Tadpole Observation (A Cautionary Tale)

In early spring the frogs gathered by the hundreds in our small pond and spent a very noisy weekend engaging in...well, you know. Think Woodstock, 1970s, lots of free love and partner swapping. Egg upon egg upon egg was floating in the water. It was so remarkable I had to photograph it. See an earlier post here.

Really, it was a bit ridiculous.

I swiped a few eggs for observation and we watched tiny tadpoles hatch and devour algae and leaf litter in a tank set up in the office. We'd keep them for a few days then dump them back in the pond to experience bigger digs. Rinse and repeat. We're on the fourth or fifth tadpole infusion here.

Except this time, I scooped something else up too. Leeches. A lot of leeches.

We've seen a few tadpoles in the pond with a leech attached to them, but they seemed just fine. The leech would glean a blood meal and off they'd go, right? All knowing Google told me the leeches in my pond primarily ate the detritus in the muck at the bottom.

Google was very wrong.

Last night we noticed a tadpole in the tank had a leech on it. And then 2 and then 4...and I didn't want to try and remove them because I thought detaching them might injure the poor guy more.

Checked on the little guy this morning and there is nothing left of him but some translucent skin and a dark green little mouth. Looks like they saved the lips for last. Ugh. Shiver me timbers.

How on Earth to find time for blogging?!

I subscribe to many [too many] blogs and I'm constantly amazed that people find the time to write -- seriously, how do you gals do it?! I have a number of things working against me here. There's the gorgeous scenery when I look out from the office window:

Between staring off into space at that mountain in the distance or our little patch of spring bulbs,  nothing is getting done. Next thing I know, I'm wandering outside, pulling weeds and dead-heading daffodils and chasing after Claire whose practically upside down trying to fish more tadpoles out of the pond. Another blog post, auto-saved and forever archived because I've lost my train of thought.
 
Then there is my love affair with long run on sentences and 900,000 word blog posts. I'm wordy in person too. And don't get me started with yapping on the phone, my favorite pastime since I was 14. And Facetime! Right smack there on the computer's task bar -- very bad for productivity Apple, very bad indeed.

And then there is this kid who worms her way into the office with her too-short bangs and cuddly bear and says, "Mommy I've made a whole picnic, come eat." And then this post too must end as duty calls and pretend picnics are way more fun. But at least I'll post this entry.

A Craft for Little Bookworms

These cute bookworms caught my eye and I just had to share! I know the knotting might be tough for little hands, but with a slight method change (glue on some legs or use pipe cleaners) it will be accessible to even the youngest crowd.

One of Claire's favorite Christmas gifts this year was a butterfly kit and we're getting ready to send off for our caterpillars. I think we'll try and make a few of these first, what a nice tie-in!

Head over to Impress Your Kids for the full tutorial.

In Praise of Mud

The day after I blogged about Claire amusing herself swinging from vines and sculpting with mud I read this article:

 

Girls who play in dirt grow up healthier according to researcher

Young girls who play in the mud tend to end up healthier than those who don't, according to a researcher at Oregon State University. (AP Photo)

A dirty tub is the least of my worries at this stage and we've made trips to the park for the sheer purpose of puddle jumping (our local playground gets the best puddle located just near enough the "parent bench" for me to watch but not get spattered).

I year or two ago, I met up with my girlfriend at the park and we were letting the girls enjoy some puddle jumping. Parent after parent came up to us warning us the girls were up to no good. I wonder (as the article above suggests) if there really is such a bias to "dirty" play for girls.

Or perhaps they didn't want to say yes to their own kids. Who knows.

Around 2 years old in the driveway's muddy puddle.

 And here's Claire in August of 2008, I can't believe how LITTLE she is and how much her voice has changed since then!




And here is a picture of my cutie all cleaned up! Just found this on my computer, these digital photos seem to play and hide and seek on my hard dive at times!

Claire of the Jungle

We've been in brush clean up mode these past few weeks, hauling the old, dead cedar trees over to the fire pile and waging war on the wild thorn bushes on the side yard. The weather has been indescribably gorgeous and I'm so glad to have the chance to spend all this time outside during the day with my little munchkin!

Of course the "pick up sticks with Mommy" game gets old quickly but Claire has kept herself busy (and fit!) swinging on grapevines and playing in a giant mud pit. The [really] dirty laundry has been worth it. The yard is nearly cleared and ready for planting! Can't wait to share some before and after pictures once we get our landscaping in!

                

The chickens seem thrilled with the warmer weather too -- they're constantly on the hunt for green sprouts (eat those weeds, girls!) and the grubs and slugs don't stand a chance. Claire has started gathering the eggs in the morning on her own and I love watching her weave her way up to the barn jumping over logs and then carefully walking back down to the house with the chickens trailing behind. When she runs, they run. It's a pretty funny site to enjoy while I drink some coffee

                          

Celebrating Our First Harvest!

What's tiny, red and tastes a bit spicy?

Say hello to our first radish!

Ok, so it's not much, but I am SUPER excited to show off our first vegetable straight out of the hoop house.  Claire was so eager to pick something other than lettuce leaves (she's been munching on them for weeks whenever we would walk up to water) so I gave in and let her pick a radish from the pot.

These are the ones we planted back in December. They grew s-l-o-w-l-y in our unheated greenhouse, but grow they did. The January and February ones are just as far along. Claire described the flavor as being "like spicy pepper, but it was good too [at the start]."

The rule in our house is that you must try food. You may not like it, but give it a shot. Even parents have foods that they don't like (don't you try to sneak any olives onto my plate!), but we should always have a try to see if our tastes have changed. Claire could live on broccoli, kale and garlicky spinach and she loves (gasp!) brussel sprouts. Really, the only things she doesn't enjoy are mushrooms, olives and (lately) raw tomato. And bread...we almost never have sandwiches because she never eats the bread.

Claire has shown me that it is entirely possible to eat PB&J without the bread, it's just very, very messy.

Are you gardening with your little ones this year? 

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Just a quick post to wish you all a Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I posted last year about a frugal find for exploring sculpture and how we tied it into learning about  Saint Patrick and wanted to share for those of you new to the blog. Enjoy!

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I hit the jackpot! Have you seen those Magic Nuudles Bloxx? They look like a fantastic craft material and I love the idea of exploring sculpture with them but they’re a bit pricey.  I found a cheapo option in shipping supply aisle at Staples - cornstarch packing peanuts! They’re not quite as colorful, but for $10 you’ll get more than triple the amount of fluffy fun. Of course…an even cheaper option is to hang on to your packing peanuts when receiving mail!



A damp sponge was just the right amount of moisture for Claire - a little goes a long way in getting these guys to stick together. If you are too generous with the water, the result is sad and disintegrated noodle goo. Claire added on lots of file sorting stickers and I helped with a bit of pink yarn for the tongue. And voila! A cool snake sculpture! I can’t wait for Claire to try some more shapes, right now she’s only interested in sticking them together end to end. I suppose we’ll slowly work our way up sculpting the Eiffel Tower, heehee!




I've got a book on hold at the library by Sheila McGill-Callahan called The Last Snake in Ireland. It's a perfect literature connection for this activity and Saint Patrick's Day! We've read it before and its a hoot to read out loud. 

I’m off to drive away the snakes like Saint Patrick. I suppose clearing my table of cornstarch serpents isn’t quite as impressive as driving them out of Ireland, is it?

Early Spring Nature Activities

If you missed out last year in creating a nesting material dispenser for your backyard birds, buy some onions and hang on to that bag because now is the time!

Last year we left out bunches of sparkling ribbon, pink yarn and batting and were treated to some pretty fabulous nests. We're in a new house now and while walking in the woods, my husband found this nest on the ground for us to examine, take a close look...

Remember not to take nests still on trees, some birds will revisit the same site year after year!

Do you see the dental floss and the blue string from a nearby tarp? We'll be spending the afternoon here hanging some yarn remnants on bushes and waiting for the song birds to arrive. With the warm weather our area has been experiencing, we're expecting the first robins of the year any day now. If you already have a feeding station set up, add an onion bag filled with goodies for your nesters (be sure to keep the string snipped to about 4 inches).

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If you're looking for a literature tie-in for this activity, I highly recommend The Best Nest by P.D. Eastman...you might just know one of his buddies, Theodor Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss). This book about a bird couple and the pursuit of the perfect place to live.

In other spring news, the wood frogs have been busy in our pond and there are a few THOUSAND eggs just waiting to turn into tadpoles (we might bring a few indoors to watch!). They sound rather like the chickens in the morning, not your usual "ribbit" at all!

Hooray Spring!

The Happy Monkey House

   

Blanket forts, tree houses, tucked away closets...it's obvious that the kiddie crowd loves to have places and spaces to call their own. Claire is no exception. Santa dropped this cardboard house off at Christmas and for the following 4 weeks Claire meticulously colored and embellished it in her own style.

   

Now if you've spent any time at all here at the blog, you know I'm a "color outside the lines" kind of gal so picking up this house was a little out of character for me. But I am so glad I did because Claire loved it (and I was able to bury my nose in a bunch of books for hours at a time - BONUS!)                                                                                                                  I dubbed this "Happy Monkey House" because all over the outside of the house Claire drew happy smiley monkeys. These are quite different than her people drawings, a keen eye will notice the pronounced monkey ears (often colored in). A friendly family of millipedes live over the door (I'm sure this is my fault).

The aforementioned skylights in
their full glory. Future architect?

But by far the most interesting of modifications are Claire's skylights. Yep, it was dark inside the house so Claire punched an assortment of holes in the roof to let more light in. Like I said, I had my nose buried in a book...apparently she did this very quietly.

I can't ignore the genius in the idea, but Dan and I asked her to refrain from poking more holes. Her response? "It's ok, I'm done now with those I can see in my house."

Speaking of things to see, when not coloring the outside scenery, Claire was hard at work decorating the interior of the cottage. You guessed it, more monkeys. There's one frown-faced fellow in there and a picture of Dan and I even made it in (I feel honored).









Happy Monkey House is stowed in the basement right now. After giving up half the living room for nearly a month I've reclaimed the space but I'm sure we'll bring it out again. All of the monkey portraits that hung from the ceiling have a new home too but you'll have to wait to see it!

  

Greenhouse Gardening in Winter

We used an eye dropper to water at first
so the seedlings wouldn't float away     

We're so lucky to have two large hoop houses at our new house. Right now I'm mainly using them to over-winter some perennials that didn't make it into the ground, but back in December I thought a little experimentation with  growing vegetables in the winter would be fun.

I was unable to find a lot of information geared towards the home gardener about growing vegetables in unheated hoop houses. In fact, most everything I read said plants would continue to grow if established, but that starting seedlings was near impossible. The previous homeowners left us an abundance of styrofoam coolers and I figured if I nested a few of them together and covered them with bubble wrap, we might be able to get some seeds going, even (fingers-crossed) in the winter.

So far, everything we've planted has sprouted! I went with all cool season veggies (carrots, peas, lettuce, radish, chard, beets) and Claire's been gently watering them every other week. Everything is growing, but slowly. The plants sown on December 19 and the plants sown on Jan 15 are about the same size.

Claire made a great observation that ALL the seedlings look alike at this point in their growth. Of course it was phrased more like, "Mooooommmmy, you mixed the seeds up. They're all the same <pout pout pout>." 

Batik on Paper Revisited for Valentine's Day

My daughter informed me this morning that since it's Valentine's Day, M&Ms were in order for breakfast. As cute as she was (especially with her pronouncing them m-E-m's) we settled on a few red ones to celebrate and had our usual egg breakfast.

I've received many emails about the batik on paper technique featured here. I guess Pinterest has really taken off, hundreds and hundreds of people seem to be arriving to check out our creation and in my first post on the method, I did a rather poor job describing how we achieved the effect. In case you were wondering, here is the product of our last experiment:

Batik on Paper. Wherever the glue was used, the paint still appears wet and glossy!

SO -- Batik on Paper for Valentine's Day it is!

A good quality watercolor paper is in order for this project, things are going to get really wet.

Using Elmer's Blue Gel school glue, create a pattern or write some words (that's me who did "love" in case you were wondering, heeehee!)

We always seem to do artwork in jammies around here!

Allow to dry over night. This is probably the hardest part for Claire, the gel will feel dry in about an hour, but you're going to be painting over it so make sure it's really, really dry.

Go nuts with liquid watercolors (try an eyedropper, what a great lesson in color mixing!)
 I've referenced them all over the blog, and these are my favorites. They're super concentrated so diluting them to get more mileage is fine.

Unlike fabric batik, we're leaving the glue in place. My original goal back when I first attempted this was to peel off the glue (like a non-stinky rubber cement to make kid friendly watercolor resist paintings). Leave the glue alone to dry it will remain raised and intensely shiny.

 

Lastly, sprinkle some table salt around the picture to chase some of the colors away. Claire used a liberal amount on a few of these hearts and the crystals look like snow on the paper now! And for those of you who'd like a visual aid (I'm still figuring out this pinterest thing, bear with me) for your digital pin boards....here ya go!

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Here are the exact products I've used. I think the watercolor paper in a pack of 100 is the most affordable option in terms of paper. You want something really thick and the 15 sheet pads are really pricy at my local crafts store. 

      

Embracing Simplicity during Christmas

I think as you have children, everything becomes more magical -- especially around the holidays. As Claire has gotten older (this will be Christmas # 5 for her, although I'm sure she's forgotten the first few) I've gotten excited myself just watching her anticipation and excitement grow as we draw closer and closer to the 25th.

In front of the BIG tree in Boston, MA

Last year we went to see the Nutcracker, spent hours in our pajamas making ornaments and generally became homebodies, enjoying each other and lots of warm drinks (hot chocolate for the kiddo, Mommy and Daddy discovered American Honey Bourbon and liberally added it to their hot mulled cider).

This year we're trying out an advent calendar. I'd like to do a lot before Christmas, but want to keep things stress free, simple and fun. Especially simple because, like always, I waited until the night before to get cracking. So here's what I'm working with:

 

Cute, right? I picked it up on sale last year and totally forgot about it until I opened up one of our Christmas boxes. I'm sure little candies would be nice in each cubby, but I wanted to go with an activity instead.

In each cubby (I've only filled up to #10...don't let the picture fool you) I've put a little picture or note detailing something special we'll do. Day 1 was a rolled up piece of paper with a mug of hot chocolate on it. Day 4 is a miniature banner which will be a clue about our art project that day. There is a picture of Claire with Dan and I in Day 6, where I wrote a little note about her first Christmas. I used regular old computer paper and tried to fold everything a few different ways to make it interesting. IKEA sells tiny little finger puppets that fit in the cubpoards perfectly and I'll add a few Hershey's Kisses scattered throughout as well. 

Simple, fun. And I can cheat and move them around if need be. Looking for more ideas? Check out these crafty calendars below. I'm thinking some of these could be nicely modified for a little math activity!

{a}  Beautiful family photos modpodged onto magnets over at Brenda Johnston's blog

{b}  Tiny matchbook boxes displayed in an apothecary jar at JustAGirlBlog

{c}  ASeptemberFeeling shares nature inspired goodies to hang on the tree

{d}  HouseToHome showcases a great way to reuse cans for a fun stacking calendar

{e}  Simple, elegant and lots of buttons for little ones to count. Brilliant, Missgioia