Nature Study
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Milkweed Adventures
Today, we went searching for monarch caterpillars. It’s been several years since we’ve been able to observe the metamorphosis, and I’ve had a hankering to do it again. Unfortunately, we found not a…
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Read Aloud Thursday: Burgess Bird Book
It’s no secret around these parts that we’ve been bird watching all summer. Thornton Burgess’s books have been a nice fit as read-alouds, and recent titles have included The Adventures of Mr Mocker…
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Bugs, seeing, and the writing process
We’ve been bugged. That is, the heat wave seemed to herald the entry of various bugs who made it through the screens — or the holes in the screens — at night. One…
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Longlegs the Heron
We’ve been reading and enjoying Thornton Burgess’s Longlegs the Heron. A friend loaned us a copy of this difficult-to-find book after reading this post, and as food for our ongoing heron interest it…
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Girls Who Looked Under Rocks
I was pretty tickled to discover Girls Who Looked Under Rocks: The Lives of Six Pioneering Naturalists, written by Jeannine Atkins. It includes short biographies of Maria Merian, Anna Comstock, Frances Hamerstrom, Rachel…
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A few pics from the woods
We’re back from a long weekend in the woods, and I didn’t get a lick of reading in. Honestly, I’m exhausted from this short “vacation,” for a variety of reasons. But there were…
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Splendor and sorrow
Tonight as we were eating supper, we were dazzled by the sudden emergence of a Baltimore oriole out of the brush. It was pursuing a moth and demonstrated some amazing maneuvering. What a…
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Read Aloud Thursday: Trees
We’ve enjoyed three amazing books about trees this week. Ancient Ones: The World of the Old Growth Douglas Fir is a beautifully illustrated, calligraphied, wonderfully informative book by Barbara Bash. The detail is…
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Wetland Read Alouds
We’ve been reading lots of books about wetlands this week, learning about the interrelationships in hopes of sharpening our observations at a local nature preserve. I didn’t have time to post yesterday, but…
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Trailside minstrel
This morning I saw a bird that’s entirely new to me. It was alongside the trail where the girls and I went for a jog/bike ride. I think this little guy is an…