Harvest Moon

Wow! Can I just tell you about our day today? What an amazing day for Nature Study for this family!

By Helen Allingham (1848 - 1926)
(The Bridgeman Art Library, Object 283763)
[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

First, I woke up this morning and checked the weather only to discover that there was going to be a Harvest Moon tonight! Harvest Moon is the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox. One reason that it is so special is because the full moonrise that time of year, happens about 30 minutes earlier than normal. This was especially helpful back in the days before electric lights and farmers relied on the extra moonlight to help bring in their harvests. Here is a very interesting read on the Harvest Moon.

Then, as we were gathered around the breakfast table reading our Bible reading for the day, my husband just happened to notice an interesting creature crawling around in a dish. No, it wasn't in his cereal bowl. :)  Last week, the kids and I had gathered some quite magnificent looking acorns. Now, I had heard that "things" can "hatch" out of acorns, so instead of letting the children play with them around the house, they were displayed in my favorite leaf shaped dish on the table along with some other nature finds. I hoped this dish would help contain any unexpected visitors and to my delight, it did! (They didn't hatch with wings and couldn't crawl up the sides.) What are they??? I finished the Bible reading and discussion...then quickly ran to the computer to look up "white grub with brown face in an acorn" and lo and behold: It is an Acorn Weevil! Amazing! It gets even better...you can actually see what we saw!! Check out this video:

(By the way, all the acorns and baby weevils are contained in a ziploc bag for now as my oldest daughter was too creeped by letting them roam freely around in the dish. And, for those interested, 8 larvae have crawled out so far!...I also just learned from a friend that they make good bait for fishing.)

Finally, this afternoon, I took the kids to visit my Dad at his work at a local resort. We were treated to a golf cart ride around the property. Everyone always enjoys this, but at the end of the ride, Dad and I both had bugs flying at us. The next thing I knew, I had an ant crawling in my shirt! Yikes! Minutes later, we began noticing masses of flying ants around different ant holes. They were everywhere friends! Then, we looked up and the masses of flying ants were taking to the skies! It was unbelievable! Everywhere we looked, there were huge masses of flying ants. What was going on?

The first chance I had when I got home (because I don't own a smart phone :)  I again searched the Internet for "masses of flying ants.  I'm very thankful that my Internet worked today. :)  Well, it turns out that we were witnessing the "Nuptial Flight" of the ants. Need I say more? You can quickly figure out what the Nuptial Flight is by reading the linked article from Wikipedia.

OK. Are you not in awe of how amazing our Creator is?!  Wow!
Thank you Nature Study! Now to make a date with my Nature Journal...

Nature Study

Well, we just returned home from our first successful Nature Study Group outings! Yeah! It was SO much fun. Charlotte Mason strongly encouraged nature study. She wanted the children to learn to observe nature and really see what was around them. She wanted them to form relationships with nature. It has been said that nature can be a friend to us in such a way that we can never feel alone if we've developed a relationship with the world around this. I believe this is true because you can't truly see the world around you and not be reminded of our great God! He reveals himself to us in so many ways through His creation. There is so much to see and discover about God through nature. I could go on and on about this, but I won't right now because soon I need to go and make lunch for my little clan. I wanted to form a group though because I need help getting myself away from these four walls and out into nature on a regular basis even though I know how much I need the "re-creation" God gives us through being in His creation.

We met on the river walk this morning. The kids immediately began a game of "Pooh Sticks". If you aren't sure what I'm talking about, you've never read or watched Winnie the Pooh. :) anyway the began collecting sticks, throwing them off one side of the bridge and watching them come out the other side, seeing which would come first and watching where it would be carried off to. For the sake of formality, I had a plan to start the group with prayer and a Bible verse, but the kids didn't need to be instructed of what to do in any way. Nature study is natural to them. We had such a delightful time. What a joy it was to watch them run along the river path exploring and playing together. They had so much fun and only interrupted their exuberant play to show us or tell us about some amazing discovery that they made.

I tried to not interrupt them too much, except with an occasional gentle directing towards something neat that I had discovered or with a necessary word of caution. I really wanted them to find something that interested them to draw in their nature journals, but I didn't want to force it, so I held myself back from suggestions. Then right at the end, they suggested that they had better draw something for their journals. Lucy chose an interesting gall. The kids came running to us with it and described it as the world's biggest peanut, I think. A gall is an abnormal outgrowth on a plant caused by a fungus or insect or parasite, etc. After looking at the plant more closely while she drew it, I wondered if it was goldenrod. Sure enough, there is such a thing as Goldenrod Gall cause by the Goldenrod Gall Fly. Needless to say, I am very excited (perhaps more so than the children are) and I can't wait for our next nature study group.

Here is a quick plan that I have for our next Nature Study group to make things easier on me preparation wise since we plan to do this about twice a month. I want to have a designated back-pack that I can just add a few last minute supplies to and go. I plan to pack it with several items that will be designated just to this bag:
-diapers and wipes (for Selah)
-colored pencils
-extra paper
-field guides
-magnifying glass
-ziploc baggies (a friend's suggestion for interesting finds to take home)
-a container (for interesting bugs/creatures to take home)
-first aid kit, just in case
-kid sized blanket or towel
Then at the last minute, I can throw in a water bottle, snacks, a camera, and our nature journals if we wish to bring them that day.

There is also this little portable flower press that would be fun to make with the kids and keep with us.

Now the fun part, here are some pictures for you:

Rune of Riches

Florence Converse

I have a golden ball

A big, bright, shining one,

Pure gold; and it is all

Mine. - It is the sun.

I have a silver ball,

A white and glistening stone

That other people call

The moon; - my very own!

The jewel things that prick

My cushion's soft blue cover

Are mine, - my stars, thick, thick,

Scattered the sky all over.

And everything's that mine

Is yours, and yours, and yours, -

The shimmer and the shine!-

Let's lock our wealth outdoors!