX: Why did you choose southern ecology for the subject of your books?

CLAIRE: To do research for my eco mysteries I need to visit the habit of the species I will be writing about. It’s easier for me to explore Alabama as I live in this state. I also interview and consult with conservationists and wildlife scientists who live in Alabama. 

Claire and her spouse, Boris, are currently traveling in Greenland, Iceland, and Labrador. Anyone who knows Claire imagines her explorations are probably sparking new ideas for eco-mysteries to come. 

I am deeply grateful to Claire for the time she took to speak with me and with Max-- even more grateful for the beguiling, ecological stories she writes, stories I can share with my children to inspire them to be the change they want to see in the world. 

Facebook Author Page

Claire's other eco-mysteries, including one about the Cahaba Lily

Darryl Patton, "The Southern Herbalist", shares his plant knowledge in Hoover tomorrow.

Tomorrow afternoon, you have the chance to learn about wild foods and foraging with Darryl Patton, "The Southern Herbalist". Darryl will take kids and parents on a fascinating tour of Southern plants  that can serve as food and medicines. 

"Wild Plants: Earth's Free Feast and Pharmacy with Darryl Patton" will be held on January 30th from 2 to 4 pm in a classroom at Hoover Tactical,(yes, it's a firearms store, which of course makes me a little uneasy)near Hoover, Alabama. But I'm going to trust the sponsors, including Sheriff Mike Hale and Fresh Air Family's Prepared, Not Scared safety/survival courses for kids and adults.

The cost is $10 for members and $15 for non-members. But I think the experience is worth it. Here's why...

Mr. Tommie Bass, Lookout Mountain's herbalist

The Southern Herbalist has learned from those who came before him. Darryl's book, Mountain Medicine: The Herbal Remedies of Tommie Bass, takes us through the life and mind of a man who grew. There is a wonderful 

I first met Tommie Bass as a result of several people telling me stories of the ‘Herb Man’ up in Leesburg not far from where I lived. It seemed as if I were constantly running into people who either knew of him, or had family who knew and had been treated by this white-haired gentleman. Reading about him on the front page of the Wall Street Journal in 1985 had also served to pique my curiosity.

My first trip to his home was one which I will never forget. It also served to show me a little of the extent to which he is known and respected in his community. Even without an address to go by, and I had no trouble finding his house. All I had to say was that we were looking for Tommie Bass, the Herb Man, and people immediately told us how to find him.

For the next two hours, I was treated to fascinating stories of Leesburg and Lookout Mountain in the first half of this century, stories of herbal treatments, and even a couple of songs played on the French Harp. It turned out to be the most interesting day of my life.

I found Tommie to be the most humble and guileless person I had ever met. There is nothing pretentious about this man. What you see on one visit is the same person you see on subsequent return trips. His overriding concern is to bring some ease to his fellow man. He is not out to make a dollar at the expense of others’ ailments. He is a seeker of neither glory nor fame.

Mr. Tommie Bass

Among Tommie's remedies:

 For sinus trouble, he may recommend drinking a tea of Wild Cherry Bark or inhaling the steam from a boiling pot of ‘Rabbit Terbaker.’ Overweight folks will be told the wonders of Chickweed and Queen Anne’s Lace. “They’ll do the trick!”

Women suffering from what Tommie calls ‘Women’s Trouble’ need to know there is nothing like Red Maple, Black Cohosh or Squawvine tea. Pokeroot is good for the itch and, “Of course,” says Tommie, “Yellowroot will cure stomach ulcers.”

To hear Tommie tell it is to know that Wild Cucumber Tree bark and Prickly Ash are the most wonderful things in the world for arthritis.

Kids and adults can prepare for this event by listening to Mr. Bass talk about mountain life and herbs right here. I think hearing his voice adds another layer of value to his words.

Darryl shares thoughts on Eastern Red Cedar/Juniper. 

For those familiar with Euell Gibbon's incredible Stalking the Wild Asparagus, I can honestly say it changed my son's life when he received it as a gift from our dear neighbors, Doug and Carol Brooks. Now you can sign up for a free newsletter combining Euell and Darryl's wisdom, as well as enjoy archived issues online.

Other great resources and online treasures from Darryl include:

A-Z Herbal References Guide, with a heavy focus on Alabama
"How to forecast weather by nature" 
"The history of using sassafras"
"Stalking the Wild Day Lily," an adventure
The mysteries of rabbit tobacco (Pseudognaphlium obtusifolium)
"Beautyberry, herbal bug repellent", one the Eldest will love
Darryl's list of links

The nature cure: Why the only cure for now is nature.

The Eldest shows Amy a discovery at Tannehill.

In the latest issue of The Atlantic, James Hamblin explores the emerging profession of "ecotherapy". My heart skips and cartwheels to see Richard Louv's name quoted in a mainstream media outlet.

Children with ADHD who regularly play in parks have been found to have milder symptoms than those who spend more time indoors, for example, and therapeutic-camping programs have been found to decrease relapse rates in substance addicts. Such findings generally have more to do with mood and behavior than basic biology—but mood and behavior are intimately tied to physical well-being. Social connection, for instance, is one of the most important factors in human health. And communal green spaces foster that.

These are things we know. Things which explain why the Boy Scouts continues to survive as an organization. Because, let's face it, once the Boy Scouts start "camping" online, the Boy Scouts are finished. 

But in this day and age, we don't do what we know as much anymore. Instead, we do what the people down the street are doing. If keeping up with the Jones was hard before, it's almost impossible now that everyone can keep tabs on Facebook.

 

And then there's the dilemma of expert-worship. I was surprised and excited to learn of medical doctors, like Robert Zarr, who write prescriptions for nature time. 

In his office in Washington, D.C., Robert Zarr, a pediatrician, writes prescriptions for parks. He pulls out a prescription pad and scribbles instructions—which park his obese or diabetic or anxious or depressed patient should visit, on which days, and for how long—just as though he were prescribing medication.

Zarr says it’s important to give concrete advice instead of repeating the vague admonitions (Exercise more! Get outside!) that people are used to hearing. “If you came in to me with bacterial pneumonia,” he told me, “I wouldn’t say, ‘You just go to any pharmacy, pick up any antibiotic you’d like, take it for as many days as you’d like, with or without food, and I’ll see you in a month, buddy.’ ” He doesn’t necessarily tell patients what to do at the park, however—just to go.

Zarr is part of a small but growing group of health-care professionals who are essentially medicalizing nature. He relies on a compendium of 382 local parks—the product of meticulous mapping and rating of green spaces, based on accessibility, safety, and amenities—that he helped create for DC Park Rx, a community-health initiative. The Washington program was one of the first in the United States; there are now at least 150 others.

That's awesome. It needs to happen. I hope other doctors learn from it. I am very, very grateful for physicians who take a holistic approach to the care, treatment, and diagnosis of patients. 

We climbed up the hill and then picked up rocks to use as chalk. 
Karst or slate make excellent hand-drawn trail markings on trees.

But when I think of long-time organizations like Sierra Club or small local garden clubs and naturalist groups or nonprofits like the Druid City Garden Project, I can't help thinking the only new thing about ecotherapy is the word. People have been involved in careers devoted to increasing our exposure and interaction with nature for many, many years. What stands out in the present is the medicalization of what was once natural. The prescription for what is patently obvious. 

As a culture, we've outsourced care for decades. Now we are outsourcing common sense as well. Before long, we'll outsource our political conscience to men on TV who bully one another. By long, I mean maybe a few months.

The truth is that kids are more likely to have visited a theme park or Disneyland by their 8th birthday than they are to have camped with their family. The memories we make involve purchases and fancy accoutrements rather than stories and campfires. Maybe what we need most is to heal from exorbitant, expensive, and over-stimulated vacations.

Prophet wants me to look, mama, look!

Hamblin concludes:

What makes ecotherapy different from an attempt to “mine nature for its beneficial effects,” Chalquist explained—perhaps sensing that I was eager to begin mining nature for its beneficial effects—“is that we have to give something back.” He tells students that if they want to experience the full value of ecotherapy, they can’t just go touch a tree; they need to come to care about that tree and help preserve it for future generations.

Actually, I found this to be one of the more persuasive arguments for ecotherapy. If the practice leads people to volunteer in an urban garden (as Smith did) or to start a bird-watching club or to fall in love while chained to a redwood, it could legitimately improve their health by giving them a sense of purpose and fostering social connections. The same could be said of so many unconventional therapies (equine, acroyoga, glassblowing) that seem to be beneficial despite the lack of a clear biological mechanism. And even if you don’t “give back,” it’s tough to argue against doctors’ prescribing time in a park, crazy as it may seem that they need to do so. Soil-holding remains optional.

The nature cure is not a cure-all. Think of it more like a foundation- a brick upon which one builds the walls of a sturdy, resilient, awe-inspired self. We don't go to nature to build muscles we can admire in the mirror. Even if we do, what we get is different.

What we get from nature is a sense of awe and reverence. That's why running with headphones through a city street is not likely to be a nature-cure alternative to your treadmill. At which point in the run did you stop and listen to the wind? At which point did you admire a snail slurping across a log? At which point did you leave the clamor and drama of daily life behind?

 

Maybe it doesn't matter. But one of the reasons that I'm homeschooling my kids is because an unpopular, hidden, and secret part of me believes that it matters. And it matters even more given the way the world is changing. The relationships they build with nature right now will sustain them through the challenges of college and early adulthood. When they can't afford a therapist or a fancy counselor, if they don't make enough money for those options, there will always be some woods into which they may run. A forest into which they can retreat. A haven where the busy bodies of squirrels scamper over branches with acorns and hopefully my kids will look up for one second and discover- as so many have discovered before them- that life is much bigger than this moment's heartbreak. The world is much grander than our bewildering ache. 

I had a favorite magnolia who knew everything from my first kiss to the wonder of my first period. My back nested into that hole in her bark perfectly. The shade of a familiar tree offers not only succor by also counsel: the hope that one's strength grows alongside the burls and bruises of time. A place where things continue to change and yet remain mysterious and eternal. A place where you can both lose yourself and find yourself in the space of a single moment. 

Watching the blackberry shrub: A lesson in patience.

Our first blackberries are popping up near the fence. Last year, when we planted the shrub, the kids were disappointed:

"No blackberries! Not even flowers."

Then then question:

"Why should we water something that isn't making berries?"

Finally, Prophet's accusation:

"I think blackberry bushes are lazy."

Patience, I urged. Patience. To myself as well as them.

This year, the kids were delighted when the blackberry shrub came to life in April. Her fringed leaves emerged a vivid green.

The Eldest used twine to situate her along the fence. I'm not sure how he knew to do it, only that one morning I wandered outside to find the string scaffolding gently supporting our bush.

In the first blush of May, ten delicate white flowers blossomed.

Prophet couldn't believe the lazy blackberry was finally "doing something".

We spent one morning sketching the leaves and blossoms. Before long, the white petals fell into the grass leaving behind stiff, light brown tendrils. 

"But mommy, those aren't blackberries," Gnome asserted confidently. "Those are greenberries."

I told her we needed to watch a little longer- to observe and make notes. The blackberries were not finished changing. 

She paused and nodded. It made sense to expect the waiting wasn't finished. It made sense to expect more marvels from our little blackberry shrub given the marvels that we'd already witnessed in the span of five weeks.

We wait and watch, our desire for immediate gratification up-ended by the simple marvel of ten blackberries fruiting in the yard. Nature study teaches us how to tend plants and understand ecosystems, but also how to wait for a fruit to ripen. How to silence the buzz of schedules and demands in the face of slower fruitings.

The annual Cahaba Lily blooms- and Albert Goldbarth.

The annual Cahaba Lily Festival is going on, but we caught the first blooms last week. According to locals, the Cahaba Lily blooms between Mother's Day and Father's day every year. We visited the stands with Heather and Mike on Mother's Day- the earliest moment.

And then again, the next day, with Sanda.

As Sanda and the girls collected shells, I allowed myself to wonder about the rocks- how many years of water flowing in one particular motion left a soft curve in a rock? How many years does it take to fashion a hip from stone?

Pinka watched and yipped. Notice the beautiful shape of the rock to her right.

The remains of some human's feast dried on a rock. I love the heaviness of crustacean coverings. How they resemble bones.

Prophet found several pieces of coal which she used to write her name on the rocks.

Our impulse to leave something behind. A name. A skeleton. The beginnings of a history.

Meanwhile, the fungi grow un-occluded. As with all forms of life, a fungus sprouts under very specific conditions. The context must be ripe.

Gnome used an old plastic egg to collect her shells. She noted the shells were the same kind they gave you in the Indian village at CHOM. And the rocks were the same sort of rocks you rubbed the shells against to make a hole for your necklace.

Prophet's turtle shell.

A bird fishes near a lily stand.

The latest issue of december has a small, short, unnamed poem by Albert Goldbarth on page 89. The poem stuck in my head like a talisman.

The grasses bend
and, cutting them, the man
bends too.

Be careful.

We become what we do.

It's certainly not Goldbarth's usual taste and feel. More Vonnegut or Gary Snyder. But compelling in its brevity and the warning. But sticky. Like sand on the soles of driving barefoot.

We cannot escape the soil which makes us.

In clover.

The music.

The things that touched us on our nature excursions this week.

Wood sorrel.

Another gorgeous roadside creature with which we communed.

Baby wild bunnies born at a friend's house down the street.

The Eldest took a 10-minute video of the bunny with his camera.

Because what could be cooler than bunnies?

 Except maybe the secret inside the potting station...

..discovered by the potter himself.

He'd been jotting down notes for the past week or so about bird comings and goings to this oven bird nest and imagine his excitement when he bustled in the house yesterday hooting and hollering about a fledgling in the grass.

This was no ordinary fledging, mind you. By the look on his face, I'd say this was a kindred fledging who resented a world unfolding prior to coffee intake.

But also a precious fledging whom I feared disturbing- a first day out of the nest sort of fledging.

So we journaled about how it might feel to be a fledging on our first day out of the nest. Wove in threads of fact as well as fiction. Added his name to our Knowing Nature notebooks. And then realized how many tiny creatures are experiencing first-day-out in this mindblowingly beautiful season known as spring.

Fancy fungi.

The best things are found in clover right now. Clover and good percussion. Enjoy.

I'll be in clover
I'll be in clover soon
I'll be in clover
I'll be in clover with you

Dogwood buds.

The flower bracts open up.

Last week, the dogwoods began flowering. The flowers themselves are 2 to 3 inches wide, with four bracts. Each bract is notched at the end, leaving the area around the indentation a reddish-brown splash.

 

What passes for petals are actually bracts, a specialized type of leaf. That said, when we admire dogwood flowers with others, we will generally refer to the bracts as flowers. 

The center of what appears to be the flower contains a cluster of the real flowers, small yellow flowers each less than a quarter inch wide. The flowers are monoecious and the cluster size varies from just a few to about two dozen.

The bioblitz beauty of Turkey Creek Nature Preserve.

We spent Friday afternoon in Pinson, Alabama at the amazing Turkey Creek Nature Preserve. Beautiful flora, beautiful people. The Turkey Creek Nature Preserve Manager Charles Yeager made us feel welcome immediately. From the moment we signed the registration form and the Eldest pilfered a yellow notebook, the learning and exploring began.

The Eldest and Erin perch on a rock to wait for fish.

A little history: Turkey Creek Nature Preserve was established through a partnership between Alabama's Forever Wild Program and the Freshwater Land Trust and is co-managed by the Southern Environmental Center (SEC). In late 2008, an agreement was reached with the SEC to setup an environmental education center at the entrance to the preserve. 

Spotted dusky salamander

We were impressed by the young, homeschooled herpetologists who found secrets in rock shadows and introduced us to novel forms of amphibian life. The spotted dusky salamander changed colors before our eyes. He was fascinating because his tail was still ridged which the young herpetologist said was related to his unfinished metamorphosis. The salamander had not yet become an adult. We also learned that he was a hard catch because his lifestyle was nocturnal.

Red salamander

Red salamanders have to stay wet in order to survive. We refrained from touching their skin because lotion or perfumes or various chemicals are easily absorbed through their wet skin.

James Bond has nothing on the golden eyes of a red salamander.

Richard Louv, godfather of the Children and Nature Network, has pointed out the importance and value of physical interaction with various species. A sight alone does not forge a relationship-- it is the interaction with other forms of life that nourishes reverence and respect.

The green anole has the amazing capacity to drop its tail in self-defense. Prophet had many questions about this capability so it's on my list of things to learn more about.

Fire pink

Along the rock outcroppings, Zac also pointed out various flowers.

We learned to identify the Sweet meadow beauty by its fine pink lines....

and the Blue phlox by the particular shape of petals which do not spiral.

The Eldest jotted down common names for the life forms he encountered. Part of his assignment involved taking notes and creating a species count/list when we arrived back in Tuscaloosa using only his notes as scaffold. By the time I woke up this morning, he had finished the document below and was very excited to share it with me.

The Eldest used Google Docs to create his list. He's a stickler for fonts.

Amy looks over a shoulder at rue leaves.

Zac showed us how to distinguish rue anemone by its leaves. He also described false anemone.

Rue anemone

The rue anemone flower and its glossy, limpid, duck-foot leaves with a small budding poison ivy plant in the front left quadrant. 

This area was protected as a nature preserve. Bioblitzs help identify and educate stewards about the local ecological webs and possible threatened or endangered species.

Fragrant, intoxicating, toxic yellow jessamine blooming in the ecoscape. 

Suebee and Pops drove all the way from Atlanta and agreed to meet us at the Bioblitz. I am grateful for the way in which they were 100% troopers-- not a whimper, not a single complaint. We left feeling encouraged, enlightened, excited and inspired-- the words of the stone statue stuck in head like dream shrapnel.

More resources to explore Turkey Creek and Pinson:

Trail map of Turkey Creek Nature Preserve (Forever Wild)
Turkey Creek Nature Preserve Facebook Page 
2015 Bioblitz Species Count as typed and compiled by The Eldest

A morning in the life of junior waterkeepers.

The Eldest and E. were dressed, fed, and out the backdoor by 8 a.m. this morning in pursuit of a noble cause. Last night, they regaled us with stories of a "disgusting, blood reddish pond" in the woods abutting Cherokee Hills and Woodland Hills. They were determined to investigate further this morning.

By the time I rolled out of bed and doused my face in coffee, the boys had returned- "You've got to see this!"- and convinced me to hop in the spaceship and drive over to Lakewood Circle to photograph the curious pond. I parked on the street and crossed my fingers that no one would report us. 

We entered the woods just past a water drain.

"Watch where you step," warned the Eldest. The kudzu hibernates during the winter but everything we see (and every step we take) is a mass of kudzu come summertime. Not what you'd call firm ground.

The Prophet and Gnome walked down the slippery slope, eyes peeled for holes and loose soil. They wanted to throw sticks into the "bloody water."

The boys were right. It wasn't pretty. And it came straight from the stormwater drain.

You could see the high degree of sedimentation just beneath the orange skein.

After having followed the water upstream and downstream, the boys had their theories. E. mentioned a possible sewer line spilling into the woods. We concluded the storm drain near the street was the probably source point of pollution.

Looking downstream from the pond.

The Eldest pontificates.

"Shouldn't we map out the watershed so we can see where all this is going?", I asked. The photos of watershed landmarks come in handy when map time rolls around.

The boys wanted to follow the water back to Cherokee Hills so I hiked back to the spaceship (which hadn't been towed) and drove back to wait for the budding waterkeepers.

"The water looks super yuck!"

Back at the castle, a hapless queen scoured the web for answers. The coolest geologist in the world (cough, Anne Wynn) gave us a clue- the boys were exploring the Cribb Mill Creek Watershed. And what do you know? A google search gave me the Cribbs Mill Creek Watershed Management Plan. The boys returned anxious to test the water and see the watershed plan. Cowabunga, let the good times roll.

We're off to test the water with our water testing kits. The mischief-maker in me says why not leave a geocache near the nasty pond to encourage others to bear witness but the fine, upstanding mom in me says what if some fool gets hurt. Who knows which side will win?

The gift of plants, a printable freebie.

All the things I wanted to study with the kids were in my head, so I took a little time between nursing a croupy Gnome and rubbing beeswax under Prophet's red nose to make a handout, a hopeful activity. 

There's a simple handwork embroidery project on the reverse. A little freebie for celebrating plants and their role in the sustenance of life. Download and enjoy.

THE GIFT OF PLANTS (PDF)

The Second Annual Fall Ball.

Late last weekend, we celebrated our Annual Fall Ball, an acknowledgement of the glorious seasonal cycle in wear their most flamboyant dresses for one final dance before dropping them. The origins of the Fall Ball event were inspired by George Cooper's poem, which I modified to suit our circumstances. 

Prophet lingers near a corner of the yard, hunting for "orange leaves". She returns with a golden leaf instead.

The King helped Prophet identify the warm golden leaf she found using our favorite tree ID book- an out-of-print Little Golden Books guide from less sophisticated days.

Gnome participated this year for the first time, adding her own leaf chronicle of colors. She was our most enthusiastic leaf finder.

As you can see, however, the leaf identification was less than thrilling for her. Fortunately, the King relished leaf ID.

The Eldest took his sweet time, wandering through underbrush, considering vines and shrubs as well as trees. I snuck a photo of his work in progress while he dallied near the garden, which still bears green tomatoes, and continues to fruit despite recent freeze.

Sweet Isla on our hike in Tannehill last week.

"And then the party ended, the season's lost and found." 

If you'd like to add your own tradition of a Fall Ball, the printables and description from last year are free. And they exist for you to enjoy.

Conversations with beardtongues.

There are more types of penstemons than there are pages in my nature journal. Penstemon clings to soil without much humus, water or shade. Entire colonies thrive where little else has taken root, often on disturbed soil.

YELLOW PENSTEMON
(Keckiella antirrhinoides)

Native to the western U.S., the penstemon is considered a wildflower. Eastern Colorado boasts ten diverse native penstemons that are found ranging from the plains, foothills and montane areas and bloom from May through August depending on the variety. 

BLUEMIST PENSTEMON
(Penstemon virens)

Red penstemon, which we haven't come across yet, is an intriguing species that exists to be pollinated by one specific creature—the hummingbird. Other pollinators may be driven to frustration; bees, moths and even flies squeeze as best they can into their tubular flowers. But this is the essence of specialty evolution. The bird and blossom fit perfectly. Over time the fit has pollinated the blossom more completely than any other creature and so the reds thrive, the bright color scanned from above by tiny birds with acute eyesight.

All our friendly beardtongues were found on Summit County hikes- and every single one had a distinct bearded face.

Hiking the Lily Pad Lake Trail near Silverthorne, Colorado.

My blogging break began to feel like a traffic congestion with all the unsaid unsayables lining up behind the red light, clogging lanes, leaving me no way to move forward except by blogging through. It's funny how beautiful things keep us moving, and too few remarked wonders strand us between this breath and the next.

Back in Colorado, we came across a marvelous trial, the Lily Pad Lake Trail. The Dillon Forest Ranger first suggested it to us- a stunning trail through aspen and lodgepole pine forests, culminating in a lily pad-laden lake.

Each equipped with a backpack and water bottle, we set parked near the base of a hill and ascended for a half-mile before arriving at the official trailhead- just beyond a mountain-top meadow of wildflowers.

Up a small hill and into a meadow of wildflowers.... 

And into Eagle's Nest Wilderness Area, a mecca for plants, fragrant breezes, and moose scat.

After passing through a meadow that gave us an unbelievable view of Lake Dillon and the entire Blue Valley, we stepped into the forest and crossed our first hand-hewn bridge.

Monkshood (Aconitum columbianum)

We stopped to sip some water and snack on fresh peaches at this boulder field almost halfway.

Gnome noticed the lack of underbrush at this altitude- and how much it easier the hiking without the tangle of southern vines wrapped round our feet.

The last stretch before reaching Lily Pad Lake involves a little incline. Prophet takes a breath, counts a step, blows out the number, and starts again. Everyone finds their own way to get up the hills.

And those who rush through run the risk of overlooking tiny divinities, like the shy mountain hareball.

Or the bewildering beauty of the miniscule death camas, a wildflower overflowing with mystery.

Just when you think your legs can't walk another mile, the air so thin it feels shrill in your nostrils, Lily Pad Lake unfolds before you.

And each yellow water lily peers up from the pond's dark black ink.

A reflection upon a reflection.

Pebbles to skip- never enough time to skip every possible pebble.

The hike down is lighter than the ascent, but we didn't pack ample snacks or fruits or chewables. If I had the hike to do over- and I'd do it over and over- I'd pack more food, leave loose more time, and linger longer at Lily Pad Lake.

Wild roses surround us in Summit County.

Dew-covered wild rose leaves along Elysium trail.

Between blooms and rosehips, the herb-drier in me can't get enough of all the wild roses around. Since we are officially roamschooling our way through the alpine meadows and forests of Colorado, it makes sense to observe the differences between the species.

At first, we thought the only difference was in the color of the petals- but we learned our lesson by observing the tiny prickles on the stem of the prickly roses.

WILD ROSE
(Rosa woodsi)

PRICKLY ROSE
 (Rosa acicularis)

Long, skinny rosehips

Robust, hippy rosehips

Hiking through White River National Forest.

Hiking a favorite trail earlier this week.

White River National Forest is a wandering, SAHF's dream. One of our favorite hikes- the hike that doubles as a snowshoe trail during the winter- is located just past the Ski Tip Lodge on the road towards Montezuma. The Ranger called it the "social area" because backpackers and campers like to stop there.

You can park on the left near the large map, which, alas, does not include a sign or name. We dubbed it "Elysium" for lack of a better descriptor. Certainly, the gurgle and gush of the Snake River running along the trail feels heavenly.

After hiking for a few minutes, Gnome spotted a lounge chair away from the trail. We wandered over to theorize while Bunicu snapped a picture.

Recent rainstorms revealed a plethora of fungi peeking up from the moist soil.

Alpine daisies or tansyasters

Soon, the wildflowers and wild shrubs beguiled us in their honey-tongued language.

FIREWEED patch

FIREWEED up close

Between cool shaded areas filled with brilliant purple fireweed, there were patches of sunlight and red clover carpets.

DWARF GOLDENROD 
(Solidago nana)

And the dwarf goldenrod, so small and delicate compared to the gargantuan Alabama variety, attracted a ceaseless stream of little butterflies. Gnome calls them "flutterbys".

SMALL-LEAF PUSSYTOES
(Antennaria neglecta)

Bunica samples the resin from a pine tree. Our fingers stayed scented for so long afterwards. The Eldest used the resin to seal a papercut on his finger. Just because.

Never underestimate the creativity and skill set of backwoods campers and backpackers.

The smiley face a hiker left behind at the trail's end... I can only imagine the keys had been there for a while- the joints were covered in a light sprinkling of orange rust.

WILD STRAWBERRY SNACK

After hiking Elysium, we wanted to take a longer trail- one that allowed us to bring the kids and get a summit view of Summit County. We dropped by the Ranger's station to learn more about local hikes, and finally settled on the Lily Pad Lake trail (details forthcoming).

In the meantime, here's a collection of family-friendly hikes in White River National Forest:

Lily Pad Lake (Easy, 3 miles RT)
Lower Cataract Lake Loop (Easy, 2.02 miles RT)
Gold Hill (Moderate, 3.02 miles OW)
McCullough Gulch (Moderate, 1.27 miles OW)
Mesa Cortina/South Willow Falls (Easy, 4.71 miles OW to South Willow Falls)
Old Dillon Reservoir (Easy, O.77 miles OW)
Sapphire Point Loop (Easy, 0.67 miles loop)
Tenderfoot (Easy, 1.84 miles OW)

Yarrow, yarrow everywhere.

Being in Dillon, Colorado means the notebooks now double as field guides for various plants and trees we observe. One of the local plants we keep stumbling over is yarrow. 

Also known as Soldier's Woundwort, yarrow grows along hillsides all over North America. This aromatic wild edible herb grows as a single, stout stem that produces tiny ray and disk flowers. A perennial plant, yarrow boasts handsome flower craniums that look like individual bouquets.

The Latin name for Yarrow, Achillia millefolium, is supposedly named after Achilles.

Yarrow has fern-like leaves which are generally 5 to 20 cm long, feathery and grow somewhat evenly in a spiral design along the stem. 

 

Although the leaves are bitter, they can be eaten raw or cooked; young leaves mixed in with a salad are recommended. Yarrow leaves are also used as a hop-substitute for flavouring and as a preservative for beer.

Ryan Drum reports on a sad turn of events in the history of yarrow:

The oldest alleged use of Yarrow is as a funerary herb in a Neanderthal Stone Age burial in Shanidar Cave in Iraq. A swatch of Yarrow lay beside a human skeleton dated to over 100,000 BP. The plant material (including three other herbs) was stored in the Archeaology Museum in Baghdad and apparently destroyed during American bombing during the first Gulf War in early 1991. 

Tiny green spider visiting a plant near Lake Dillon.

Drum describes the historic uses of yarrow during war and battle. In the past, yarrow was used to pack wounds as a functional antiseptic and means of stopping bleeding. It was much preferred to the other materials used to pack deep open wounds resulting from idiotic serious combat, clay, moss (sphagnum moss was still used to make antiseptic dressings for WWI, harvested in large quantities, traincar loads, from the bogs around Southbend, WA), spider webs, and horse manure (a favorite of the Napoleonic wars during winter and in Russia during the Russian evolution).

Yarrow is also an analgesic and antiseptic, so that it stops bleeding, lessens pain, prevents infections, and is often abundant in the open meadows favored particularly by the ancient armies in the Mediterranean wars.

The Eldest reports that yarrow is being used by landscapers these days as a border flower. You can learn how to harvest yarrow or make a yarrow tincture from Ryan Drum's website, which includes an interesting case study of how yarrow has been used to treat influenza virus.

The hoopla over hornworms.

Oh hornworm, if you aren't the most bizarre creature to squish through the garden...

Of course, it was the eldest who discovered and caught the hornworm. And it was the Eldest who refused to put this creature in the trash can, choosing instead to place him in the magnolia tree out front.

Notice the pink horn at the front? Evil gorgeous tomato eating creature.

A snapping turtle egg at Hurricane Creek.

A tiny snapping turtle egg found at Watson's Bend.

While helping to cut and move privet and other invasive plants along Hurricane Creek, I stumbled upon something that looked like a perfect little pebble.... and yet, there was a translucence or fragility about the creamy exterior.

So I grabbed my camera- which gave me one measly photo before demanding more battery juice- and snapped a picture. The closer I drew to the pebble, the more clear it became that this pebble was actually an egg.

When I asked other volunteers about what sort of egg it might be, Curtis scratched his head, peered at the egg, and then told me it was probably a snapping turtle egg that didn't get covered very well. Curtis didn't think the egg would survive and manage to hatch.

An hour later, the Eldest and Ellie emerged from their morning-long swim in the cool creek waters to describe having seen a teeny baby snapping turtle wallowing through the sand-gravel bar. In the Eldests' words:

"It was speckled, and looked alot like a rock. But we could tell by its bright back and litle legs that it wasn't a rock. The baby snapper had a teeny head with a teeny beak. We inched up closer in the water and watched it swim around. Then it settled again, laying belly-down flat on a rock. I doubt a predator would have been able to see it."

I only wish I could have seen it, too. Part of me thinks that little egg might survive in spite of the odds (they call that part "the optimist"). Maybe we'll sneak over to Watson's Bend early in the week and see if the egg has moved or cracked.

On the creation of "nature ghettos".

I picked up Jonathan Evans Maslow's The Owl Papers to help me understand the varying species of owl friends in the woods and trees around our yard. In addition to learning more about our barred owl companions, I discovered a few sad observations about owl species in the state of New Jersey- and how the New Jersey Turnpike and endless development have destroyed the wetland habitats of the previous owl residents.

Maslow introduces his concept of the "nature ghetto", a concept I think is an interesting one to present to kids and discuss as an environmental issue (or even a specific case study). In Maslow's words:

Instead of creating arks to save creatures, we created a new type of ghetto for plants and animals: nature ghettos. As in human ghettos, the strong and selfish survive, the fragile and nonconforming perish. The shy trillium and gentle columbine are rubbed out by the slick poison ivy and tough chicory. The sweet-voiced warblers are muscled aside by the sleazy starlings. At length, phragmites blanketed the marsh pockets, choking out most other plant life. They have proved by far the most tenacious of all local plants, ready to invade any vacant lot or send up shoots between buildings. All you see today are the phragmites' soulless stalkheads, bending to the breezes. 

My curiosity about the mysterious phragmites led me to this well-written handout about Phragmites australis, invasive conquerer of native wetlands. In Newburyport, outdoorsman and conservationists are taking the fight against phragmites in the Great Marsh very seriously. The Nature Conservancy uses helicopters to battle the phragmites along the Platte River. No matter whom you ask, phragmites are a dangerous enemy to local ecologies and plant life. Many environmental groups even go so far as to give phragmites the herbicide exeption.

But it's Jonathan Evans Maslow, a reporter-turned-revelator, that truly inspires me. Beginning as a hometown reporter, Maslow's sense of interest rapidly expanded to include the borderless marvels of the natural world. 

Maslow traveled to Guyana for eight weeks in 1999 on a Sen. John Heinz reporting fellowship to teach environmental reporters how to follow stories that uncovered environmental problems in that South American nation. His curiosity and love for nature led him to receive several Beagle II Awards from Stanford which, in turn, enabled him to write and publish more books about the world which captured his loyalty and imagination.

No one ever warned me about the enchantments of a sweet pea vine.

Sweet pea at dusk.

The sweet pea was the last flower I expected to see in our garden this year. Somehow, the delicate Lathyrus odoratus wears the mantle of the most unanticipated marvel- the beauty made all the brighter for being unharmed by expectation.

Add to this the fact that we did everything wrong (waiting until the weather was warm before planting the seeds directly in the soil) and I'm amazed that we get to see anything at all... But the tiny plants continue to flirt with their teepee... their tendrils beginning to curl and reach out.

"Treat it like a found poem," I urge the Eldest. He weighs the possibility of laying claim to treasures discovered by other pirates. 

"No," he replies, "I'm going to find my own found poem in another plant." Suit yourself, I think, remembering those days fondly, the ones where every secret worth saving needed to be entirely my own.

The surprise of the pea flowers enchants, keeps me from writing, the language of shoots and bulbs creeping into dialogue between characters. I need a technical distraction or some magical means of refocusing.

Sweet peas grow in full sun to partial shade and require rich, well-drained soil. A local green thumb I know warned me that sweet peas are heavy feeders, doing best with a few organic fertilizer treatments during the growing season.  

Word also has it that deadheading encourages a longer season of bloom.

Pea Shoots brochure, filled with delicious recipes
on how to cook those splendid pea shoots

3 FREE LAPBOOKING PAGES ON GARDEN PEAS

A SEASON IN THE LIFE OF A PEA (1 narrative bi-fold)

SWEET PEA FLOWER AND VINES (2 bi-folds with diagrams)

The sex lives of squash plants.

Early squash flower buds from late May.

You can't sow good seeds without learning a little bit about the birds and bees. Planning our tiny little backyard garden demands delving into the details, knowing, for example, about the intrictate breeding needs of tomatoes, cucumbers, blueberries, and squash plants. 

I'll confess that I left the reproductive aspects of a few heirlooms up to the Eldest earlier this spring, when we plotted the locations of each vegetable and fruit.

In so doing, I began my own mysterious introduction to squash plant's reproduction. The first blossom emerged in its large, flamboyant yellow manner on a balmy morning about a week ago. Early this week, another blossom joined the first one.

Squash flowers today around 11 a.m., already folded tight.

Seeing the glory of the squash blossom requires a bit of self-discipline, since the flowers open early to lure the early-rising insects, like the squash bee, that pollinate them.

What's so fantastic about the squash plant is that you don't really have to worry too much about setting the ambiance for a love affair. Squash plants have blossoms of both sexes on the same plant. From the golden grandeur of the flower alone, it's hard to tell male from female. 

That's why sipping the morning coffee with your squash plants is one way to discover the secrets of squash sex. When the flowers are open, luring their pollinators, you can see either a female pistil or a sturdy column of fused male stamens.

A folded male blossom.

Late risers need not despair, for there is another way to tell the male from the female, one that does not require gazing into its lovely flower face. Males are attached to long, slender stems that allow them to open their faces wide in almost any direction.

Our still-growing female squash flower and her lovely ovary.

Females, on the other hand, are more limited in their movement. Their stems are shorter and boast a small, ovwl nodule or bump between the stem and flower base, containing the ovary. This bump will become a squash if the flower is pollinated.

Barbara Damrosch describes how and why one should feast upon stuffed male squash blossoms for lunch:

Why males? Females are just as edible and stuffable. But for maximum squash production I leave the girls alone, along with just enough boys for the bees to gather pollen from and transfer it to the girls.

Given the high frequency of male blossoms on our plant, I have a feeling the time for harvesting is close at hand. 

Encounters with insects: The eastern lubber grasshopper, a staple of southern childhood.

Prophet skipped into the house, screaming my name, begging to borrow my phone so she could take a picture of the bugs she'd found on a bucket in the yard. In a flash, she was gone, sucked from the room like a helium balloon from an open car window. 

Upon her return, I recognized the grasshoppers of my younger years. I remember them as having a distinct, almost rubbery smell. My childhood summers were filled with these sleek black grasshoppers and their sportscar-orange stripes.

I also remember the way they oozed a white, creamy substance all over the hot cement street in front of our house. There was a time when dead bugs demanded mass burials and specially-tailored funeral rites.

EASTERN LUBBER GRASSHOPPER (Romalea microptera)

Now, Prophet asks me to marvel over them as if for the first time. I find myself hating the way marvel has assumed a more cerebral hue- the hunger to give it a name, to find out what it eats, where it lives, why it lingers on buckets and metal pipes. 

The eastern lubber grasshopper is limited to the southeastern and south central portion of the United States. The northern boundary is central North Carolina west through southern Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, to Texas. 

Our eastern lubbers are juveniles, still too small to boast of wings and more variegated coloration. 

We learn that its wings are purely ornamental- too short for flight, running less than half the length of the abdomen. Also, that our friends cannot fly; they move by jumping short distances. Their range of motion is narrow and their style rather clumsy and slow. The eastern lubber's name reflects this clumsy movement. “Lubber” is derived from an old English word “lobre” which means lazy or clumsy. To call someone a lubber is to brush them with the tar of being big, clumsy, oaf-like, and rather dull-witted. If you've ever heard a sailor call someone a "landlubber", now you understand why it wasn't a compliment.

Eastern lubber is one of only four species in the family Romaleidae found north of Mexico, but there are many other species in South America, and many are winged and agile, so although some other species in this family are called lubbers, the “lubber” designation is not appropriate for the entire family.

Since eastern lubbers are known to prey on garden plants and flowers, many people make use of toxic sprays to keep the lubbers at bay. Fortunately, there are wiser solutions. If you find yourself swimming in a sea of lubbers, pot a few oleanders and place them in strategic locations to deter pests. Oleander is poisonous to eastern lubbers- but eastern lubbers don't know this, and will usually die immediately after consuming the flower or its leaves.

EASTERN LUBBER PRINTABLES

Eastern lubber fact sheet (University of Florida Extension)
Eastern lubber handout (Southeastern University)
Lubber grasshoppers (Fresh From Florida)

The saga of the baby cardinal continues.

Because Lauren needed to know- and because I understand why she needed to know so urgently- I wanted to offer a little update on our cardinal chick friend.

The Eldest continued to keep close tabs on the nest. Yesterday, he heralded us with the good news- "The chick sprouted pin feathers! Come see!" 

Sure enough, the thick hard texture of pin feathers lined the outside of the baby cardinal's wings. And the wide-open beak, voracious, begging to be fed.

You can really get a good glimpse of the pin feathers as layered along the wing here. Amazing, too, how his head is filling out with a thicker, dark skin, the preface to feathers.

The continued growth and burgeoning size of our baby chick friend suggests that a mother is still nurturing him. So far, so good. We're keeping our hopes up here at the tiniest, most frugal castle in the world.

Tiny sorrows meet with exquisite comforts.

It was the Eldest who summoned me, in his most excited whisper, over to a corner of the backyard near a privet shrub. For the past two weeks, there'd been a pair of cardinals- one haughty red male and a soft brown female- flitting to and from the shrub. I didn't think much of it, but the Eldest kept an eye (and pen) on them, frequently referring to their actions in his nature journal. He also noted the day when the brown mother bird flew over to the shrub with a small twig in her beak. "She's building a nest," he declared.

An urgency in his whisper- perhaps even his ability to sustain a whisper against excitement's uncontrolled volubility- grabbed my attention.

Pointing within the shrub, the Eldest grinned. Inside a nest, three tiny little eggs, carefully laid and tended by our cardinal friends. "How did you know?" I marveled. 

"Because, I told you, she was building a nest," he said happily. "And because I found the nest last week with dad but I was worried because it was empty." The expression on his face charmed me- a look of simple contentment and gratification. 

The eggs imprinted themselves in our hearts and minds. Soon, a ritual developed. After watering the garden each morning- Gnome with her orange tin can and Prophet with ther yellow one- we crept over to cardinal nest to check on the eggs. Expectation and delight coalesced into a wonder-filled tenderness for the mystery and beauty of the three lives preparing to hatch in the midst of our unspectacular yard.

While conducting his daily nature study, the Eldest approached me on tiptoe, again, the discordant combination of excitement and whispering. I thought I detected a tinge of dismay as well. He tried to speak- "the eggs have hatched"- but then silenced himself ("Revererence?" I wondered) and, shaking his head, led me by hand to the privet shrub.

The nest was lying on its side, barely holding a mass of pink flesh within it. Something had happened to dislodge the cardinals' painstaking creation. I drew nearer, heart heavy, burdened by a sinking foreboding.

A pink mass of flesh nestled within the tipped nest. Only one- where there should have been three. My eyes met those of the Eldest. I understood his silence. There are few words to describe that sense when all is not well with the world.

Yet, I drew closer. The little one's head quivered as he brought it up and away from the mass of pink skin and gray fuzz.

Atop a slender, delicate neck, I could see two large black saucers that would eventually develop into eyes. But for the moment, the little chick remained sightless- blind to the fact of the two faces missing from the handwoven home.

What happened to the other two chicks? Did a hawk steal them? If so, would the hawk return to claim this one as well? Did raccoons climb trees to steal bird eggs? Had the cardinals chosen a dangerous location for their nest? The questions spun through my head. Those familiar, chest-warming maternal instincts drove my heart into a faster rhythmn, the beat of empathy for those more vulnerable and defenseless than our egotastic adult selves.

The Eldest looked on quietly. That's when I said it- "Oh no, little bird, you're all alone now...." 

It must have been the sound of my voice, or maybe even the soft feather-like texture of the whisper, that drew the chick upwards, suddenly raising its blind head and opening its mouth in the hope of a worm.

I felt the lump rise in my throat, and the pressure of tears forming in my eyes.

As the Eldest delicately explained why we should leave the chick alone so its mother would return and feed it, I fought the tears, pushed them deep inside, saving them for a later time and place, a time without a blind baby bird all alone in a precarious nest.

The King walked over to investigate; I turned to address Gnome and Prophet, whose worried faces mirrored my own. Pouring a glass of water for a red-cheeked Gnome put distance between myself and the solitary chick.

But the distance was quickly bridged by the King's announcement of the a broken egg on the ground near the nest- and a large colony of ants eating something next to the empty egg shell.

At this point, I simply started crying. 

Because that's what I do when things in the world defy my hopes of a fair and just outcome. Because doing anything else would be a lie or a subterfuge- a sentiment created for the consumption of others rather than a sentiment reflecting my earnest reckoning with my own feelings and fears.

The King shook his head, tried to find the right words, wrapping a warm, familiar arm around my shoulders. "It's not fair," I muttered, allowing the tears to garble the useless words.

The Eldest crept up alongside us, his expression contorted and unsure. "Dad," he said, in a certain voice, "I can feel how much it hurts mom to think about the chicks".

Bringing his face so close I could smell the lemonade on his breath, the Eldest continued, "Mom, it hurts me too. It's.... it's..... not what I thought would ever happen...." I leaned into the sweetness of his empathy. We stood, silent, cheek to cheek, for a moment, before he found words again.

"Even though it hurts, mom, it's just how Mother Nature works.... And the mother bird won't abandon her baby- that's not what's going to happen." I felt the balm of his words before I recognized them for the comfort they aimed to offer. My high-functioning ten-year-old son, the one who defies every expectation and limitation, soothed my soul and comforted me better than any neurotypical adult.

It was hard to keep mourning the broken eggs in light of the Eldest's courage and love. Even harder to keep from beaming at the King, who knows how much these moments mean to me- and who isn't too faux-manly to share them. 

So two fragile and lovely chicks did not survive their hatching. But two adults and one boy discovered the comfort of each other between the broken shells. There is so much beauty to be found in all life's breakings.

A nature walk with Diane Kappel-Smith.

Dutchman's breeches in Dublin, Ohio.

All the recent, rather immediate demands of a growing garden have kept me from reflecting on our trip to Ohio- from mining it for tiny kernels of insight.

But this morning, I found a crack, the kind that swells into a crevice, between the comings and doings.

As the kids worked on their book reviews, I flipped back through the photographs of our nature outings with the writings of Diane Kappel-Smith in the forefront of my mind. In retrospect, posting the photos alongside the text makes me feel as if Diane and I walked the woods together.

It's so much easier to write about the wonder and obvious beauty of nature than it is to acknowledge the extent to which it satisfies and cultivates a craving for fantasy. Surely I am not the only woman to have trudged through muddy trails with Thoreau at my side.

Today, I walk with Wintering in my head. Or, rather, I return and revisit under the electrifying influence of a particular writer who has more to reveal to me in all the things I have seen.

Walk with me. 

"I come back to the papery leaves, the spring beauties, the sun which reaches me here, now, unfiltered. The twigs, leaves, and flowers that are on their way are already formed, were made last summer and packed away in scales and sheaths; all they have to do is expand like balloons, and then their branch tips will begin their hurry to make more."

Diane Kappel-Smith

"Trees grown in the open are thicker of trunk because the wind has blown them, and they choose to thicken in the parts of themselves most stressed by their own bending. Trees in the dense woods where the wood can't push them are thin as wands".

I would make an exception for the dense, heavy hardwoods growing in the Carpathian mountains of Transylvania. Their trunks are as thick as houses, possibly because their location on the side of high altitude mountains demands heftiness as a form of hardiness for the snow-heavy Transylvanian winters and sharp mountainside winds. 

Of course, if American corporations have their way, these old trees will soon be logged to make fancy dining room tables for the rapacious consumers of Hollywood and Aspen. But I hope against hope that something happens to stop them.

BLOODROOT

The large white petals of the bloodroot plant radiate outward, but often only last for one day. One of the ways to recognize this plant is the leaf often looks like it wants to wrap itself around the flower. If you cut the stem or dig the root, it will bleed a bright red-orange juice.

"In these maples and birch and beech the branches reach out year after year, running skyward like the fingers of rivulets when water is poured on dry ground."

Critical Thinking Exercise on Diana Kappel-Smith review (PDF)
A little something I made for the Eldest and wanted to share.

YELLOW TROUT LILY

Trout Lilies like to keep their feet wet and are common, especially along river floodplains. There are both white and yellow species here. The six petals are usually recurved like this. The mottled leaves is a diagnostic character.

I love the way the leaves resemble purple tie-dyed shirts.

A golden goodbye whose shadow is even lovelier than its hue.

A splittlebug surprise.

Strolling down to test the water at Hurricane Creek Park, we noticed some foamy masses in the branches of a scotch pine tree.

"Spittlebugs," mused Amy. 

Having never seen a spittlebug, I stopped to snap a few blurry photos for later exploration.

Spittlebugs are the nymph form of froghoppers. And froghoppers earned their name because they have an incredible jumping range and their faces resemble those of frogs. In fact, NPR named the spittlebug "highest insect jumper", outstripping even the flea in its leaping skills. The same physics involved in archery enables spittlebugs to "jump like an arrow". 

The froth serves a number of purposes. It hides the nymph from the view of predators and parasites, it insulates against heat and cold, thus providing thermal control and also moisture control. Without the froth the insect would quickly dry up. The nymphs pierce plants and suck sap causing very little damage, much of the filtered fluids go into the production of the froth, which has an acrid taste, deterring predators. 

According to the New International Encyclopedia, the larvae and pupae of "froth-flies" (another neat name for these well-deserving nymphs) are found in a frothy exudation on plants and trees. This froth, often called "frog-spittle", is composed of sap which the insect sucks up through its probiscis. The sap passes through the intestine and is emitted as a clear mass, into which the insect draws bubbles of air by means of its tail claspers, and thus makes foam. Once the bubbles have formed, spittlebugs use their hind legs to cover themselves with the froth. The ‘spittle’ serves multiple purposes.

1. It shields the spittlebugs from predators
2. It insulates them from temperature extremes
3. It prevents the spittlebugs from dehydrating

All this spittlebug exploring created an imperative for lapbooking- which, of course, led me to create a few spittlebug learning materials. Enjoy them because they're fun and as free as any spittlebugs you may find in  a tree!

Spittlebug and froghopper pictures (PDF)
Includes a coloring page of froghopper.

Spittlebug booklet (PDF)
Includes images and questions.

 MORE TO EXPLORE

Spittlebug information sheet (University of Minnesota)
Two-lined spittlebug (Texas A&M Extension)
Pine spittlebug fact sheet (Ohio State University)
Saratoga spittlebug (USDA Forest Service)
Pecan spittlebug fact sheet (LSU Extension)
Black and red froghopper (Tout un monde dans mon jardin)
"Spittlebug named highest insect jumper" (All Things Considered audio stream)
Cuckoo spit and froghoppers (Bug Blog)
Meadow spittlebug color varieties chart (Bug Guide)

Pansies and chimps: An amusing comparison.

We added this to our flower notebooks and colored the pansy and chimpanzee in a way that highlighted their difference. I love seeing other faces in flowers- such a fun way to explore the personalities and hidden sides of plants.

In hope of henbit: A discovery of devotion.

The cost of daily nature study with my children is this blooming ardor for all things green. I crave the company of wildflowers. There are times when I yearn for nothing more than a sheet of paper, a pencil, and a mute plant nearby. A particular plant with a story it wants me to tell. 

There is a carpet of stunning purple-blue wildflowers under the camellias near our front door. Part of me finds herself hoping for a henbit identification. For some unspeakable reason, I maintain a steady affection- an openness to being charmed and re-charmed- for the henbit.

The facts, themselves, don't explain my affection. As a matter of fact, henbit is a member of the mint family. There are a lot of mints that do not smell minty, some of them are edible and some of them are not. In fact, some of the mints can make you ill. Though henbit lacks the minty smell, it is an edible herb. Eat the Weeds offers a detailed scoop on henbit's lovely qualities. 

The mystery accrues, growing heavy with the weight of various Latin names and specifications. I aim for henbit, in spite of the bits that don't add up.

The more I study, the more I find satisfaction in touching the flower with all my senses- seeking a scent, lifting it, again, to the light. Sketching and re-sketching. Focusing on the stalk, adding tiny hairs along its length, bonding closer to my subject. Reminiscient of the way writing a poem breaks down the barriers between myself and what I allow myself to feel for and in the world around me, trying to find a name for this flower wraps me tighter into the wonder and magic of its existence. 

Though I can't seem to find a better id- not even on Wildflower Identification Guide- it seems highly unlikely that this would be henbit. It lacks the characteristic heart-shaped, scalloped leaves that grasp the stem and give it the nickname grasping henbit. 

I find myself focusing on the leaf shape, wondering if the oval is actually a lyre. Since lyreleaf sage grows well in this part of the country, I convince myself that the characterstic lyre-shaped leaves need not be quite as, well, lyre-like as the name suggests.

At some point I realize that more than mere science is at stake. 

Pigmentation takes me further towards distracted fascination and closer to mis-identification. I discover a trance-inducing new blog, Anybody Seen My Focus, where I learn that the leaves of lyreleaf sage reveal the amount of daily sunlight it receives. The greener leaves are usually those of the plants who receive full sun. Purple pigmentation in the edges or flesh of the leaf indicates a shade-dwelling sage. This makes sense given the partial shade in which I found our flower friend.

The King reminds me of our plans for the day, the kids throb their way through the castle, a restless rhythm demands I drop my pencil, turn away from the mystery, and face the familiar music. 

At this point, I recognize the religious pilgrim in myself- the spirit steadfastly seeking an intimacy from something outside the material world. My devotion to this simple garden weed becomes a journey, a quest for a name with all the potency of the Holy Grail. So I leave my awe, like a half-knit sock in the fair trade basket woven by women from Nigeria, for another time, another day, another moment. 

But it's hard for me. Easier to drop the sock in the basket than to quash this burning urge which developed in pursuit of a plant.  

Purple deadnettle vs. henbit factsheet (UT Extension)
Purple deadnettle (Brooklyn Botanical Garden)
Creeping charlie, or ground ivy (Edible Wild Food)
Beautiful images of henbit flower (Project Noah)
A lovely look at Lyreleaf sage (Anybody Seen My Focus)

Aside to a front-yard thistle.

Oh thistle.

Thou art a solitary, singular, front-yardish fellow,

a sight for making eyes sore.

"Only fools would pick such fallow soils",

I can't help muttering

(a way of saying without speaking).

And all those prickles for protection

just so you can saunter the lawn

draped in shameless scarlet.

 Still, I admit that no one else

wears raspberry beret so very well,

all haughty and rather huffy.

Red maples in bloom in the spring.

Some trees never end up with a story that involves a precise identification. This red-budded tree found in Dublin, Ohio qualifies as one of those trees we left un-named. 

The Eldest maintains it was a red maple- "they bloom in the spring, you know." I didn't know. Not knowing, however, keeps me in a fresh state of uncertainty.

I can't help thinking it must be beautiful, possibly fragrant, at first bloom.

A yard covered in wild onions- and what it teaches us.

The Eldest knew immediately from the pungent odor that these lovely flowers were wild onions. Merriwether's informative foraging web page helped us to confirm our suspicions. Also called wild garlic or meadow garlic, wild onion comes from the Allium family. 

Allium was the Latin name for the onion. Some herbalists think the name comes from the Celtic word “all” meaning pungent. “Alla” in Celtic means feiry. Canadense means of Canada, but refers to north North America. Tricoccum means three seeds. Roman’s called garlic the “stinking rose".

Conducting an internet set for "wild onions" leads us to endless pages on how to "rid your yard of onion grass or wild onions". I try to hide my disappointment. Why not forage? I make a vow to keep from disparaging weeds in front of the little people- to honor what we find in abundance without demanding that our lawn "look like all the others".

I want to give my girls something to hold against a culture that tells them they should want to look like every other girl. That a "good lawn" is one that looks perfectly manicured, sterile, similar, immaculate perfection. So I offer our yard as an example of natural beauty- and how much nature has to offer if we honor it as we find it.

Looking at the tiny bulbs ready to burst with the miniscule onions, lifting my fingers to my nose to be sure of the scent, I think of the time Prophet found me in the kitchen, slicing onions for a salad.

"Why are you crying, mommy?" she asked.

"It's the onions," I replied, smiling through blurred eyes, "They make me cry."

"Then I don't like onions- if they make you sad."

I remember how strange it felt to try and explain that I liked cutting onions- that I enjoyed the way they cleared my eyes, savored the way they made me cry.

Rather than allow them to be mowed down by the lawnmower, we decided to harvest the onions. But when are wild onions ideally harvested? The Eldest runs inside to consult his sacred text, the book given to him by our neighbors, the Brooks, a few years ago. 

Wild onion (Allium canadense)

Thus we find ourselves in the thrall of another wild plant- another afternoon devoted to discovering the mystery of the weeds beneath our noses. Another day where the lessons we planned are not quite the lessons we learned. My heart swells with gratitude.

An afternoon with an eastern tent caterpillar.

The days of bugs and fuzzy wuzzy worms are upon us. As I sit in the garden, seeking out small weeds, staking tiny tomato sprouts, some of which might yet be tender for the wider world of Alabama dirt, the kids build houses and hotels for various insects and bugs.

Hard to say how many times I paused and looked up because a little person brought me a bug.

Eastern tent caterpillar (Malacosoma americanum)

This proud friend was discovered by M. N., who held it in her palms, the tone of her voice dropping to a whisper to describe it. It is an eastern tent caterpillar, a devourer of oak and maple leaves, a furry crawler on its way to becoming a type of snout moth.

"It is called a tent caterpillar because the larvae build a tent up in the crooks of particular trees," I try to explain. The Eldest knows all the details. He picks up where I left off.

The Eldest describes the large castle he has fashioned for a cockroach who made the mistake of showing his face in the garage. He gazes at M.N.'s caterpillar longingly.

The adult moth of the eastern tent caterpillar emerges from the caterpillar-spun cocoon about 3 weeks later. The moth is reddish-brown with two pale stripes running diagonally across each fore-wing. 

Gnome wants to know when we will see the moth. I tell her that she might meet it flapping against her bedroom window one night. Because moths are butterflies that prefer to play in the dark- butterflies that don't like the light. 

"Okay mommy," Gnome smiles, nods, chews on a leaf. Our eyes meet for a brief, beautiful moment. Her expression unfurls into something light an expansive.

"You know what, mommy?" she asks.

"I know what you tell me."

"Maybe I can meet the moth on the outside of my window......"

"Hmmmm.... maybe so, Gnome."

"Because I AM a moth, too! I am a butterfly that likes to play at night!"

"So am I," I confess to this little kindred spirit standing before me barefoot, chewing on what I can only hope is a violet leaf. And so we are.

Encounters with a turkey oak tree.

Turkey oak tree (Quercus cerris)

The King found a turkey oak tree nut on the sidewalk in Dublin. Ironically, the turkey oak is native to the land of my birth and other parts of southeastern Europe as well as Asia Minor. The genus is characterized by shoot buds surrounded by soft bristles, bristle-tipped leaf lobes, and acorns with hairy cups that usually mature in 18 months.

Our encounter with a black salamander friend.

Black salamander (Aneides flavipunctatus)

During an insect hunt earlier this week, we discovered an amphibian. Prophet suggested we look in the old woodpile for insects, and so I wandered over to the pile and pulled up the moist, slimy, spring-sodden tarp which normally covers the wood.

That's when we first spotted our black salamander friend- though we didn't identify him as a black salamander yet. Instead, we referred to him in the manner selected by Gnome as "black worm with legs". It was a makeshift name which served its brief purpose.

It was Mary who made the final identification. "Isn't that a salamander?" she asked.

Indeed, the Black salamander (or speckled black salamander) is a species of salamander in the Plethodontidae family endemic to these United States. Its preferred natural habitatsinclude temperate forests and temperate grassland. 

Sighting a black salamander is a more of a fortunate encounter than an event which can be planned or expected. This is because suburban sprawl threatens the natural habitat of this wild-dwelling cousin of the newt.

It's also because the salamander spends eleven-and-a-half months of the year underground, emerging only for a brief period after the first big spring rains to make a little love and contribute a jelly-like mass of eggs, its reliable homage to spring and the cycles of life.

A lovely salamander printable handout (Karen Johlas-Szalkowski)

Spotted salamander coloring page (Lee Hansen)

Salamander life cycle (Dave Huth)

Tiger salamander life cycle coloring page (Wikipedia)

"Salamander shrinkage linked to climate change" (Nature)
An interesting article about how amphibians are being affected by climate change

Another article about "salamander shrinkage" (Salon)

Heeding the summons of spring.

We returned from our weeklong trip to Ohio to discover spring in full bloom all over the backyard. So I dug into the wild matters at hand. Obviously, the bags have yet to be unpacked and the fridge is still rather empty...

Yet, somehow, the important things- the ones that matter most in the grand scheme of things- got done. For example, the garden soil has been tilled and a few tomatoes were transplanted. All that indoor nonsense can wait for the next spring rain.

We admired the sinews of the soil under rocks and broken clay pots. The Eldest chortled with glee at every single earthworm uncovered.

The uncanny extent to which all the kids were repulsed by the white grub led to wonder whether the word "grub" itself is somehow disgusting. Or whether it suggests (all too readily, perhaps) the possibility of a crispy grub snack. 

The Eldest consults his notes concerning the personal needs of his various seeds.

We decided to make garden paths using recycled tornado-tumbled trees turned into wood chips by the Friends of Hurricane Creek's Creekkeeper. As you can see, the fun is only half-finished.

It makes so much sense to use local wood for our gardening needs rather than pour money into Home Depot to purchase mulch and woodchips covered in non-native biota that will probably disrupt local ecologies and food webs.

Prophet washes her hands under the rain barrel spout.

The flowering pink dogwoods.

The pink flowering dogwood casts the first shadow on the see on the bedroom floor.

Spring, that season of surprises, draws me from the bed faster than a double-shot of espresso.

"Wake up and smell the flowers," the world outside my window sings. So I rise with none of the usual grumblings.

Beholden to buttercup blooms.

Ranunculus bulbosus

The buttercups are blooming! We snapped a few photographs before laying down in the grass next to them to watch and just commune with our plant friends. Gnome whispered a few words I couldn't understand as the Eldest looked for insects or other creatures with an interest in buttercups.

Members of the Ranunculus family, buttercups boast dicot flowers with three or more simple pistils, often with hooked tips. We identified our buttercups as Ranunculus bulbosus by its stems that are hairy at the base and sometimes hairy above, forming a basal rosette of three-parted leaves. The middle lobe is on a stalk, the two lateral lobes are attached at the base on the petiole. The basal and lower stem leaves are on long hairy petioles. 

The specific name bulbosus refers to the bulb-like swelling at the base of the stem, roundish and white, flattened a little both at the top and bottom, somewhat resembling a small turnip - hence one of the popular names for this plant: St. Anthony's Turnip. It is however, not a true bulb, only 'bulb-like.'

"What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet..." Shakespeare's love for flowers included the well-known rose, but also ventured into the wilderness of the buttercup. This is the 'Cuckow buds of yellow hue' of Shakespeare. Other names for the buttercup include "Frogs-foot" (from the form of its leaves) and "Goldcup" (from the shape and colour of its flowers). 

The Bulbous Buttercup has some superficial resemblance to the Upright Crowfoot and the Creeping Crowfoot, but is distinguished not only by its bulb and by the fact that it never throws out runners, but by the fact that its sepals are turned back in the fully expanded blossom, so as to touch the stem that supports the flower.

The stems are furrowed slightly, not merely round, as in Ranunculus acris. The upper leaves are composed of long, narrow segments, the lower ones broadened out into very distinct masses.

We learned a lot from Thomas J. Elpel's detailed descriptions of buttercup varieties and identifiers:

The predominant property in the plants of the Buttercup family is an acrid protoanemonin glycoside oil. Most of the species are listed as poisonous, but most are safe to taste. The buttercup taste is biting and acrid, stronger in some plants than others. Taste it and spit it out.

The acrid properties of the buttercups are unstable and are destroyed by drying or cooking, so the very mild buttercups are edible as salad greens or pot herbs. But be careful not to over do even these, as the residual acrid properties may cause a mild inflammation of the kidneys or liver. Mucilaginous plants can be ingested to counter-effect the acrid buttercups.

Medicinally, the acrid nature of the plants makes them great for stimulating poultices, similar to a "mustard plaster". These poultices can be used on bruises, aches or arthritis to stimulate healing activity inside, but be careful, because the poultices can cause blistering if left in place too long. The poultice can even stimulate activity in cases of mild paralysis. The acrid quality is also beneficial for getting rid of lice. Goldenseal (Hydrastis) is a popular medicinal herb from this family.

The Eldest collected his own buttercup to press. Now we have a lovely spring montage in the making- a reminder of the flowers in a few months, when summer's heat will have driven them away.

Project Budburst in our backyard.

I've been having a hard time finding a reason to be inside over the past few days. Spring is blowing my mind. Perhaps I thought my fascination would grow less as I "matured" and grew older.... Actually, I find myself draw it to even more every year- a source of reliable wonder and marvel to sit back and observe.

Purple violets (Viola odorata)

Violets always remind me of the Herbal Kids Club at Rachel's place- because the kids ate violets like mad after that. Always the grin and the explanation- "we need more Vitamin C". We know these particular violet friends are edible because their leaves are shaped like hearts.

White violets (Viola odorata)

The "odorata" comes from the sweet smell or taste of the flowers and leaves.

Chickweed (Stellaria media)

Amy helped me recognize this last weekend when she picked up a stash by her feet, and now I can't help seeing it everywhere. Our chickweed herb friend is quite eager to make an impression- it flowers and sets seed at the same time.

It is a favorite of herbalists. The fresh leaves can be used as a poultice for inflammation. Chickweed is an excellent source of many B vitamins and various minerals. It is used to treat bronchitis, pleurisy, coughs, colds, and as a blood builder. Its astringent properties can be used on the skin after it is brewed as a tea. Its leaves also make a tasty addition to salads, very popular in Japan.

To make chickweed infusion, pour 1 cup of boiling water over 1/4 cup of chickweed. Cover and let steep, off the heat, for 15 to 20 minutes. Strain out the herb and drink the tea hot.

The importance of this tiny plant is easy to overlook unless you examine its role in local food webs. The larvae of the North American moths pale-banded dart (Agnorisma badinodis) or dusky cutworm (Agrotis venerabilis) or North American butterfly dainty sulphur (Nathalis iole) all feed on chickweed. Wildman Steve Brill has a great page devoted to different species of chickweed.

You can contribute to the Project Budburst citizen science project by adding the budding and flowering dates for your backyard wildlife. I loved sitting down with Max and reviewing our nature journal entries together, looking for dates and particular species. After we added our data, we looked at the state and national maps to see when violets were blooming in other parts of the country. Such a wonderful way to nourish a conscious appreciation of spring's stunning annual show.

What's blooming and budding at the UA Arboretum.

The clouds cleared a little towards the end of the day, enabling us to go for a what's-blooming-and-budding hike at the nearby arboretum. Rucksacks strapped to our backs, we set out on the Poplar Trail "to see what we could see", as Prophet explained.

The Eldest tried to sneak his special gift- Euell Gibbons' Stalking the Wild Asparagus- into his rucksack, but I convinced him to leave it behind and just roam the woods without a field or foraging guide, wander with only our senses and nature journals to to record observations.

Well, wouldn't you know, the left-behind book came up almost immediately when the Eldest spotted what he claimed to be none other than Podophyllum peltatum, or May apple. Since this wasn't the first "May apple" sighting of the season, I was skeptical. But the Eldest assured me these plants were "the real thing".

Also called American mandrake, the May apple is the stuff of magic and mystery. The Eldest buzzed with glee- "Look, there's a tiny flower bud!", he shouted, pointing to a small green berry under the umbrella-like leaves. In his best "old man" voice, he cautioned that much of the plant is poisonous, including the roots, the fruit seeds, and the unripe fruit. 

Prophet spotted the first solitary violet.

A division of labor emerged in which the Eldest identified various tall,gangly trees while the Prophet raised a hullabaloo over any flowers along the path. Never one to be left out, Gnome quickly took it upon herself to frighten every slumbering bird in the forest by shouting, "BUD! B-UUU-D! BUUUUUUD!" every time she spotted a leaf or flower bud. The ghost of Thoreau was horrified by the racket.

Unidentified wildflowers and buds.

"That's poisonous," chirped the Eldest before Gnome could pick one.

The beautiful vine and intoxicating scent of yellow jessamine that drives the insects mad come twilight.

The familiar three leaves of the trillium poked out from beneath autumn's dusky, decomposing blanket.

We marvelled over how the trillium unfurled its tie-dyed leaves, opening its arms wide to reveal a deep purple flower brushed with golden flecks. Should we stop to sketch it? 

The corky growths on a winged elm tree.

"Let's stop by the big magnolia tree," said I-can't-remember-which small folk. Somehow, we agreed to continue hiking, mystified for a moment by the strange (possibly fungal) growth Prophet discovered lining the branches of a small tree. Budmaster Gnome observed that the growth wasn't keeping the tree from budding at the tips of the branches. Carol suggested it might be a winged elm, Ulmus alata, for whom such corky growths are normal. 

We stopped and took out our nature journals- everyone except Pinka started sketching. Fortunately, Gnome brought along a charming little wildflower mystery for us to model. 

Prophet's middle name, "Magnolia", makes sense.

Saucer magnolia

On our way back to the space ship, we lingered over a few lovely varities of magnolia trees, including the Saucer magnolia (or what I called the "saucer cup magnolia") and the sticky-sweet Star magnolia.

Star magnolia

One of my favorite things about nature study is the anticipation of going home with our observations and then trying to identify what we saw. The temptation to plug into the iPhone or reference in the field is tremendous- but much good comes from waiting. It serves as a reminder that the details we capture in our journals are the only evidence that remains for the identification. So we must take thorough descriptive notes and do our best to capture the species in our illustrations.

Observing the white oak taking root.

One of the best parts of last Friday's nature hike was the spine-tingling sight of a white oak acorn rooting itself in the soil, aiming to become a tree. It happened by accident, of course. The little folks lingered to fill their pockets with fallen acorns. But something about these acorns made them very, very difficult to pick up.

On closer observation, the acorns had tapped into the soil, their plantly umbilical cords too firmly rooted to budge. We sat still and admired their way of growing and the connection a seed forms with the ground. (Later, as we re-capped the hike, the Eldest said the acorns added a "whole new meaning to the name Mother Earth for him.)

Amy showed us the inside of the acorn caps and explained how we could distinguish white oak seeds from other kinds of oak by the smoothness of the undercap. It made sense to note the GPS coordinates so we might return to admire the most successful saplings later on in the year.

Honestly, I never thought I'd feel such a wash of emotions over an acorn- but it was beautiful in that unspeakable, sublime sort of way, the way reserved for poetry and music, a way that transcends this world while being nurtured by it.

Learning all about worms, with special attention to our new friend, the millipede.

Earthworms abound in the moist front-yard soil. The other day, the kids spent hours watching an earthworm worm its way around a puddle before sinking into the soil.  So we decided to play with worms.

Prophet and Little B. practiced their scissor skills by cutting out some worms and watercoloring them.

Why not use their fancy worms for the cover of our small earthworm lapbook? Enter glue stick and worm selection process.

But our worm study really took off (and shifted gears a bit) when Gnome discovered a millipede..... To talk about millipedes, it was necessary for me to utter one of those strange words that sounds like a magic spell to many little folks- namely, myriapods. Unlike our insect friends, myriapods aren't really bugs at all. 

We used our plastic crawlers to compare the two myriapod millipedes to the insect caterpillar.

Nearly 13,000 species of arthropod are classified in the Myriapoda, which means "many-legged ones." Prophet demanded to know what on earth those "arthtroscods" might be.

Arthropods are a group of creatures classified as invertebrates, or animals without a backbone. The arthropod group includes all invertebrates which have a skeleton on the outside of their bodies. The exoskeleton is made of chitin and the legs are jointed. This group is so large that it has been divided again into four sub-groups - insects, crustaceans, spiders and myriapods.

Now for a closer look at the millipede. The millipede's body has a trunk composed of individual segments known as tergites.

It didn't take long for Prophet to notice that her fake plastic worms were not millipedes at all. Indeed, the plastic worms were actually replicas of the fearsome creatures known as centipedes. For lack of a live centipede, we made do with the plastic version.

Centipede Class mini book (PDF)

Explaining why centipedes and millipedes were not in the same class of creatures was difficult. Compared to a centipede, the millipede has shorter antennae on the top of its head. It also lacks the two hooked posterior legs that appear on the head-like anus at the rear of the trunk.

Trillium Montessori has a lovely sorting game for insects and non-insects that makes good use of plastic creatures.

On the crafting side, there are endless millipede and centipede crafts to excite little hands and imaginations. Here are a few I stumbled upon- those wooden spoon millipedes are fantastic.

Centipede friendship bracelets (Friendship Bracelets)
Millipede madness (Always Outside)
Wooden spoon millipedes (Handmade Charlotte)
Curling millipede bracelet (Fusion Knots)

What we learn by watching harvester ants.

Gnome holds her cheap plastic ant after giving it a kiss.

It's all about insects lately. Each night, the insect for the next day is introduced in the form of a cheap, plastic replica. Little B. bounces around the room, begging for her insect before bed. There's just something cool about girls who like bugs.

And there's just something spring-feverish about the moment when you find yourself forking out $10 for an ant farm on a mysterious whim. An art farm without any ants, mind you. 

All week, the little people waited for the daily mail, wondering if our harvester ants might be among the bills and junk. When our tube full of harvester ants finally arrived, a dance party and jubilee ensued. The king tried to hide his own excitement with a serious question about the possibility of ants fleeing the farm for other locations in the castle. Alas, the time for serious questions was long past. I did my best to put his reservations to rest.

It should be called an ant aquarium.

Preparing the ant farm required us to add the sand and water to the bottom portion. The Eldest pushed the paper plug into the bottom portion of the farm so the ants could get down into the sand and tote it into the upper portion, presumably to build the "hills" to which the Eldest kept referring.

Transferring the ants to their farm was not as easy as we'd anticipated. Tired of life in the tube, the ants were stir-crazy, climbing out the sides as I tried to slide them into the narrow slat at the top of the ant farm. Fortunately, the Eldest read the instructions and advised me to put the ants in the fridge for 15 minutes- "it calms them down", he explained.

After 15 minutes of cold air, the ants seemed sluggish. The Eldest helped me transfer to their new farm. In the hubbub, a couple of ants escaped and found sanctuary in the exposed air vents on the floor. No worries, assured the Eldest, since they are all of the same sex. The rest went without saying.

With (most of the) ants safely inside the farm, all that remained was to set about observing our friends get adjust to post-tube life. Sit, watch, jot down a few notes- I could feel my patience muscles growing with each passing minute.

Part of the responsibilities of ant farming include a daily feeding schedule, which the Eldest has managed very well thus far. 

We decided to agree on a question about the ants- one for each day to frame our thoughts and explorations. Our ant friends were very reluctant to explore the southern route into the sand. We watched and waited to see what might transpire. Our first question grew quite naturally from the soil (or sand) of that watching and waiting.

"They're fighting over who has to go first," cried Prophet, the one who always wants to "go first". How do ants decide who will go first? As in most complicated social systems, ants are highly specialized to their particular roles and tasks.

Enter the ant lapbook- and a Types of Ants minibook I made for just this occasion. The Eldest noticed that we didn't have any queens (he also said something about it being "illegal" to ship ant queens around the US of A). 

Types of ants minibook (PDF)

The Eldest reassured us that the ants would work hard during the night- and we might even wake to find a tunnel or two. He was right.

I can't wait to see what tommorrow will bring in the ant farm arena. In the meantime, I overheard Prophet conversing with a friend. "What have you been doing?" her friend asked.

"Oh, ballet.... and I'm an ant farmer now," Prophet confided, adding, "It's really hard work."

"Why? What do you have to do that's so hard?" asked her friend.

"I have to watch the ants," replied Prophet. "I have to watch them A LOT....."

An unexpected camellia nature study.

 Gnome and Prophet ran into the house and dropped two handfuls of camellias into my lap. I put the workbooks away and opened my mind to the teachable moment in hand. 

"The queen of the winter flowers, the camellia...." I wondered how her leaves helped her bear the cold weather. Prophet noted that she was the "only pink outside" during the cold. 

"And she always makes flowers when we have snow!" piped Prophet, pleased with her own observation. We agreed that this might mean camellia's blooms were signalled and started by a certain a cold temperature. 

Gnome pointed to the buds.

"One bud is more open than the other," I observed.

Quickly, Gnome pressed her fingertip against the slightly open bud.

Prophet arranged the two buds side by side for a closer look.

How are the petals held together? We answered our question by carefully removing the little cup at the base of the bloom- the part that connected the stem to the flower. The Eldest warned us that our actions would make the bloom "flimsy". 

Our bloom did appear more flimsy from the underside without its basket.

All the looking led us to imagining how the flower would look without its "eye", or the pistil and the stamen at the center. Gnome did the honors of plucking off the petals. Prophet joined the fun. 

 Soon, a pile of pretty petals sat next to the flower parts on the white paper.

The girls wanted to put the camellia back together. I figured it was a great opportunity to review the flower parts in a way that engaged multiple forms of intelligence.

They worked so hard. Gnome concluded, "Mommy, the flower was perfect- we's can't make it perfect like that." If they learned only one thing from our experience, I figured this little lesson was the one to keep.

Since the Eldest had already explored the parts of the camellia, I found a free pamphlet from the Alabama Cooperative Extension which offered a detailed explanation of this winter bloom. 

The Culture of Camellias: The State Flower of Alabama (PDF)

He pored through it and made a list of questions about information in the text. He also determined that the specimen in question was the Kate Mallory, as described in the pamphlet.

Leaf miners nature study: Our discovery of serpentine mines.

It was Prophet who led us to our study of leaf mining insects. Prophet tends to express dismay over what she calls the "ugly leaves" with all the holes and "messy places" on them. I usually stifle a laugh- mostly at the fact that the word "messy" is one she uses negatively, amusing in light of her perpetually-messy mom. And then, I usually look for a segue into something else...

"Let's find out why some leaves have holes in them- and why some leaves get brown blotches," I ventured. The gypsies were game.

They collected as many blotchy or "hole-y" leaves as they could find. We sifted through each leaf, trying to decide what had caused its particular variations. It was hard to ignore the fantastic constrast of textures and webbing in the leaves. I imagined fabrics comprised of similar patterns.

Holding up the leaves against the light helped us see the serpentine mines, distinguished for the way in which they undulated like a precipitous mountain road. The Eldest thought he saw a few blotch mines as well, which he noted, alongside my dissent.

As we sat in the front yard surveying our leaf miners, a gregarious cardinal perched on the fence nearby. He cocked his head to one side and narrowed his little black eye. 

Flipping the leaves, peering closely at the possible miners, we found a hard white crescent along an underside leaf vein. The Eldest seemed certain it was a leaf miner pupa. Certainty, I reminded him, requires corroboration. And corroboration would have to wait until later in the day. 

Prophet wondered about the "dark places" around the holes. The Eldest wasted no time in guessing that the brown spaces were correlated with the mines in the leaves. Or, in his words, "the leaf is being starved of nutrients and is dying in those places because the leaf miners pig out on all the nutrients."

After observing the mined leaves, nature journals came out. Gnome treated her nature study journal with the utmost care, tracing leaves as the Eldest recorded his thoughts ("I like to pretend my eye is a microscope," he explained.)

We talked about why sketching the outline and contour of the leaf required different tools than filling in the colors and shades.

And we pondered the size of these tiny creatures that find their nourishment between the upper and lower surfaces of a the cell walls within a paper-thin leaf. I marveled, aloud, at how the leaf miner leaves his life's itinerary on the surface of a leaf, each one as unique as the creature that created it.

The Eldest found the contour lines of this leaf particularly compelling. It was the prospect of trying to replicate all the amazing interior patterns and veins that intimidated us.

Out came the colored pencils and watercolor paints- we agreed there was no way to capture the intricate details with watercolors alone- hence the pencils- but also that the uniform tone of the leaves would benefit from a watercolor wash at the end.

The Eldests' watercolor impression of his serpentine mine leaf.

Mining a fallow field for stories.

The ordinary response to atrocities is to banish them from consciousness.... Certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud: this is the meaning of the word "unspeakable".... Atrocities, however, refuse to be buried....Remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are prerequisites for the restoration of the social order and for the healing of individual victims.... When the truth is finally recognized, survivors can begin their recovery. But far too often secrecy prevails, and the story of the traumatic event surfaces not as a verbal narrative but as a symptom....

Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery, 1992

Yesterday, the Eldest and I sat on the damp grass, writing in our nature journals- his eyes locked on a story he was telling about henbit. But the henbit didn't interest me, not enough, not really. I wrestled with the words that lay sleeping. The colors of the storm-drained day forced me to seek the life around me, to push against the temptation of laziness and lack of color, strain my eyes to find the green on the field.

I turned quietly to the Eldest for inspiration. His nature journaling was notable for its flow state. I felt suddenly self-conscious- the laggard in the long line of people excited about the goal behind the waiting. Why was the wonder absent? How could I retrieve it? 

Nevermind that the attempt to control wonder- to force it to the surface- fails for its willed desperation. It's the babies we most want to conceive- the ones that we intend to fit into the perfect plans for our lives- that give us grief for their refusal to arrive upon demand.

I remember lying on the king-sized bed and talking to my eggs. "Look guys," I said, hoping the Eldest would not overhear, "your job is to get fertilized and give me that baby we want so badly." Ultimately, the conversation ended badly. I didn't get pregnant for another eight months- exactly three weeks after I'd given up on getting pregnant. Prophet, whom I'd hoped to will into existence, eluded me so long as my desperate pursuit retained the aura of a supplication.

I'm the kind of person that fears those moments in which I can't find the story that ties the room together. Like the Dude, I need the rug, my woven waft of words, to anchor everything else.

The uncharmed moments- the ones that don't "speak" to me- ruin plans and turn delight into drudgery. Like a woman holding a grocery-store corn cob, whose perfect rows of kernels add a foreign presence to the kitchen, it seems all there is left for me to do is to add water and boil it. But what's the point of adding to heat to an unhusked object? How am I different from a tool when my only task is to push the right button?

Judith Herman's insights into the transformative, liberating power of narrative resonate with me. For it's not only trauma that requires narrative liberation- the cycles and rhythms of everyday life bud and bloom best when untangled through stories. Yet, we dread the presumed price of honesty, weighing it against our self-concept and pride. I assume being "myself" means being the self I have known and recognized for all these years. I find excuses to keep from telling the stories that threaten this static, unchanged self. 

"I move to keep things whole," Mark Strand reminds me. The true story of a self can only be a quest, a tale in which the protagonist changes and adapts, acquiring the traits discovered in leaves and creatures along the path. Being dedicated to a story about an unchanged self generates its own forms of trauma- the trauma of living in the past and never marveling over how those lines suddenly appeared around my eyes. Under the circumstances, all that matters is getting rid of those lines that make me look "older". Being physically "young" becomes part of the story I tell about the past self, the only one I can love enough to narrate. 

"I move to keep things whole."

So read my nature journal entry for yesterday's 45-minute observation period. The Eldest covered four pages, front and back, with scribbles and scrawls about sapsucker marks on trees and the perfect seeding method of tulip trees. I settled for six words.

But those six words reminded me of the story I continue to observe in the social ecology of American family life- a story woven of many strands, one that looks different enough to obscure the shared loom, the common threads. Maybe the only stories worth telling are the ones that lead us into a livable present. Maybe the only wonder worth engaging is the kind that creeps up on us, uninvited, and reveals the leaf miner at the heart of the leaf. 

DIY beautiful birds lapbook.

The birds hover, chatter, and twitter all over the yard. Spring looks to be settling in early this year. And we've been working hard on our Beautiful Birds lapbook.

The Eldest's illustration of Emily's Dickinson's bird poem.

For the lapbook pages made by yours truly, just right-click to download in PDF format.

BEAUTIFUL BIRDS LAPBOOK COVER PAGE 
The girls colored the page and then we labelled the parts of the funky bird.

NEST BOOK 
The girls cut and colored the little book about nests. We used watercolor scraps to make a pocket.

BIRD SONGS BOOKLET 
Used to color and collage in lapbook where blank spaces arise.

TEACUP BIRD FEEDERS INSERTS

BIRD COLORING PAGE from Mr. Printables
Imagining different shapes as part of birds. 

I made a few booklets about feathers, beaks, and feet to contrast the different types found in varying species. We discussed how habitats and food requirements are related to body parts. Then we added them to the right edge of the lapbook with our trusty stapler.

I don't remember where I found this nest and egg printable, but we used it to observe the difference in egg coloring across bird species.

Free printable tree and shrub nature notebook page.

Just right click and save to download this PDF version of my doodled notebook page.

TREE AND SHRUB OBSERVATION NATURE NOTEBOOK PAGE

Eastern gray squirrel nature study.

Squirrel (PDF)

While the Princess, the Gnome, and the Prophet worked on making a squirrel lapbook, the Eldest did some squirrel-watching in the backyard. He was thrilled to declare having witnessed a gray squirrel unburying a nut or acorn.

FREE SQUIRREL LAPBOOK MATERIALS
Cover Page: Squirrel collage craft (Learn Create Love)
Eastern gray squirrel tracks (Exploring Nature)
Squirrels and their habitats lapbook pages (Homeschool Share)
Tale of Squirrel Nutkin with copywork (Classical Writing)
Squirrel coloring page (Activity Village)
Squirrel field guide (Backyard Nature)
Squirrel acrostic (Activity Village)
Squirrel family worksheet (Backyard Nature)
Squirrel observation lesson plan (Exploring Nature)

Given the rather elevated level of some lapbook materials, the girls had some help and contribution from the male in the pack. We talked about our local squirrel species being the gray squirrel, a particularly suburban creature that buries its nuts separately. Then the Eldest created a page for his nature journal featuring the Eastern gray squirrel, or Sciurus carolinensis. 

Befriending the handsome blue spruce.

The Eldest called this one almost immediately. "Hey mom," he said, as we strolled through the snow, "there's a blue spruce...."

 Blue spruce cones look like paper flowers.

The blue spruce is native to central Colorado, and it's fruit is a light chestnut-brown papery cone with scales slightly round-toothed at tip. The cones, for us, made the identification easiest.

A member of the pine family, Picea pungens is rather "pungent" and fragrant when the evergreen needles are crushed between fingers or clasped within tiny fists.

The needles are sharp pointed and extend at right angles all around twig. If misidentification occurs, it is usually mistaken for an Engelmann spruce.

Blue spruce identification (PDF)

TREES AND SHRUBS NATURAL JOURNAL PAGE (PDF)

The blue spruce's bark is light to dark gray and made-up of thin scales. You can tell the particular specimen is an older friend if wide, thick ridges are present. The wider, thick-ridged bark marks the sort of Wise Tree worth sitting and ponderizing beneath.

Fortunately, one of the girls slipped a blue spruce cone into her coat pocket and it managed to travel- unnoticed- all the way back to Alabama, where it now sits on the mantle.

A picnic with prairie dogs in Texas.

Perhaps unduly inspiring by Pat Metheny and Pat Lyles' musical suggestions, we stopped for lunch in the town of Wichita Falls, Texas. After scoring some tex-mex take-out, a nearby park- and the prospect of basking in sunshine- caught our eye. So everyone clambered out of the spaceship, sleeping bag in tow, to plop down on the prickly grass and fight with the Texas wind over our sauces and napkins.

A few feet away stood a prairie dog enclosure, where at least twenty prairie dogs took turns scurrying, singing, and then quickly scooting back into one of those many tunnels in the ground. 

This fellow could not stop singing a song to warn others of our arrival.

As a keystone species, the prairie dog is a critical little friend- one which other species in an ecosystem largely depend upon, such that if it were removed the ecosystem would change drastically. Keystone species usually have at least 170 other living species that depend on their existence. Though the prairie dog appears small and furry, it is a big player on the local scene.

While filling in his nature journal, Max discovered a few questions, most of them centered on whether or not the prairie dog burrows out of his designated park pen. The King and I assured Max that there must be netting to prevent this, since no city park would allow animals to run wild or loose on the nearby baseball field or playground. 

But Max didn't believe us. We laughed and reminded ourselves how much fun it is to have a wild, roving imagination. Max wandered off into the close field, claiming to observe trees and shrub specimens. 

"I like these tunnels," said Milla.

So you can imagine our surprise to hear him shout:

"Look Mom and Dad! Here are prairie dog tunnels! I TOLD you they would burrow their way out of that pen!"

Sure enough, the captive prairie dogs managed to create a vast network of burrows outside their designated city park habitat. No net could be placed deep enough to keep them from burrowing beneath it. The little folks marveled over the handsome prairie dog that peeped out from a burrow, only to disappear upon our approach.

Burrows outside the prairie dog pen.

Micah gazes across the field in search of more prairie dog heads.

Our picnic lunch taught us unexpected lessons about the dogged persistence of the burrowing prairie dog. Of course, Max deserves credit for opening our eyes to think outside the cage that is the box of conventional assumptions.

Life in a Prairie Dog Town printable

Prairie Dogs Handouts 
created and used on our journey.