It is about time we got back to our Nature Journals. Our leaves do not last long here in Alaska so we have a short window of fall leaves to do whatever we need to do to our leaves.

We gathered leaves of all types and brought them in for crayon rubbings. Here are some blessings peeling crayons.

Rubbings, blessing #1 really enjoyed this and said he could spend a lot of time doing so, he did!

Blessing #2 wanted a little closer look at her leaves.

Finally, they cut out their leaves and glued them into their nature journals. I read about leaves and trees from the Handbook of Nature Study.

Then, we cleaned up all that mess from cutting and pasting and crayon paper, etc.

Rose Hips (I may be out picking rose hips to dry soon) My children were at a friend's home today and they helped pick some of the last raspberries and strawberries of the season. We have a few in the fridge. Yumm-O tomorrow!!

Here are some mushrooms, I did not take time to look up this specific kind tonight. We had a good mushroom  showing this year due to all the July rain that poured and poured down upon us.

Here we have a nagoon berry, looks just like a raspberry but grows low to the ground.

Information on the Nagoon Berry (common name)

Latin Name: Rubus stellatus

Family: Rosaceae

Grows best in peaty soil or tundra

And is a perennial plant

These plants grow all around our yard and the blessings enjoy picking them and popping them right in their mouths. They grow so low to the ground that it wouldn't be a lot of fun to pick them in any large quantity, but we enjoy munching on them during the summer.

Clover

Yes, yellow leaves already....

I should be posting more often here now that my surgery is past and I am back to my normal. I took lots of nature pictures this evening so I am ready to get back to posting here regularly.

The bird feeders have finally started attracting birds. I was able to get a picture of this little Chickadee on Satuday. The picture was taken through the window and screen. I will be getting more acquainted with the ABO website, especially since we are studying the Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day with Apologia Science.

We took a walk to go sledding today and I thought the sky looked kind of neat.

Well, the cold is lingering longer than I would like and we were getting weather reports that the weather would improve Friday or Saturday but now I think that has changed.

Update on the ants... one escaped and I paniced and threw them away. Most of them had perished by that time. They did finally eat the spinach but I feel we were not providing them with the best living conditions and it was for the best.

Today's nature viewing was this, A common raven corvus corax . Alaska department of fish and game has a really good notebook series, that I purchased years ago as a set (before we even owned a computer and could access this type of information or even had blessings.)

This picture is of our dog attempting to make the raven go away, the raven was not intimidated.

Here is a picture of the pitiful little home we have for these ants. They have yet to eat, but maybe they do not eat right away upon waking for spring, or maybe I have the wrong food. I am still researching. Not many people want carpenter ants as guests in their home!

If they survive a couple more days I will find them a little more suitable dwelling place. We have enjoyed observing them today and the blessings began journal pages on them as well.

While splitting and stacking firewood that had been given to us this fall, my husband split a log that was full of frozen carpenter ants. The blessings came in asking for a jar, I thought how silly to bring them it, they are dead, wrong, they were only sleeping. Just tonight after the blessings were tucked into bed my husband called to announce they were moving around! What a wonderful blessing to have live insects to view and study for a while. Yahoo!! I will post our progress with these yucky things (I despise ants). We will see how they fare in our care. I need to find something for them to eat. More later and pictures as well. This will be an interesting winter project.

Here is a little ant information.

CARPENTER ANTS: INSECT PESTS OF WOOD PRODUCTS
by Edward H. Holsten

To date, there have been few problems with insect pests of wood products in Alaska, unlike the "lower 48," where insects cause tremendous losses. However, large black ants of the genus Camponotus (carpenter ants) have caused damage to wooden homes in Alaska. Carpenter ants are generally of minor economic importance as destroyers of wood in houses. However, if an infestation is of long standing, there may be enough damage to require extensive repairs. Usually, only minor repairs, at most, are needed. Besides being destructive, carpenter ants in houses are a nuisance; they crawl over things and get into food.

These ants build their nests in several types of wood. They attack moist heartwood of living trees, or they hollow out logs, house timbers, or other soft wood materials that are wet or moist. Occasionally, they will tunnel into styrofoam insulation. Carpenter ants tunnel into wood for shelter and to raise their young. Unlike termites, carpenter ants do not eat the wood. They forage from their shelters and consume both animal and vegetable matter.

DESCRIPTION: Ants are social insects; various ages, forms and specialized duties occur simultaneously in a colony. Carpenter ants are among the largest species of ants in the United States. They have elbowed antennae, large heads and constrictions between the thorax and head and between the thorax and abdomen. Winged females may be up to 18 mm long; males are considerably smaller, 11 mm long. Wings are clear with prominent veins. Normally, there is only one functioning wingless queen in a colony, who may live as long as 15 years.

There are several sizes (8 to 11 mm long) of workers, all of which are females but are undeveloped sexually. Ant eggs are elongate, white, and gourd-shaped. Immature carpenter ants (larvae) are gourd-shaped, soft, legless and yellow white. Their size varies according to the ultimate adult form (e.g., male, female, or workers.) Pupae (transition stage from immature to adult) are creamy white in papery, light brown cocoons which are often erroneously referred to as "ant eggs." Carpenter ants do not sting, but their bite is painful, especially if formic acid is injected into the bite.

LIFE HISTORY: A young colony contains only wingless forms. After the colony has grown to considerable size, a number of winged individuals are produced (Figure 1). These are new males and females (swarmers) whose functions are to begin new colonies. They are commonly seen flying in May and June. After this mating flight, females either reestablish an old colony or establish a new nest. Normally, nests are constructed in dead portions of standing trees, stumps or logs. However, they also nest in structural timbers if they find the conditions suitable. During the first year colonies remain small, consisting of queen, 10 to 20 workers and a few young. In succeeding years, colonies expand rapidly and may number more than 2,000 individuals. It is at this stage that swarmers are produced each year.


Figure 1. Winged adult carpenter ant.

We had a large dumping of snow on Wednesday night. It was great, you probably think it is funny that I say that but Fairbanks in not known for large snowfalls. Sure we have snow on the ground from October- April but the quantites are usually small, it just stays put because of our cold temperatures. Have you also noticed that I have never posted a picture of my blessings making snowmen? We have a dry snow here and it does not compact into snowballs at all. You pick it up and it falls out of your hand like granulated sugar. Why? we live in a dry climate, that is one of the reasons why I always say 0 degrees isn't that bad, because it isn't that bad!

This man's article is a good read to learn a little more about Alaska and our snow fall amounts. I tried to find some technical explanation for our dry snow but I will have to keep looking. I do not have a picture uploaded right now but I will work on it this weekend to get some deep snow pictures on here to  add to this post. My to-do list is calling my name.

Here is our deep snow.

This is what I call a table top green house made by my sweetheart. We can grow two or three tomato plants in here in the summer.

This is my new little shrubby tree that I bought at Lowe's this fall, it is supposed to survive -50 degree temps. but now it is a little more insulated against the colder temperatures that will come later in Jan. and Feb.

This is our lone black spruce tree in our yard. Here is a picture and article of a large black spruce tree.

This site has some Alaska pictures that look really cool. (Oh, Jenn you will love this site!)

We do not see any snowshoe  (or varying) hares in our yard, nor do we see their tracks in our yard (that might have something to do with the chocolate lab that patrols our yard keeping out all small and sometimes larger animals(she ran a cow and a calf moose off the other day) )but they live and eat on the vacant lot that ajoins our property.

Here is a picture of a well used trail. I apologize if you cannot see it very well, it was a gray day yesterday. Plus, it is difficult to see snow pictures on grey days.

Here are hare prints:

Here is a sky picture, we have big sky here:

We had a very welcome dumping of snow last night, after lunch the blessings are heading out to enjoy. Tomorrow I will share a little about our Alaska snow.

I toyed about an Alaska Nature blog for a little while now. I mentioned it to Jenn tonight and she voted yes, so here I am!  Doesn't take much to get me to do something. Over the next weeks and months I will make this little corner of the blog world my own via a personalized template and the nature in my back yard, Alaska. I will be back next week to give our nature report and give some weather statistics.