A Hidden Habitat

I haven't written on this blog for a very long time now... almost 5 years now. In fact, I haven't written much at all in the past year. But, I miss it, so I may try keeping up with this blog again, if I can find the time.

Hannah is wrapping up her freshman year at the local high school, which Ben will also attend when he is a freshman next year. Becca is finishing 6th grade, and Kayla will actually be old enough for kindergarten next year!

I have been furthering my own education a bit as well. In the fall, I completed classes to become an Ohio Certified Volunteer Naturalist (OCVN), and this spring, I attended the Environmental Education Council of Ohio (EECO) annual conference. I have loved nature education since I was in college and worked at the Philadelphia Zoo. Though my certification was in Social Studies Secondary Education, I always had a longing to teach about nature and wildlife. Because of this passion, I have been volunteering a lot at our local nature center. I recently helped with a 5-week nature journaling program for 4th graders at an urban elementary school, and I will be assisting with many field trips at the nature center this spring. I love it!

I have also been incorporating even more environmental education into our homeschooling. This week, Ben had to take the state Geometry test on two separate mornings as part of his preparation for entering high school. The beautiful weather inspired me to take the rest of the school day outdoors.

We walked around our property and talked about nature - what we saw and what we wondered about. Becca kept dashing around looking under rocks and logs for red-backed salamanders, which we find all over our property. She did find a few, including this large gray one and one that measured only an inch from head to tail.

As we rounded the "hairpin," as the kids call the sharp bend in the walking path around our property, we glanced at all of the logs in various stages of decay next to the path. "Hey," I told her, "you should see if you can flip one of those really rotting logs and see what you find underneath." The log ended up being so rotten that it pulled apart instead of turning over.

 First, we noticed patches of white fungus spread across the inside of the log.

As we looked closer, we began to see even more signs of life: a tiny mushroom, a spider web and a small brown spider, myriads of tunnels with reddish brown ants scurrying through them, a salamander, a centipede, a beetle, and five or six of these beautifully colored millipedes. An entire miniature ecosystem lay hidden within an old log on the forest floor.

We decided to examine the millipedes a little more closely before returning them safely to their

rotting log. We learned that they are called Euryurus leachii, or Leach's millipede, and they primarily live in decaying hardwoods. Apparently, they even glow under a black light, though we didn't have the opportunity to test that out.

Becca, in particular, seemed to love this investigation. She and I talked about all of the things she had found, as we walked back toward the house. She wanted to find some way to demonstrate what she had learned. At first, she mentioned drawing a picture, but then we discussed other ways she could model the hidden habitat we had discovered. When we got inside, she instantly collected her craft supplies and got to work. I love her final results!

On the outside/front, she used green yarn to create a soft bed of moss with patches of bark showing through. She added a turkey tail fungus to the edge.

The front flips up to reveal the inside of the log, where she drew a millipede, ants and their tunnels, a centipede, a worm, a spider and a web, a mushroom, and streaks of white fungus.

I look forward to doing even more nature exploring with the kids in the future. I am amazed at how much we can learn when we begin to ask questions and look beneath the surface of what we see.  Just as we had to peel back the layers of the log to see the hidden world inside, we can also discover hidden realms of knowledge by just taking the time to stop and dig a little deeper into the world around us.

City Mice, Country Mice

This school year so far has slightly resembled the fable "The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse."

In August, when school began, we lived in a smallish brick home on a busy street in the city. For recess each day, the kids played outside in our small backyard, with strict instructions to never leave our property or get too close to the road. They quickly tired of playing in the small yard and yearned for more freedom - freedom I could not grant because of the neighborhood in which we lived.

At the end of September, we moved into our new home, on 5 acres of land in the middle of the country. The kids roam the property, playing in and out of the woods, leaping over the small stream, never tiring of playing and exploring.

Hannah has named her favorite trees, and she constantly shows me interesting bugs she finds. The first day, Hannah excitedly brought me a giant leopard moth caterpillar, and this weekend, we laughed together at the dancing of a colony of beech blight aphids on a tree branch. We also found a particularly odd cluster of bugs, which we finally identified as adult and nymph oak tree hoppers. And, this evening, Becca discovered a walking stick in the living room as she headed up to bed. The kids love looking up and identifying all of the interesting species of bugs.

Of course, the one type of bug none of them like is spiders, particularly the wolf spiders which keep coming into our home. Yesterday, Hannah picked up her sneaker and a large one fell out, and today, one kept creeping out from under the wall in the school room as we worked. Josh finally caught that one this evening and relocated it to the barn, hoping that might keep it from returning to the house.

We also all enjoy seeing wildlife we rarely or never saw in the city - dozens of deer, chipmunks, squirrels, blue jays, cardinals, sparrows, nuthatches, chickadees, Carolina wrens, tufted titmice, downy woodpeckers, and red-bellied woodpeckers. Two mornings, we even had a great blue heron land in the yard! And, this is only autumn. I cannot imagine all of the birds and animals that will be here in the summer! Hannah has been begging to work on her bird project again, creating her own bird guide for all of the different birds she sees. I love that all of this nature and beauty surrounding us inspires them to want to learn.

(See the deer in that photo? I am amazed at how well they blend in, especially in the evening.)

We have definitely had to adjust quite a bit to living in the country, but we love it. My kids (and I) may be "city mice," but unlike the mouse in Aesop's fable, we feel perfectly at home in the country and have no desire to go back. This city mouse would rather be a country mouse any day!

A Creepy, Cool Bug

A few nights ago, I walked onto our porch to put cans in the recycling bin and noticed a strange looking bug on the screen. I called Josh to come look, and he captured the bug in a little bug cage to show the kids.

The kids squealed in fear, and I must admit that the bug looked quite dangerous. About an inch and a half long, it had a long, pointy tube on its back end with another thorn-like point above it. It looked like a very large wasp with two stingers, though I suspected it might use the long tube for laying eggs and not for stinging.

After some creative googling, we identified the species. It was indeed a wasp, though it was a wood-boring wasp and not a stinging one. In fact, this species could do more damage to local trees than to us, though we figured that out after we released it... The bug we found was a "pigeon horntail." It uses its long, slender ovipositor (that scary looking tube) to deposit its eggs into the wood of trees and then infects the trees with fungi in order to soften the wood for its larvae to eat. I hope that this particular pigeon horntail decided to lay its eggs in someone else's trees...

Anyway, after watching it for a few minutes, we let it go in our bushes. I did get one good picture of it, before it flew at me and I screamed and jumped away despite knowing that it could not do me any harm. It certainly looked intimidating!

Later that night, Hannah was excited to find the pigeon horntail listed in her little bug guide in her room. I actually enjoyed examining and learning more about it, even though I panicked just a bit at the thought of it landing on me... What a creepy and cool bug!

Bugs at School, Bugs at Home

For those who do not already know, we had some tough educational decisions to make this year. Our elementary school received a low rating on the state report card two years in a row, which qualified Hannah to apply for a voucher to attend the private school of our choice. She would only be eligible this year going into kindergarten, however. Otherwise, she would have to attend the public school for a year before she could apply. As we have no interest in sending her to a failing school, this would be our only year to consider this option.

Before we found out about the vouchers, I had often told my friends that a certain private school in our town (From here on out, let's just call it "Private School" since I'd rather not post my child's elementary school on the internet!) would be the only school that would make me consider not homeschooling. I love the learning style and I had a feeling that Hannah would thrive there. Hannah also seems a little socially immature at times, so I thought that interacting a bit more with other kids her age would be beneficial for her. So, we applied, and she got the last place open in kindergarten. We officially received the voucher in August, and she started school last week.

Of course, I felt nervous about sending her off to full-day kindergarten after having her home with me for almost 6 years. But, we love her teacher so far. (We'll call her "Ms. K.") The evening after the first day of school, I received this email from her:

"Just a note to let you know how much I enjoyed being with Hannah on the first day of Kindergarten! She is just a sweetie! She is also my number one bug finder! I love a girl that loves bugs---since I am not a big fan of the creepy crawly pals! She found all kinds of activities during free choice time! She loved my magnetic picture case! You can switch the picture around and use different magnetic shapes! She loves to investigate! How cool is that! We will work on the bathroom routines so she doesn't spend too much time---although even in there you can hear her singing and being happy! She is a doll and I am just so happy to get to know her! :)"

How could I not love a teacher who has figured out after only one day how much Hannah loves bugs?!

Apparently, Hannah can locate every spider web, earthworm hangout, and wasp nest at the school. They had their first library day on Tuesday, and of course, she brought home a Zoobook magazine about insects. She told me that she loves bugs more than any other animal. In fact, she squealed with delight when I accidentally stumbled across a page that identified the strikingly pretty bug that was crawling up her arm in the garden last month. She begged to see picture after picture of the somewhat uncommon Whitecrossed Seed Bug.

Then, this morning, Hannah got up early for school and was ready to go a bit early. We put her backpack in the car and walked out to the garden to inspect the vegetables for a few minutes. As we turned to head back to the car, something white and dew-drenched caught Hannah's attention.

"Mama," she asked, "is this a spider web?"

I looked at the web and replied, "Yes, and see the cool shape? It's called a Funnel Web Spider, because it makes this web in the shape of a funnel."

Hannah bent down very close to the web to study it in more detail just as a tiny bug snagged itself in the sticky threads. Suddenly, a pretty brown spider, about the size of a lima bean, rushed from the hole to see what had disturbed his web. Hannah jumped up and down and shrieked excitedly, gushing on and on about the amazing spider and how he raced out of his web into her face.

I checked my watch and hurried Hannah to the car so we would not be late. The entire way to school, she chattered about the spider, exclaiming that she would tell her teacher and principal all about it as soon as she got to school.

I am not exactly sure how a child of mine learned to love bugs so wholeheartedly. I do not especially like spiders or bees in my house or too close to me when I am outside, but I do think that they are interesting and often very beautiful. I typically prevent the kids from killing bugs when they are outside in their own habitat, though I do kill most bugs in our home. And, I am the one who purchased the Audubon bug guides in order to learn about the many bugs we have seen, so I guess I would say that I have a healthy appreciation for them. But not like Hannah - I think she is in love! Perhaps she will be an entomologist someday... At the very least, I know she will never be an exterminator!

Good News from "Bad Bugs"

During the kids' nap times today, I went outside to work in my garden. I often use this quiet time of the day to do a bit of weeding and check on all of my plants. Today, I noticed what appeared to be a large red wasp buzzing around my summer squash. At first, I avoided it, as I am rather afraid of wasps and bees, but then I remembered reading about a common garden pest that looks like a wasp but is actually a moth. When it landed at the base of a squash plant and began to deposit its eggs, I realized unhappily that it was, in fact, the dreaded squash vine borer.

I chased it away repeatedly, its resemblance to a wasp making me afraid to kill it with my bare hands, even though I knew it could not hurt me. Finally, after the moth left for good, I returned inside to read a little about eradicating these bugs from my garden. Armed with photos, a bit of knowledge, a box cutter, and a pair of tweezers, I went back to the side garden ready to do battle to save my plants. I do not really mind if the borers get the zucchini, since I doubt those plants will produce any fruit this year, but I definitely do not want to lose my pumpkins or my butternut squash. I had read that the butternut is resistant to the vine borers, but that pumpkins are very susceptible to being damaged by them.

When I reached the garden, I began examining the base of each vine. I plucked a few eggs from one of the summer squash, but I could not find any on the other plants. Then, I noticed what I had hoped I would not find - a small hole near the base of my only healthy pumpkin vine. I debated whether I should operate on the plant and risk killing it if I were wrong, but I decided that leaving a vine borer inside the plant would be worse than cutting it open a bit. I carefully sliced open the vine, beginning at the hole, and removed a fat, squirming vine borer from the stem.

I checked a little further down and could not find any more of the caterpillars. I shoveled a few scoops of damp soil over the cut stem and over a few of the leaf joints on the vine, where I knew the plant had been putting down auxiliary roots. Hopefully, the plant will survive the surgery, since I caught the bug before any damage had occurred.

Next, I examined the other squash plants in my garden and removed a smaller borer from a zucchini plant. The rest of the plants appeared to be okay.

When Hannah came downstairs from her quiet time in her room, I showed her the picture I took of the squash vine borers, and I brought her outside to look at the plants. I explained that just one tiny caterpillar could kill an entire plant. Together, we checked, but could not find any more of the "bad bugs" as Hannah called them.

After we returned to the house, I pulled out my Bible and read Genesis 3:17-19:

"To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,' Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return."

I shared with Hannah that bugs and weeds and powdery mildew and other garden ailments are all part of the curse, the punishment put on the earth because of the Fall. I explained that our sin has caused the difficulties we have in producing food from the land, but that God still blesses us and allows us to eat the fruit of our labor. And, He often gives us an abundance, well more than we need, though it does not come without effort. Furthermore, we can rejoice in the good news that we are redeemed and sin no longer defines us. Instead, we have hope for a future "in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal" (Matthew 6:20). And that is the Good News we can learn from "bad bugs."

Summer in the Garden

Apparently, I am too busy in the summer to update my blog much. We have traveled and played and camped and explored, and through it all, we have learned. The overarching theme of this summer, however, has been gardening.

At the beginning of last school year, I wrote out a wonderful plan of all of the units and activities I would do with the kids that year. In reality, we did more informal units, based around their interests and activities, while focusing on reading, writing, and math. One of the last units I had planned for the year was "plants and seeds," and I felt disappointed that we never studied it. Then, a few weeks ago, I realized that we have completed nearly the entire unit in the course of our summer gardening adventures. And, the kids likely learned more from their hands-on experience than they would have learned from formal instruction.

Our project began with the construction of a 4'x8' raised bed garden in our backyard.

Josh used a rented sod-cutter to remove the grass, while bug-loving Hannah rescued earthworms and white grubs from the dirt below.

Then, we measured, cut, and assembled the boards, and Josh gave each child, including Becca, a turn to help him drill holes for the screws.

Finally, we filled the box with topsoil, compost, and peat moss, and planted vegetable transplants and seeds.

Because the sod-cutter was so easy to use, we decided to create a second 4'x12' garden next to the garage.

We planted a lot of veggies throughout the summer: slicing tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, green/red bell peppers, sweet orange peppers, cucumbers, pole beans, purple and yellow onions, red and orange carrots, turnips, broccoli, romaine, zucchini, summer squash, butternut squash, and pumpkins. The kids have helped me plant and harvest and weed and have seen tiny seedlings develop into large and bushy plants, covered in ripening vegetables.

Romaine:

Tomatoes:

Pepper:

Onions:

Cucumber:

Broccoli:

Pole Beans:

In addition to this experiential education, the kids and I have read several books to complement what they are learning. One of their favorite books, Muncha Muncha Muncha, has taken on new meaning to them, in light of them having their own garden. They have become much more sympathetic to poor Mr. McGreely, who keeps losing his vegetables, and they dislike the "bad bunnies" who keep stealing them. They also love the book The Carrot Seed, in which a little boy plants a carrot seed and cares for it, even though everyone tells him that the seed won't come up. In the end, of course, a huge carrot comes up and proves everyone else wrong.

Finally, our Bible times have reflected our gardening theme as well. The kids' new knowledge of gardening helped them understand two parables on a deeper level then they have in the past - the parable of the sower and the parable of the weeds. Isn't it amazing how Jesus uses common experiences and objects to explain his Kingdom, so ordinary people, even children, can begin to comprehend the mysteries of faith and eternity?

I do not think I could have planned a better unit on seeds and plants! I may pull out a few of the worksheets I have from a science book I purchased, but overall, I am amazed at what my children have learned this summer simply by being included in my gardening project. I think this is further proof that "Learning is Life."

My Girly Entomologist

Remember my bug-loving little girl from last summer? Well, this weekend at the cabin, she found a few tent caterpillars, though not the hundreds we found last May. Like last year, she fell in love with them and played with them all weekend. This year was a bit different, though...

Last year, Hannah was content to keep the caterpillars in a fishbowl with a bunch of leaves and let them crawl on her hands and arms. This year, she decided that the first caterpillar she found was her pet and that he really wanted to play with her all day long.

She began by pushing him around in the little doll carriage.

She was thrilled that he grabbed the little doll rattle with his feet. "Look, mama!" she yelled. "He wants to play with it!"

Then, she tried to feed him a leaf in the high chair.

She decided that he would be happier if the whole doll house were full of leaves.

Then, she put him down for a nap.

I felt bad for the poor caterpillar and tried to convince her that she was killing him with all of her attention. She just insisted that he could not live without her! After two days of this, the caterpillar "escaped" while she was looking at the stream. Hannah was quite distraught, until she found another caterpillar a few hours later and started again...

Releasing the Babies

We released our praying mantis babies today! I opened the cup, scattered the babies in our bushes, and laid the egg on a lower branch. We marveled at how well they blended into the leaves and twigs, and then the kids ran off to play...

Beginning to crawl out of the cup:

In the bushes:

The egg case in the bush:

Spring Science Update

Just a brief update on our spring science projects...

The flowers are continuing to grow. We will probably plant them in the garden sometime in the next two weeks.

A week or so ago:

Today:


And, this afternoon, I glanced over at the praying mantis egg on our mantle and noticed what appeared to be movement. I jumped up to examine it and discovered this:


We have babies! We cannot catch aphids to feed them, so we will have to release them tomorrow. I am afraid the birds in our bushes will have a feast, but we see many praying mantises in those bushes each year, so hopefully a few will survive and grow. They should blend in quite well with the branches on the bushes, so that should protect them somewhat as long as they are still. The kids were very excited!

Springtime Science

Last summer, we raised and released butterflies. This year, with Ben's birthday coming up, I began browsing through an Insect Lore catalog that came in the mail and stumbled across the perfect present. It arrived yesterday.

I quickly removed it from the box and told Ben that it was an early birthday present. "What is it?" Ben asked. Becca excitedly yelled, "Yuck! It's a poop!"

"No," I laughed. "It's a praying mantis egg case." I explained that in a few weeks, one or two hundred tiny praying mantises would emerge from the egg and we would release them in our yard. We already find quite a few in our bushes each spring, so I know this is a good habitat for them, and maybe they will keep pests out of the vegetable garden I am planning.

After the kids oohhhed and ahhhed for a while, they lost interest in the odd-looking brown object, and it currently sits on our mantle waiting for signs of life...

Additionally, as I shopped, I discovered another wonderful project that I remembered fondly from my days as a zoo educator. The catalog sold owl pellet dissection kits, which were somewhat pricey, but it also listed individual owl pellets. Because of my experience with these in the past, I knew I could just buy the pellets and use tweezers and magnifying glasses we already had at home. I ordered two pellets.

My parents recently lent us an old book called Character Sketches, which uses Scripture and animals to teach character qualities. Though it is designed for older children and some of the ideas are a little outdated, it provides a helpful resource for encouraging character in my kids. The first animal in the book happened to be the Great Horned Owl.

When the pellets arrived, I began by reading a bit of the information on owls from the book, and we talked a little about putting others needs ahead of our own convenience, which the owl's nesting habits demonstrate. Then, I told the kids how owls swallow their prey mostly whole but cannot digest the bones and fur. An owl's body creates a lump of bones and fur as it digests the mouse or other animal, and then it spits out the pellet onto the ground. I showed them the small (dried and disinfected) pellets I had purchased. Unfortunately, I had forgotten that removing the tiny bones from the dried pellets was very delicate and tedious work. They watched for a while, and then I finished the job while they played, coming over at various points to look at the different bones I found.

We found a lot of bones in the two pellets, likely from one tiny and two larger rodents.


We found quite a few ribs and vertebrae:


Some leg bones:


And a couple of nice skulls with the teeth:


I had one full skull, but I accidentally stepped on it when I was taking pictures on the porch and Ben kept slamming the door...

Finally, the kids were very excited yesterday because the flowers they planted at the cabin are beginning to sprout. They can't wait until they are big enough to plant outside.


So I guess yesterday was spring science day! We covered insects and their life cycles, owls and their eating habits, and plants and seeds. The kids thought yesterday was just a lot of fun!