Blossoms and Bees

Toad Houses

After all of the planting is finished, we always have little plastic pots. The girls and I decided we'd have a little fun with them this year, and I have a feeling we will be doing this for years to come. We went outside and collected different kinds of nature things, rocks, dead tulip leaves, dandelions, buttercups, mulch (Karoline:-), etc. Then we came in and glued them to our plastic pots from our petunias. After they were finished, Karoline and Katie chose places to put them so that our toad may come and live in them. Katie put hers next to the pink roses and Karoline put hers next to the purple petunias. Katie's favorite color is pink and Karoline's purple:-).

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all photos: Mary Beth

Nature Study in the Front Yard: Petunias

Photo Credit: Mary Beth

A Dash of Pink and a Sunbeam

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I took these photos while we were planting petunias in the front bed.

~Mary Beth

Rainy Days!

I took these pictures yesterday.

 

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Some of the Springtime Pictures from the Front Yard

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bluebells in 2009

We have been spending lots of time in the bluebells lately. I am going to take pictures of the plants outside really, really soon! I really can't wait to get out there! For now I will give you some bluebell pictures that I took last week.

And look who was visiting while we were there! The beautiful Bluebell Fairy!

Stay tuned for: Springtime Flowers and pretty soon some fruit picking!

Spring Is Near!

I figured that this blog has not been touched since well...September 6th! Spring is near! I will take some pictures of some buds soon! This blog will be up and running in no time!

Rain!

It's raining! A steady, sometimes rather heavy, glorious rain. And it makes me so happy. Admittedly, part of me is happy because I was up all night with Karoline and her ridiculous penchant for cereal at 2AM and again at 5. The rain means I don't have to haul seven children and my very tired self to soccer all day today. But more than that, I hope it just rains and rains and rains for the sake of rain. It's been so dry for so long that I'm literally thirsty for this stuff falling from the sky. And then I hope it stops. Tomorrow--after canceling tomorrow's soccer games, but in time to use the gift of the day to plant pansies and mums and seriously clean up the mess that is my late summer garden.

For today, though, there will be soup to bubble on the stove and some stacks of gardening magazines to peruse. A few more "first of school" putterings will happen and time will be made just to sit in silence. And hear the rain.

Kerplink, kerplank, kerplunk!

   

Cherry picking

photo

Birthday Sunrise

Baby Praying Mantis

While just walking around in the garden we found this baby praying mantis, and other creepy crawlers.

Bluebells!

It spring! The bluebells are out and we got to them on the one sunny day we had here!!!!

Not yesterday I learned to know the love of bare November days before the coming of the snow
~Robert Frost

It doesn't seem to be quite so bare in November this year:

CATERPILLARS!!

I went out to our garden and found swallowtail catterpillars on the parsley and I came inside with them, just to find that Mrs. Rice had told us in an email to look on our parsley for exactly these caterpillers. I took a good look at them before I took them in my hand, but these little guys are completely harmless.

How to take care of them:

• Put them in a clear jar, like a mayonnaise jar.
• Stretch an old, cut pair of tights over it and secure with a rubber band.
• Give them a stick that reaches about to the top of the jar.
• Give them fresh parsley everyday.It's very cool to watch them eat.
• Everyday you need to take care of the stuff on the bottom of the jar.It's poop.
• They will spin a chrysalis, one silk thread at a time.
• At the beginning of winter, put the caterpillars in the jar in the refrigerator.
• At the beginning of spring, bring the chrysalis outside in the jar and about thirty days from then you have beautiful butterflies!
• JUST HAVE FUN WITH IT!!!!!!

 

(Photo credit to Katie Foss (age 3))

Here are some books for more reading:

The Family Butterfly Book

The Handbook of Nature Study

Do you wonder why I took such a good look at them before I touched them?

Shenandoah trip, six years ago:

Trip and Christian found two caterpillars. One was a wooly bear caterpillar. The other was a black and white wooly caterpillar with black spikes.  They caught the caterpillars for Mary Beth, who loves caterpillars. In the car, Mary Beth took the caterpillar out of the jar and let it crawl all over her hands. It was really beautiful. She put it back into the jar. About three minutes later, she started screaming. Her hands were red and puffy and they hurt her. Michael took her to the bathroom to wash her hands and Mom and MacBeth went in search of Benadryl. Libby and Michael took the caterpillar, in the jar, to the park rangers. The ranger said it was a Hickory Tussock Moth caterpillar and that some people are allergic to its hairs. Mary Beth was clearly one of those people. We gave her some medicine and went back to camp. She was pretty pitiful for a little while. Mom and MacBeth both wondered aloud exactly how far we were from a hospital.

Hummingbirds

Hummingbirds are very interesting birds, and they happen to be in our backyard. My favorite hummingbird would have to be the ruby necked hummingbird (which is one of the most common hummingbird in the United States).

Questions.

• How fast can hummingbirds fly?

Hummingbirds can beat their wing 60-200 times in a second.

• What can I do to attract hummingbirds?

You can put up a hummingbird feeder and they might come. Our feeder is red and it has sugar water in it.  We have lots of hummingbirds but we haven't been lucky catching them with the camera.

• Other then putting up a feeder what can I do?

You can plant red flowers right near the feeder or/and you can tie red ribbon to your feeder to atract them to your feeder.

• How many miles per hour can hummingbirds fly?

They can fly up to 60 mph.

I love watching the hummingbirds and these are what my brothers named the ones that visit our feeder:

• Big Girl
• Matthew
• Sam
• Mary

Goldfinches

A little info on goldfinches: Fully grown goldfinches are 4-5.5", they have a year-round black cap a stubby bill,a bright yellow underside,a white rump, and white edges on black wings. Because goldfinches move around a lot there may be times when there are no birds on the feeder. There may also be times that there are a lot of goldfinches on your plants or flowers.

Fun facts

• They are late nesters, they nest in June through September.
• They nest in hedges, bushes, and trees.
• They feed more during the spring and will feed during the whole summer.
• They lose their feathers and grow new ones twice a year, once in the spring and again in the fall after nesting season.
• They eat thistle seeds and use thistle down for their nests.
• They build thier nests up 30 feet of the ground
• Goldfinches move around a lot! You could see 25-100 different goldfinches at one feeder in the same day.

Owl Contest.

What kind of owl is each of these?

1. 2.

3.    4.

Coming Soon To Blossoms And Bees

A competition. Who knows the most owls? We only saw four, but can you name them?

Pictures coming soon!