A few notebook samples...

Up close, we found many awes of the woods...

1) Woodpeckers' work

2) tree stump turned mushroom haven

3) debarked tree branch with trails... Were these trails made by some creature underneath the bark before the bark fell off?

4) Seeds took root and there are a few tiny evergreens thriving in a little area of the woods.

5) And last, it was time to call it a good walk & head for home when the young one started taking little breaks along the trail.

As we checked out the cattails...

...the girls were trying to get a little height to show off their finds by climbing onto a log. After the photo was taken, Tara experienced what happens when you combine mud boots with wet logs! Poor thing went SPLAT, right onto her back! Thank goodness she wasn't hurt a bit. These other weed things growing in a lower area of the woods right up to the lake had us wondering... They look ramrod straight from a distance. Close up, they look like some sort of cane plant. We had never noticed plants like this before. Know what they are?

Misty walk

What a neat experience it was to do our walk on a misty day! Of course, we hadn't much choice if we were to get a nature walk in that week as we've had plenty of rain this fall. It wasn't a great day for collections, but the bag was accumulating a few things anyway. In the center of the picture with the boots is a squiggly worm, which was the focus for the moment.

Along with the Outdoor Hour Challenges, we checked out the cattails as we walked through a local park. We look forward to observing these throughout the seasons as we enjoy nature.

The kids had found a monarch caterpillar munching on a milkweed plant at a nearby nature park a couple weeks back when we were there for an outdoor supper. They gathered a few milkweed leaves for it to feed on and took it home to our butterfly 'house.' We enjoyed watching it devour those leaves for a few days and then it kind of faded into the background when the kids put the house to sit in the bushes. I had all but forgotten about the thing, basically figuring that it would a) not survive the prying of all the curious little hands and b) if it did survive that, I wasn't sure how to keep it alive long enough to go into metamorphosis, beyond giving it milkweed leaves.

Much to my surprise, a few days ago one of the girls mentioned that there's something hanging on the ceiling of the butterfly house that really looks like a chrysalis, and she can't find the caterpillar. I didn't get a chance to check it out until a bit later and lo and behold, I believe that creature is going to pull through it's changes right before our eyes. Now I wish I had taken a photo of it as a caterpillar! But here it is as it dangles above the dryed out leaves in it's 'home.' Not sure if this picture will show up very well, but you can actually see the edges of the wings forming right through that chrysalis!

Nature Study

We started our Nature Study a couple weeks ago. For now, a few pictures will have to suffice for a glance into this new venture.