Ornithology 101

What do you get when you combine a snowy morning, tons of sunflower seeds and our very first non-fiction book checked out from the kiddie section at the library?

A very happy Claire who spent the morning counting birds at our feeder and marveling that her feathered friends had their very own book! Is she too young to begin studying for an ornithology degree? The book we checked out was "The Pebble First Guide to Songbirds" and it contained nearly all the birds in our area with little factoids about each species. There were a few of our frequent visitors missing -- Junco, Tufted Titmouse, Red-Breasted Woodpecker -- so I might have to improvise a guidebook of my own one of these days.

Oh, that's for the birds!

I have to admit to housing all sorts of experiments in my fridge (both intentional and unintentional, green shrimp, anyone?) but this hodgepodge of lard, peanut butter, sunflower seeds, cheese and bird seed was a success, albeit a messy one. If birds could talk I'm sure they would be raving about this recipe. Yet another thing to add to our many bird feeding stations!There seem to be lots of tutorials for similar bird suet on the web but I liked this one for two reasons, I had the stuff on hand and the recipe came from reputed wildlife organization so I figured we wouldn't poison our feather friends. I was inspired by the recipe here and saw the cute mold idea here.

The cast of characters, do NOT melt the lard. 

Sledding 101

On Friday Claire had her first real sledding experience, I think she's hooked! 

Lots more photos to see after the jump!

Our Nature Table

Children are natural collectors, and I'm guilty of the same thing myself, often arriving home with just as much "treasure" in my pockets as my daughter. Rather than discourage our little naturalist-in-training, I carved out some space on an end table to display whatever bounty Claire snags on our nature walks.

Gotcha!

Not the most glamorous of snowballs, but it's one Claire can call her own. You've been hit!

Chalkboard and Autumn Admiration

Since we spend a lot of time here:


Looking up at this:



and this:


of course, it was only a matter of time before there was a tree in our house decked out in colored leaves of its own:


This chalkboard hangs in our kitchen and sometimes I'll write out our dinner menu or a fancy birthday greeting but most often we're using it for school. Claire loves to draw on it while standing on a kitchen chair and most recently we created this cool tree using coffee filters and watercolors. Forget the brush on the coffee filters, eye droppers are the way to go! The wrong sized coffee filters gathering dust in your cabinets are best to use, I'm not that smart though.

Claire really wanted to tape up this interesting branch with berries she found in the woods so we added that too. I'll have to bring out the colored chalk and we'll add some brown and grey to the trunk. I do think Claire's "burls" are a nice touch.

Autumn Artwork

The air is crisp and colorful leaves are dotting the trees – it appears autumn has arrived! Last week Claire and I grabbed some crayons in fall hues, gathered a few leaves from the front yard and sat down to make some rubbings. As I expected, Claire found this project magical! The veins and edges appearing as she rubbed different colors thrilled her and the end result was really beautiful.

We had quite a few species on hand to try out in our front yard – rhododendron, maple, hosta and the teeny-tiny leaves of the impatiens in the planter. We tried some coleus leaves but they were too “juicy” and Claire’s enthusiastic rubbing turned them to mush before they left much of an impression on the paper.

I found using crayons (unwrapped of course) split in half were easiest for Claire to handle. It took a while for her to get the hang of holding the crayon horizontally and pushing it to get a rubbing. The result was a frustrated soon-to-be three year old who was bummed out about less then perfect attempt. I love her pouty face, but I’m glad it turned into a smile when she finally figured things out!

We worked with regular computer paper, but I hope to try again soon with the rhododendron leaves on watercolor paper. With the sturdy veins and stiff leaves, hopefully they’d show right through and allow us to create some watercolor resist artwork.

Our final product? Hanging proudly on the fridge (and displayed here) until I can frame it. Enjoy!

Yee-Haw! Biker Claire!

Claire got an early birthday gift from Mommy and Daddy! Check out her new ride - a two wheeled speed machine. Claire loves gliding down hills at the park (both paved and unpaved) and is remarkably fast on her new balance bike.

Claire’s feet are up so much now, she’s really getting the hang of balancing and we’ll skip training wheels altogether when she outgrows this bike.

I'm getting some great workouts keeping up with her and while I wished we lived somewhere with sidewalks, I’m content with throwing the bike in the car for a quick ride in the park. Huggy Bear is a favorite passenger, his magnetic hands clip on and he stays put for all but the bumpiest rides.

Here are a few videos of Claire on her favorite new plaything:

Potato Hunt

Success! An early morning dig to find a few spuds worthy of roasting yields an entire colander full of gorgeous little potatoes and one excited little girl.

We’ve had great luck with our raised bed gardening at home this year. Aside from losing all our radishes and a few beets to ravenous pill bugs everything else has earned its keep. Well, everything EXCEPT the sexually frustrated zucchini plant who only produces flowers. Two years in a row, now what am I doing wrong?!

The potatoes were surprisingly productive for such a confined place and we’re happily watching two watermelons grow inch by inch outside.

Unfortunately with all the travel in the past few months I didn’t get much into the ground at the CSG, we’ll have to try again next year.

What a fantastic garden assistant Claire has turned into! She’s no longer snatching fruit off the vine and with her newfound love of scissors I’ve relegated all the swiss chard snipping to her.   Never was there a kid more happy to eat her homegrown goodies!

I wish the photo below was a little clearer  (Dan snapped it with his blackberry) but check out our carrots and beets! See the carrots? The carrots are a cultivar called “thumblelina” and are happy growing in shallow or rocky soil (yep, that’s us!).

The root vegetables have really been a delight to grow. Claire is always shocked at what we pull out and to be honest, so am I…how tiny those carrot seeds were, and now look what we’ve got!

E-I-E-I-O

Our family is participating in a great community supported garden program up at Sunset View Farms in Lafayette. My focus is on the 20x30 plot we’re tending, while Claire is enjoying her time chasing around the chicken and sneaking worms into her pockets. Here’s the cast of characters so far:

The goat. Claire’s favorite mammal on the farm and her curiosity (and love of grass and clover) gives us lots of face time with this critter.

The hen. I’ll have to snap another photo of her as this chick spends little time in her enclosure. I have never met a more patient bird, of course Claire is collecting all kinds of bugs for her so that’s probably why she tolerates Claire’s “love.”

The sheep. Shy and skittish they don’t much care for Claire yet. We’re working on bribing them. Baaaaaa!

This is a teaching farm and there is a fantastic nature playground where Claire explored her balancing skills and did lots of jumping.

The chicks. Our source of eggs this summer. They make the cutest cheeping noise and are so soft! I can’t wait to see the blue eggs from one of the breeds in there. Look at that little one jumping in the right corner!

“I want that one, Mommy!”

And lastly, some shots of the play area -

Snow-MAN

There was too much snow to build a snowman in the backyard during our last storm. I had to carry the poor kid out to her playhouse because the snow was well past Claire’s waist and she couldn’t walk in it. This photo was taken about 3 days after the big storm, nearly 6 inches had already melted, it was insane!

So we moved our snowman building efforts into the plowed driveway. Claire grabbed her little shovel and wound up with a nice toddler sized snowman. She wanted stick arms and a carrot nose (just like the Kipper book we’re reading). I just had to share this picture of Claire’s errrr… “anatomically correct” snowman.

Heehee.

First Beach Visit of the Year!

It’s raining today and normal March temperatures in the 50s have resumed, but a few weekends ago it hit nearly 80 degrees!

With the sunshine and warm weather (and a bit of Spring Fever induced craziness) Claire and I took an evening stroll to the lake front to feed the fish and dip our toes in the water. My poor toes! Claire seems impervious to the cold and happily splashed around in the f-r-e-e-z-i-n-g water until I dragged her out by her belt loops.

While I buried my feet in the warm sand to warm them up, a neighbor’s dog came down for a game of fetch and Claire scurried around searching for sand toys and tossing pieces of bread to the fish (who never showed up) and snacking on the remaining pieces. We saw one lone duck and lots of hawks overhead but it seems most of the summer wildlife has yet to arrive or wakeup.

To view full size images of the collage below, just click on the link below “view full album.” Enjoy the sunny photos, it’s so rainy and cold we’ll definitely be indoors today just thinking about the warm sunshine we experienced on this lovely day!

View Full Album

Puddles!

I love to muddle in puddles

Cause I splish and I splash

And when I take my shoes off

I mish and I mash

I hop from one puddle to another and back

My feet go in the water smickity smack

I turn and spin

I kneel and I sit

I slap my hands down

They go clickity click

There's just something about them

I cannot resist

When I see a puddle

I feel blissfully bliss

(not my poem, author unknown)

Afternoon

The “January Thaw” appears to be upon us and we’ve been spending a lot of time at local parks with friends. The temperature rose to 40 degrees today and it was wonderful to meet up with friends at the park for some time in the sun. Isabella asked her Mom if she could push her baby in her pram this morning and all the girls (and their parents) agreed that it would be a great idea. Baby John (Isabella’s new baby brother) slept most of the playdate - apparently the sheer number of girls around him was too much to handle. His billy-goat bleets for milk amazed Claire and every noise he made called for her investigation.

Claire couldn’t decide if John, or the girl’s pretend babies were more interesting. She was especially taken with the realistic ‘piggy toes’ on Katie’s doll.Of course there were a few examples of some negligent doll parenting:

Exhibit A: Enthusiastic toddler dumps out “Huggy-Baby” in a rush to join the stroller parade.

Exhibit B: Isabella demonstrates some, errr, ‘interesting’ doll sitting techniques.

The three girls had a blast playing on the playground and walking a slow quarter mile pushing their babies. There was lots of stopping for a stroller version of bumper cars and much mud puddle squashing led by Claire. We enjoyed a sunny picnic lunch as a group and once it was Baby John’s naptime Claire and I strode off into the woods to check out the local wildlife scene.

Claire was just awestruck with this one tree’s yawning trunk. Look at the size of that hole! I’ll be she was planning a way to hole up in there for the winter much like the main character in “My Side of the Mountain.”

Claire found lots of soft moss to pet and some very cool lichen and mushrooms growing on the side of some dead trunks. The going was a bit muddy so I abandoned the stroller and let Claire walk a bit (Huggy-baby riding tandem with Claire in her own stroller at this point). I can say that having Claire traipse through the woods for a few hours is a great way to tire her out, what a sound nap Claire is having at the moment!

Fresh air and friends, a good afternoon indeed. The full album is below, lots of great picture of fellow friends Isabella and Katie so Mommies be sure to check them out and let me know if you want a full resolution version.

Above: The neat fungus we discovered (I am dubbing it tree-oyster until I identify, heehee) Below: The “still water” as Claire describes the icing river. We watched a group of ducks sliding their way across the ice…maybe they were avoiding the cold water! Brrr!!! Claire cracked up at their tail shaking, “rook Mommy, dey shake-a their butt!”

Click HERE for a link to the full album or the collage below to view the slideshow.