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.

Spring, Sweet Spring

Suddenly, this past weekend, the lamb of spring arrived and chased away the lion of winter. In fact, after such a snowy winter, this March has been remarkably mild. On Saturday, the sun shone and a warm breeze blew, rapidly melting the large piles of snow and transforming the landscape into a mess of muddy ponds and tiny leaf-filled streams. Even the first tiny crocuses appeared in the only part of my garden not blanketed with snow.

On such a beautiful day, the annual Maple Sugar Festival lured us out of our house to brave the crowds at Malabar Farm. We were fortunate enough to arrive early and get parking, since they had to close most of their parking due to the mud and turn many cars away. After quite a long wait in the mud, we finally reached the front of the line for the wagon ride up the road to the festival.

As we climbed into the wagon, the assistant asked if Hannah and Ben would like to ride up front with the driver. They loved it!

In spite of all the mud and snow, the kids enjoyed trekking from station to station, learning about maple syrup. A Native American man explained how the first people in this area processed the sap to make sugar.

Using sticks as tongs, he removed very hot rocks from a fire and placed them into a log trough filled with sap. This kept the sap boiling, evaporating the water and leaving the sugar behind. The kids enjoyed smelling the steam, with its appetizing cotton candy scent.

The next station demonstrated how early settlers in this area made maple syrup and maple sugar.

Afterward, each person could taste a tiny amount of maple sugar.

Finally, we visited the "Sugar Shack," where they still make maple syrup today.

Inside, a large vat full of sap simmered and boiled, as steam billowed up to the ceiling and out through the vents.

The kids look forward to this part each year, because, after waiting patiently for the end of the presentation, everyone got a small taste of fresh maple syrup.

Before we left, we purchased our yearly gallon of maple syrup and a few maple candies, and then we rode one of the horse-drawn wagons back to our car.

Although the kids wailed and yawned and squabbled from exhaustion the whole ride home, we all had a wonderful day together. We look forward to the Maple Sugar Festival each year as one of the sweetest signs of the coming of spring. Well... perhaps with the exception of those first lovely flowers!

O Christmas Tree

On Saturday, we made our annual trek to a local Christmas tree farm to cut our Christmas tree. Josh and I have done this together since we were engaged, and our children make this tradition even more fun! A few years ago, we found a new farm after the old nursery stopped allowing people to cut their own trees, and although this farm is a bit farther away from our house, the trees have remained fresh and beautiful much longer. My family always had an artificial tree, so I take extra delight in the festive fragrance of fresh evergreen that fills my home each Christmas season.

After arriving at the farm (which we located much more easily this year with the help of our GPS), we parked near the Douglas firs and began searching for the perfect tree to bring home with us.

Some years, we struggle to find a tree we all love, but this year, we ended up choosing the first tree we saw. We dutifully looked around at other trees, but ultimately, we returned to the first tree that caught our eye.

Of course, we had to have a family photo in front of the tree! First, facing the sun (oops):

And then, with the sun behind the tree - much better!

After all of the required pictures, Josh began cutting down the tree.

This year, he did not even need my help. The tree had some bare space near the trunk at the bottom, which helped, as did the lack of snow on the ground this time. In past years, we have unwittingly timed our tree-cutting with the biggest early snowfall of the season, which makes for lovely pictures, but less than ideal cutting and driving conditions!

Hannah and Ben "helped" Josh drag the tree back to the car, and then I assisted in squeezing the 8-foot Douglas fir into our minivan.

We tied down the back door of the van, paid for our tree, loaded the kids into two separate cars, and began our journey home. We had to stop once on the way home to retie the back so the tree would not fall out while we were driving, but we made good time and got the tree set up before dinner.

We had a wonderful day together as a family, and we hope to decorate the tree soon as well. Finding four working strands of lights has proved to be a more daunting and time-consuming task than getting our tree! But, with Josh on the job, we should have a lovely, decorated tree by this weekend. Only 16 more days until Christmas!

Vacation in Bar Harbor

How can I summarize a wonderful 11-day vacation in just a short blog entry? I will do my best, but I can only share the highlights of our trip to my favorite place on earth...

Josh surprised me this summer by planning a vacation to Bar Harbor, ME and Acadia National Park. We honeymooned there, and I absolutely love it! We went one other time, when Hannah was only 8 months old, but we could not do as much with an infant. This time, Josh suggested that we stay in a large cabin and bring along his mom, to help out with the kids and even give us a chance to get out alone once or twice. We ended up having a wonderful time!

Of course, a trip to a national park is both fun and educational at the same time. I bought the kids two books while we were there: Discovering Acadia: A Guide for Young Naturalists and Who Pooped in the Park? Acadia National park: Scat and Tracks for Kids. Hannah fell in love with them and tried to identify many plants and animals we saw. In fact, plants, animals, and the ocean became the overriding theme of the trip.

The first day, we took a whale watching boat trip out into the Atlantic Ocean. All three kids loved it! After seeing boats, puffins, and a variety of sea birds, we finally found a group of three finback whales swimming nearby. The kids squealed with delight every time they surfaced.

After a wonderful three-hour boat ride, we returned to Bar Harbor. Poor Becca was exhausted from the excitement and the cold and slept the whole way back, bundled up in a few coats to keep the wind and spray off of her face.

We also took several hikes while we were in Acadia. The kids favorite trail was Wonderland Trail near Seawall on the quiet side of the island. The first day we walked on it, the kids enjoyed stopping and looking at all of the flowers along the path.

We scrambled over rocks by the ocean, picking up shells, and enjoying the view.

Ben even saw a fox when he and I hiked a little further down the trail. He asked me about the kitty with the fluffy orange tail! We returned on a beautiful morning at low tide so we could see all of the tidal pools. The kids loved climbing from pool to pool looking for snails and crabs among the seaweed.

We also enjoyed driving Park Loop Road. One day, after a morning of heavy rain, we saw dozens of waterfalls pouring over the rocks off of the mountains.

We could even see streaks of white down the mountainsides where additional waterfalls drained away the water from the heavy rain.

Along the road, a turtle laid her eggs in the damp earth. The kids laughed excitedly as we watched her deposit several eggs into the hole.

Another day, we stopped for a late lunch/early dinner at the Jordan Pond House. After we ate, we hiked the nature trail through the woods and along the pond. We stumbled across a pair of loons. We quietly watched, afraid to breathe too loudly, lest we frighten the shy birds away. Instead, the loons swam right over towards us and then swam the length of the pond beside us, staying far enough away, but providing beautiful views. They even made their haunting calls repeatedly for us to hear. Even Becca can identify loons now!

Overall, we had a wonderful trip. I could write about all of the amazing birds we saw, from warblers to falcons to sea birds, or about the Margaret Todd, the boat the kids called a pirate ship the whole time we were there, or about the fun ice cream shop we enjoyed in downtown Bar Harbor, or about Somes Sound, the only fjord in the US other than in Alaska. But, I do not have the time or space. However, I greatly recommend Acadia National Park as one of the most beautiful and educational places on earth. It will always hold a piece of my heart!

A Sweet Adventure

A local farm hosted its annual Maple Syrup Festival this weekend. We missed last year's festival due to snow, so we made a point of attending this year. We knew the kids would love it, and we also needed to buy some more maple syrup, as the gallon we bought two years ago was beginning to run low.

We began the morning by eating pancakes with syrup, and then we headed out to the farm. A tractor drove cart-loads of people from the parking lot to the waiting area down the road. From there, several teams of draft horses pulled people in wagons back into the woods to the place where they made the maple syrup.

All along the road and on all of the paths, metal buckets hung from trees to collect the sap. Many of the buckets were full, with a thin layer of ice across the top because of the freezing nighttime temperatures.

Once we got out of the wagon, we walked through a small trail with a few stations showing the early methods of processing sugar maple sap. At the first station, people wearing period costumes and traditional Native American dress explained how Indians in the region first harvested maple sugar. They collected sap in wooden buckets and poured it into troughs carved into large logs. Then, they heated rocks in a fire and placed those rocks into the sap-filled logs. The hot rocks boiled the water and condensed the syrup, eventually leaving nothing but maple sugar. The Native Americans formed the sugar into cakes and used it on everything until their supply diminished. Unfortunately, this method left a lot of sand in the sugar, which shortened the people's lifespan by wearing down their teeth rapidly.

At the next station, women demonstrated how European settlers later used large kettles to boil down the sap and make syrup.

They needed to stir the sap frequently to prevent it from burning. Many gallons of sap are needed to make a single gallon of maple syrup.

Finally, we entered the "Sugar Shack" where they currently process their maple syrup. Steam filled the room as it evaporated constantly from a large heated vat of sap. In this more modern facility, sap comes directly through tubing that taps into the maple trees, so that people do not have to collect it from buckets every morning.

A man explained the current process of making maple syrup and gave everyone tiny samples of fresh syrup. It tasted wonderful!

After a quick picnic lunch and a stop in another small museum, we purchased some freshly made maple syrup, a piece of maple sugar candy for each of us, and a wonderful smelling maple sugar candle for our house. Once the kids settled into the warm car and the sugar rush began to wear off, they became quite drowsy and literally begged for their beds when we got home! We had a wonderful day, and the kids learned a lot. Hannah and I have already read Little House in the Big Woods together, but I think I will finish off this adventure by reading them all the two chapters from the book that describe how they made maple sugar. Overall, I would say that we had a very sweet adventure!