Kicking off Earth day!

Helping my son understand how to love the Earth and take care of it has been fun today!  First we considered how much stuff he had.  He is an acquisitive little guy, so we talked about reusing as a focus because reducing seems really hard for him as far as possessions go.
 Then the real fun began, we collected cans from his grandmother's house and brought them to the scrap yard.  He was most impressed with the crusher, and glad we had parked in the parking lot so that no one accidentally crushed our car :)
Next we went to our adopted ephemeral wetland, picked up trash and cataloged various tadpoles, salamander larvae, and frogs.  Wow there were a lot of scary alien looking bugs too!

First ever visit to an ephemeral wetland

Today we set out to find one of our adopted wetlands.  Let's just say I'm 98% certain but next time I will bring my phone to verify exactly where I am.  First let me say that the wetland is shrinking, and that made for some insane amounts of tadpoles and salamander larvae in small crowded hot pools.  The water bugs were intensely large, and at first it was too distracting to notice the mole salamander larvae.  However after we started looking closer we found 30 large mole salamander larvae, too many to count tadpoles of various frogs: little grass, ornate chorus , and southern cricket.  There were lots of mature gopher frogs and ornate chorus frogs! Wow, it's crazy that just by drying out there are no fish thus no predators and life abounds!

March Fairy Houses

March is always a great time to get out and connect with nature.  In Tallahassee the weather can turn on you for sure especially recently but this March has been perfect.  I find going out with the kids and collecting items to build a fairy house in the backyard a wonderful way to be playful and notice all the old and new working together in nature.  First we walk around our neighborhood and delight in all sorts of finds.  It is awesome to see the kids planning out the "construction" as well as the interior design.  
If you are lucky you may even find a fairy ring!  After collecting we bring our stuff back to our yard and build.  Inevitably they run out for more materials but I feel so great seeing them work together and getting dirty!  If you want to get started on your own fairy house just go out and do it!  However if you feel you would like a little more instruction here's a good place to start.

Going outside on St Paddy's day and connecting with God's flora and fauna...

This past St. Paddy's day we went on a family trip to Macon GA. While at the hotel my son saw on the morning news program that if you were to look for a 4 leaf clover in a 9 square foot patch of clover statistically you should find one.  Of course the first thing he said to me was, "Mom, we gotta go outside!"  Clearly these are some of my favorite words.  Although we did not find a large patch of clover we found lots of small patches and after only looking for half an hour (a lot of that was finding birds, rocks, centipedes, lizards, etc.) we found a 5 leaf clover!  What are the odds?

That trip was particularly nice as after a quick search of things to do we visited the Museum of Arts and Science which although small was wonderful!  My son loved the mini zoo and had a chance to hold a hissing cockroach.  They offered to gift him one as a pet; I declined.

Mimicry plant in a can!

My son loves nature, and in this case the odd mimicry plant that looks like baby toes!  I am so impressed because when he knew he had to re-pot it because it came in a TINY pot he got a soda can, put rocks in the bottom, found appropriate dirt and re-potted it without any instruction. The plant not only survived but is going strong a month later!

Yard work- a way to connect with nature!

As we head into the growing season here in Tallahassee I note that while it can be total drama to go outside with the kids and get the yard manageable, but it is also the perfect opportunity to bond and discover the joys of the Earth.  Collecting the sticks and trimmed branches seemed an impossible unfortunate chore for my son until we noticed the wide variety of lichen growing, not to mention the tiniest spiders to the biggest beetles.  We even decided to leave some habitat for scavengers!  Much to my daughters relief we also decided to leave more meadow land and encourage milkweed to create and maintain a butterfly habitat.  In the past we have reared and released several Monarch butterflies and we were dismayed to hear that monarchs are declining.  Instead of griping and threats we went out into the yard as a family, discovered various plants and bugs and worked to create more habitat for butterflies.  Not only did our yard work get done, we were so distracted there wasn't any time for whining (well, hardly any).  This was the perfect time to remind my kids about the way water and plants work in our yard and the methods we use to reduce pesticides and use compost instead of other fertilizers!

Paper necklaces make lovely Valentines' Gifts

This is a recycled classic for us!  We started making these several years ago and sold all that we made at Market Days in Tallahassee.  So simple to do and I even find making the beads relaxing. Check out the web instructions but I emphasize that instructions are just the platform to jump from!  We added washer pendants from a different recycled craft idea and we just went crazy! Both my son and daughter as well as Grandmommy found ways to contribute and we had a great day sitting around the table and assembling all the parts; it was a study in uniqueness!