I think it is.
Just today, five of my children and I heard bees buzzing. Continue reading
Is Exploring Nature a Worthwhile Pursuit?
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Category Archives: Nature Study
Nature Study: The Brown Recluse Spider
**WARNING**
This post contains close-up photos of a spider. A quarter-sized brown recluse spider.
Please click off now if you have a serious fear of spiders.
Chances are, if you live in most parts of Tennessee and quite a few other states, you have encountered one of these spiders. While they are elusive, they have a distinct marking that makes correctly identifying them an almost certainty … if you know what to look for.
Take a look at the following close-up photo and see if you can see the identifying mark.
For those who know, I’m sure you can see it. For those who don’t, do you see something that resembles a violin?
Do you see it? The neck of the violin points toward the back of the spider. This particular spider has a very distinct violin marking. I have to admit he is a beauty as far as brown recluse spiders go. And yes, it is highly likely he is a he, because the females rarely travel away from their mating/nesting area. Survival of the species at its finest.
Do I dare say this amazing specimen was found at our new home?
I mean, how many people share on a public blog that they have some unwelcome guests who reside IN their home. Not many I’d say, but hey, it is what it is. It is also not uncommon in Tennessee, particularly in areas with mature trees nearby.
There are treatments available, but most traditional methods are ineffective because not only do these spiders stay RECLUSIVE but they also walk with their entire bodies OFF the ground/floor/surface so that most pesticides are not absorbed by them.
Ahem.
So, what to do? Well, shake your towel, shake your clothes, check your shoes and give them a good shake as well. While people will say they don’t like moist areas, this big dude above was found by our girls in their tub last week. Now, mind you, we had record-breaking rainfall amounts, but we’ve also found them in our WET creek shoes. So, by our unscientific observation, they do not mind our wet spaces. Seem to even like some of them. Sigh.
For perspective, the cup housing this specimen is a bathroom-sized dixie cup. While the spider wasn’t dead at this point, he was paralyzed and soon died. As for who captured the spider, that would be my seven-year-old daughter who said, “Mom, we had gotten in the tub and he was in there. So I got out and told Li’l Bit to get out, and I got a cup and just got it with the water around it.” Yeah, she knows not to pick them up, but she is a country girl and a spider in her bath water is not going to phase her too much. By the way, she also let the water out and got clean water!
Is anyone feeling things crawling on them yet?
The good news is that you are most likely NOT going to encounter one of these lovelies if you were to come to our home, as they come out at night when all is quiet. And even then, we haven’t seen them crawling around! We have found them on an item of clothing, in the attic, and in the aforementioned creek shoes and bathtub.
If you’d like to learn or read more about the brown recluse spider, lots of specifics can be found at the Etymology Department of the University of Kentucky.
To Try for Baby Chicks or Not?
We are thinking … well some of us are … that it might be a great study of science to have some baby chicks around here. We have at least a couple of hens who seem to like keeping our eggs warm.
We will have to keep them perhaps in our garden shed for a while. Chickens will … how shall I say it … prey on one another in nature, and they will prey on baby chicks unfortunately.
On the other hand, I have wondered if the real science lessons might come in allowing nature to take its course.
I think we do have an actual baby chick to hatch that I’ll do a weekly post with updates on the chick(s).
In the meantime, I have three little people here who are immensely enjoying having our “ladies” (as Grammy calls them) here at our house.
I go every morning with our three littles and check for eggs, check feed and water and deliver the expected scraps, which usually consists of strawberry caps, bread crusts, apple cores and things like that. We don’t give them any meat or dairy scraps.
In the evening, the older boys usually make sure their little hen door is closed after they are all safely inside. Thankfully, the ladies take themselves inside their house along with Mr. Squawks at dusk or soon after.
We are learning that Mr. Squawks knows exactly how to fertilize eggs (our little ones say “they are married right now!). 😀 We are also learning that hens like to graze and that the old saying of a “pecking order” is literally true.
We are also counting eggs and will keep an average. We are going to graph the daily morning and evening totals over a week-long period and then calculate the average.
All in a day’s work on the farm!
Now, will you help a Momma/Teacher out? What do you think? Should we try to hatch baby chicks? Would you be interested in reading weekly updates and seeing their growth and hearing of their daily pursuits??? Please comment and help a Momma/Teacher convince the adoring Prez that his wife has not completely lost her wits. 😀
Our Chickens Are Home!
Since last April when Mo first got his 4H chicks, we’ve not had them at our house. We lived in a neighborhood back then where poultry weren’t allowed. My parents (AKA Grammy and Papa) gladly let us build a hen house and coop for them at their house, which at the time was just a few miles down the road. We did our best to care for them several days a week, and Papa graciously filled in for us on the other days. But we longed to have them home with us. We knew this house had a hen house when we looked at it, but I’ll be honest in saying I wanted our other hen house that the Prez built with Papa and our big boys. It was going to be so costly to have it moved though … and then one is here. Sigh. I wasn’t happy, but I decided to put on my farm girl pants and get to work to ready it for our ladies (as Grammy calls them).
Now that we are living in the country with plenty of land, it was time for our 20 hens and 1 rooster to come live with us. And last night, the Prez and our oldest son got them all loaded in boxes with holes cut in them. And they brought them to our renovated hen house. Since they’ve laid at last count 16 eggs today, I think they must like the new place. It has 8 nesting boxes, which are there on the left in the above picture, and roosting poles, on the right side of the picture. We made some improvements such as new doors on the front (and closing the makeshift door on the back) and adding two new little hen doors.
**Their first night in the new place**
It has been a family affair to get the hen house that was on this property ready for our ladies. We have scooped poop that must have been years old in some of the corners, emptied out a full trailer load of junk that had been piled up in and around the old hen house, closed old openings, remade old doors, added little hen doors with steps, spread out fresh hay and just today we made them a pen. We plan to add a second pen so that we can rotate them in the hopes they don’t strip the foliage completely. We shall see!
Now if we can just keep the foxes and possums away as well as our Border Collie, who has unfortunately (and apparently though we’ve never caught him red-pawed) developed a liking for them. We sell extra eggs for $3 per dozen, which around here is somewhat of a bargain for farm-raised, free-ranging hen eggs, but honestly it sometimes pays for the feed. Nonetheless, we don’t have to buy store eggs anymore and the children are learning responsibility as well as nature in living color with our 20 hens and 1 rooster.
**This is when they first got up the courage to first come out into their new pen. They were tentative but only for a few moments. They love the foliage and the worms they were finding!**
We left them out in their pen while we headed to the Wally World yet again and to buy some mattresses as well. Mo assured me they would go inside at dark and be waiting for us to close up their hen door when we got home. I was not so sure, but he was right. They had all gone back inside by the time we got home. We closed their door for the night, and refilled one of their feeders. We also found 2 more eggs. Talk about fresh! And yes, on occasion, we’ve brought an egg in and fried it right up! YUM!
All in a day’s work at Stay Awhile Farm! Nighty-night hens!
Mom! You Need to Blog This!
The title of this post was inspired by my 10-year-old son, who said after we witnessed what you’ll read below:”Mom, you need to blog this!”
It is great fun and quite interesting to explore at night in the country. We have quite a few nighttime friends including countless toads and tiny little tree frogs which Mo held in his hand. 
This last weekend we also witnessed fireflies, better known as lightning bugs around here, in a way we never have before.
They lit up our yard and the hill behind our house in a simply beautiful dance of flashing lights!
The girls and Mo chased them all over the yard and filled a jar I found with these amazing insects, which are actually beetles. 
Then Mo found the toad and the conversation turned toward the natural order of things. Some of you are probably guessing where I’m going with this.
Yes, much to Li’l Miss’s protests, Mo with my blessings put the toad into the jar with the fireflies.
And an experiment was born.
It didn’t take long for nature to take its course. Yes the toad ate a firefly and even Li’l Miss was excited to observe what happened next.
The firefly continued to light up INSIDE the toad except it was glowing red instead of green.
And the moral of this post is that fireflies will get eaten by toads and from our observation they continue to glow.
Poor little firefly. Wish I had a photo but it just wouldn’t take in the dark. You will have to trust me or maybe try it for yourself! 😀
Nature Study: American Dagger Moth Caterpillar
BEWARE.
This innocent looking little caterpillar IS NOT friendly.
At least not if you pick him up.
Just ask Mo.
He found out the hard way today. About an hour before we are supposed to get family portraits done.
Thank goodness for benadryl.
The little yellow hairs you see on this creature release toxins into your skin … even through your shirt apparently.
Case in point: Mo’s midsection. Complete with the tell-tale red welts. That by the way appeared MINUTES after he allowed the creature to crawl up his shirt.
And down his arm.
Now this little creature whom Li’l Bro found on an oak tree in our backyard is safely caged in our critter carrier.
We may wait and see if he becomes a moth. Or not. He has taught us a lot already this afternoon.
**Monday Update: Spots are hardened and crusting almost. Very weird. Very itchy. Mom consulted Dr. Google who said not to worry if no breathing distress, vomiting, headache, nausea, etc. So Mom not worried, but Mom did give orders for an oatmeal bath and more benadryl.**
Our New “Babies” Are Here!
I’ll let the pictures mostly speak.
Our baby chicks (and one baby rooster … see him in the pic below with the white spot on his head)
… are here. And I am in a little bit of shock. What was I thinking???
I will say I got some Momma points when I fashioned a brooder from the two large boxes the Prez had brought home.
The expert at our local 4H office, where we picked up our “babies” today, told me our box was too deep and we needed a brooder about 4 times that size … so when we came home I started cutting the top half off of each of the two boxes and taping and cutting sides … and before long we had a brooder 4 times larger and half as deep. 🙂
Mo was doubtful but quite impressed once I finished. Curly gladly loaned me his very sharp pocket knife and helped with the cutting too.
The pics include only Li’l Miss because I was too in shock at first to worry with the camera, and by the time I headed back to the shop with it Li’l Miss was the only one still interested except Mo.
But he was back at Grammy and Papa’s house working on “The Chicken Mansion.”
To Be Continued … hopefully …
A Post A Day: Nature Walks
I like to write a first day of school post. Since we’ve been at it since July, I guess I need to do that. A couple of weeks ago, we started back up our full load. The first week was tough, but everyone had a good attitude most of the time.
I decided one day during our second week of school we needed to get outside and explore.
I drove across town to a local park. It is a place I spent many nights playing softball for a local league, and a place where I remember many church picnics taking place.
It was the creek I remember from those picnics that beckoned me on this particular day.
The Creek was not like I remember. Could it really be that much smaller? I suppose with all of the SUN we’ve had this summer (e.g. no rain in more than 6 weeks; longer for some), it truly could be that much smaller.
We did find some LIVING creatures though among the DEAD. Water striders must be very hearty creatures. Crayfish notsomuch.
So this day of nature walking didn’t yield a ton of results in the animal searching, but it did accomplish a secondary goal of mine.
Someone, who isn’t into getting his tennis shoes wet or picking up fish, discovered walking across a trail of cut logs strategically laying in the creek could be really fun … and challenging.
And yielded an opportunity for biggest brother to cheer on and support little-est brother as he cautiously made his way across, following in biggest brother’s footsteps.
And all 5 of our children quit bickering (did I mention they do that?), used their imaginations to make up a game, played outside despite the 98˚ temperature on the thermometer, and they drank a WHOLE LOT of water!
How’s that for camouflage for this little guy Li’l Miss found on the very large and very old tree (and was wider across than our 5 standing side-by-side)?
We try to do nature walks every week, but it doesn’t always happen. I am hopeful a couple of new avenues we’ve discovered will yield more opportunities for nature walking with others. I like to go, but it would be nice to have some companions for the companionship and for safety’s sake.
This year, we have gravitated much more toward a Charlotte Mason approach to the education of our children. She felt being outside and studying nature in its natural form is very important for a child’s development and education. I couldn’t agree more.
Sunday Snapshot: {Who Needs the Zoo?}
All of these creatures have been sighted/handled in and around our home, campsite or the Prez’s office.
I could not make this up if I tried.
The Prez found this lovely creature in our backyard while mowing one Saturday afternoon. You can hear the lovely cicadas in the background.
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Speaking of cicadas …
Yes, he filled the recycled aluminum can up …
… and then dumped them out on this planting-bench-turned-outdoor-sideboard to see if “they could get away.”
I kid you not … this rooster …
… showed up at The Prez’s office in town one day
And he seemed to like it there. When these photos were taken, we had stopped by to check on him and found his *foot* bleeding. I told the Prez he had to do something.
So he did what any responsible business owner would do. He retrieved his first aid kit, applied some ointment and gauze and first aid tape.
Next I show you the … ahem … illegally captured (and I might add LEGALLY RELEASED) baby alligator snapping turtle.
Mo came home giddily one day after he and Larry rode their bikes down to the creek. “Look what I found, Mommy!”
“There was a big one nearby. I tried to get it, but it was too heavy. I found this little one though.”
In the following photo, you’ll see my solution for us finding the creature MISSING from its temporary home.
I do not know why I can’t find the pic I took of Mo HOLDING the creature.
Perhaps because I was running quickly away.
These turtles grow very large and can snap one’s finger O-F-F.
Is it a dragonfly or damselfly???
A lizard who happened to be at the right place at the right time … at least according to Mo.
And finally I leave you with the Eastern Click Beetle.
Let me just say the boys thought it funny that I jumped out of my skin when they conned me into “just touching it” and it CLICKED at me. For more inside information about the Click Beetle or any other 6 or 8-legged creature, try out this cool site Mo and I found the other night to identify a Luna Moth he spotted outside the boys’ bathroom window.
**Please note no animals were harmed during the making of this blog post.**
