I got this really great picture of our frog spawn the other day and I just had to share it with all of you! You can see that the eggs have developed quite significantly since the first time I shared photos of when we collected them. Their gills, eyes and yolk sacs are completely visible and once in a while you can even see them wiggle frantically inside of the eggs :)
Sorry that this picture is a little grainy but I just had to blow it up larger so that you could get a good look at how they are developing. You can really see the yolk sac, his very large looking belly. The frog spawn eat the jelly substance that their eggs are made of and the nutrition from their yolk sacs until they hatch, at which time they will start to eat algae and plant matter. It's hard to believe that they started as one single yolk that split into 2 then into 4, then into 8 and so on until it actually looks like a raspberry! Eventually it starts to look more like a tadpole like the above photo :) If you want to see some really AMAZING photos of frog spawn from the time it was laid, through the cell division I just mentioned to hatching as tadpole then you have to go to THIS site!
Our frog spawn should be ready to hatch any day now so I'll share more photos with you then :)
Tomatosphere 'Space Tomatoes' ~ Day 53 Final Transplant
I haven't given you an update on our Tomatosphere tomato plants for quite some time! Actually they have just been growing peacefully on the dining room table since then but yesterday we decided that it was definitely time to transplant them again. Some of them were over a foot tall and starting to outgrow their pots :)
We gathered the largest pots we had which are the 1 gallon size and brought them in to be sterilized in the bleach and water bath like we did the first time and lugged in our super sized bag of potting soil! It's a good idea to give your tomato transplants a good drink of water a couple of hours before you start to transplant them so that you don't cause them extra stress by disturbing them when you pull their roots out of the pots.
Now that we had our pots washed and our potting soil scooped into a large bowl and moistened with tap water so that it was ready for the new pots we went out to get our tomato plants. Remember you can bury your tomato plant's stems with up to 75% of new dirt to encourage them to grow new roots all up the buried stem resulting in a stronger, healthier plant! In the above picture you can see that I pinched off all of the lower leaves or 'suckers' that would be going under the soil.
Here is our tomato plant ready for repotting after removing all of the lower suckers. Don't forget that you can only bury them as deep as your smallest tomato plant. So if you have 2 really tall tomato plants and a tiny one you can only place them in the dirt as deep as the little one can handle or you can forfeit the little one and remove it all together. We decided to keep all of ours, even the little guys *grin*
I was a little worried that our tomatoes might be a little root bound from being in the smaller pots for to long but when we pulled them out of their pots they had beautifully developed root systems that weren't bunched up to tightly. Phew!
Here they are all finished up. This will be the final time we repot them. In a couple of weeks we will start to put them outside during the day only, keeping them indoors overnight until the long weekend in May which will be May 20th. After that all danger of frost will be past and we can permanently put them outdoors :)
If you want to find out more about our space tomato project click HERE or to see what we have been up to with them you can check them out HERE.
We had a new visitor to our feeder today ~ A Chipping Sparrow
The bird population at our 'Bird Seed Cafe' is growing!!
We've had lots of new visitors and I've been trying to snap photos of them so that the kids and I can study them and find them in our bird books. This little fellow is a Chipping Sparrow (Spizella passerina). They are one of the smallest sparrows and quite often nest in ornamental evergreens which we have tons of right around our feeders! They tend to nest at eye level so you can easily observe their breeding and nesting habits. We're definitely going to have to have a peek around and see if we can spot a nest without touching of course *grin*
You can help these little guys build their nests by leaving clumps of your pet hair after you brush them or even the hair from your own hair brush near your feeder and in places around your backyard. They will pick up the bits and use them as they build their nests :)
Want to hear what their call sounds like? Listen to a clip of it HERE. I have heard this exact song quite often outside the door where I sit at my desk, now I know who it belongs to :)
We've spotted our first Hummingbird for this year! So far I think it is just one since we have never seen 2 in the same place at one time but you never know :) We pulled out our British Columbia Birds book by Lone Pine Publishing and there are only a few Hummingbirds listed in it so making a very amateur guess to go along with our very blurry photo *grin* and what we could remember from memory we have come to the conclusion that perhaps it is a male Rufous Hummingbird (Selasphorus rufus). The kids have been keeping a watchful eye out to see if he returns so that maybe mama can get a better picture. LOL.
It's that time of year to purchase live butterfly larvae and what's even better is that Hip2Homeschool is giving away a free Butterfly Unit Study for a limited time! She is a fellow homeschooling mom and creates really fantastic unit studies at very reasonable prices :) You can find them on the subjects of history/geography, science, literature & holidays. All you need to do in order to get your butterfly unit is to click on her 'Contact Me' VW bus and let her know you would like it along with your email address.
Now if your interest in raising butterfly larvae has been piqued then you still have time to purchase some! Boreal in Ontario is still shipping them across Canada. They have 2 sets to choose from:
(Click on above image or link below to go directly to product)
The first one is a complete kit that includes the cage, 30 larvae, food and so on. Everything you need to successfully raise your butterflies. If you already have a container for your larvae to go in you can just purchase the 30 larvae or as little as 5 larvae. The large amount would be a great idea if your local homeschool group wanted to go in together because if you divided it up amongst 6 families it would be considerably cheaper than going it alone and the shipping would be next to nothing split between all of the families.
(Click on above image or link below to go directly to product)
The second kit that they sell is theButterfly Garden Kit which is a smaller kit perfect for an individual family. It comes with a habitat, 5 painted lady butterflies and instructions on how to raise them :) This is the one that I purchased today. Now in the fine print on the website it says that they do not ship to Canada but apparently this is not correct. When I spoke to customer service she said that they DO ship across Canada by DHL courier (first upcoming available shipping date is May5th) and they will be sending live larvae not a coupon. There is also a problem with the oder SKU# listed for the Butterfly Garden Kit on the page for it. When you order quote the SKU# 2899890, this is the correct one. For some reason she said they are having trouble with their website and things are a little jumbled right now. You can double check when you order to make sure that it is correct but I used that number successfully.
I can't wait to get them. They will ship our order May 5th and she figured that it would take about 2 days to reach BC so delivery should be Wednesday May 7th. That should give me enough time to find the books recommended in the Butterfly Unit Study and any other materials I want to use :) Let me know if you are raising butterflies this year to. We would love to see how they are doing!
Sperm Whale washes up on East Coast of Vancouver Island
(Photo Taken by Misty Lawson/Atleo River Air Service)
This is absolutely fascinating to see! A Sperm Whale (Physeter macrocephalus) has washed up on the south side of Hesquiaht Peninsula just north of Tofino on the east coast of Vancouver Island and was first spotted April 11th after washing up on shore more than a week ago. Onlookers have referred to it as a 'Moby Dick' look alike! These whales are generally found in the deepest regions of the Atlantic ocean where they hunt for Giant Squid (Architeuthis) so scientists, pathologists, and marine biologists are performing an autopsy and collecting tissue samples to see what has caused it to end up here.
This afternoon my three little nature explorers and I wandered off to the pond at the end of our property in search of frog eggs. The frogs have been croaking for a couple of weeks now and spring is prime egg laying time :)
After a brief search along the banks of the pond we spotted an egg sack or frog spawn (fertilized eggs) within reach! During the breeding period a single frog can lay thousands of eggs. One frog spawn alone can contain hundreds and hundreds of eggs. The freshly laid eggs have many predators. A few of them are newts, fish, snakes, aquatic insects and birds.
Careful, don't fall in!
Once K had safely retrieved the frog spawn from the water everyone crowded around to get a better look.
Here is a close up of a portion of the frog spawn we collected which is a gelatinous liquid that surrounds and protects the delicate eggs. The eggs seem to float inside the gel. Did you know that roughly only 1 in 5 eggs matures into a frog? No wonder they need to lay so many eggs!
Everyone had to have one more feel before we placed the frog spawn safely in the bucket for transport home. We're going to hatch them like we did last year :) We had great success so hopefully this year we will have the same luck.
The following link is to an interesting 2 minute video of frogs mating in a backyard pond. It has some neat underwater shots and close ups of the frogs and frog spawn. You can view it at: http://www.vimeo.com/745654
Make sure you turn up your speakers and watch it on full screen for the best view. Another neat site is this one which helps you identify different frog eggs by telling you the different breeding times, egg sizes, color, hatch time and more!
(click on the above image to take you directly to the download)
If you haven't already been over to CurrClick.comand downloaded this really great nature study notebooking package then you should do so right away :) It is beautifully illustrated and the journaling pages are set up for both beginning writers and older children as well as there are both single spaced and double spaced lines included. You will need to register as a member with Currclick in order to download the freebie, but this is completely free and as a perk you will be notified of the weekly free download by mail each week.
This week Unplug Your Kids' weekly Unplugged Project was to do something crafty with rocks. So what better way to spend an afternoon nature walk by searching for the perfect rocks to make creatures with! Once we had a substantial stash we returned home, scrubbed them up with soap and water and then placed them in the oven to dry off really well so that they would be ready for gluing the next day.
At first I wasn't sure how we were going to glue our rocks together and actually get them to stay that way *grin* but I ran across an epoxy cement glue at our local grocery store that would set masonry. Woohoo, we're in business :) I covered a magazine with tinfoil, got out some popsicle sticks and set to work mixing the glue.
The popsicle sticks were perfect for mixing the glue and hardeners togther. I worked in front of the kitchen window which I opened a bit to disperse the fumes from the glue. It was a wee bit stinky. With all of the warnings on the glue package I did all of the gluing for the kids...
and got K to help out with a few of the bigger rocks that wanted to slip around and wouldn't stay put once the glue was on them.
I pulled out some wire for them to play around with for making antennae and other body parts :)
It was a little tricky to set some of the stones and wire but we had lots of little bitty rocks left over that we used as rests and stabilizers while the glue set which only took about 10 minutes to firm up enough that we cold set them aside to really get hard, about 2 hours which we used as a lunch break *grin*
Then it was on to the really fun stuff, painting! I made work stations for each of them at the kitchen table by covering it with strips of butcher's wrapping paper with the waxy side up for easy clean up and taped them down with masking tape, gave each of them a palette for paint, a mason jar full of water, blotting paper, paintbrushes and a rainbow of colors :)
The rest was up to them :)
K created a rather inventive seascape with a sailboat and orca complete with a coppery spout of water coming out of it's 'blow hole' on a giant blue rock of water. Nobody said we only had to make animals *grin*
There were snails and frogs with wonky eyes and very big lips....
butterflies and kites flying high in the air....
and of course I just couldn't resist having some fun to and created myself a flock of birds. LOL. If you decide to make some rock creatures my son would love to see them, please stop back and let us know :)
Here on the coast of British Columbia pollen can start as early as the end of February and last as long as the end of September putting hay fever sufferers at its mercy. Pollen producing plants are all around us and trees are one of the most prolific offenders. The Red Alder (Alnus rubra) brings the first pollen spores by the end of February with a burst of flowers or more accurately called Catkins and carries on until mid march. The catkins appear before the leaves do and are made up of separate clusters of male and female catkins on one tree. Female catkins are only about 2 centimeters in length and not as noticeable as their male counterparts which can be 5 to 12 centimeters in length.
Above is a close up on one of the male catkin from an Alnus rubra (red alder). Each of the long, cylindrical catkin are composed of a complex structure consisting of roughly 120 individual flowers and 480 pollen producing stamens. They produce thousands of pollen grains which are dispersed by wind making it a hit or miss as they drift through the neighboring alder trees hoping to be caught by one of the stigma or pollen receptors on a female catkin. Once the male has released its pollen it withers and falls to the ground.
Above are the ripe female catkins that have turned into a woody 'false cone'. In the autumn the scales open and the seeds are released to be scattered by the wind and water. The empty false cones can hang on the tree for several more years which makes recognizing an Alder (Alnus) easy. The next time you go out for a nature walk keep your eyes open for these easy to spot catkins!!
Tomatosphere 'Space Tomatoes' ~ Day 22 Transplanting
I haven't updated you on how our space tomatoes are doing for quite a while so I thought that I would share with you what we did with them today :) As you can see above they are doing really well but have outgrown their little peat pots we started them in so we transplanted them into larger pots today.
To start with we washed our pots in hot soapy water with a splash of bleach to kill off any mold, bugs or fungi that might be growing in them since we were using recycled pots. You can use any sort of container as a plant pot, such as yogurt containers, margarine tubs, cottage cheese or sour cream containers and so on as long as it's big enough to provide larger space than your previous container provided. If you want to use real pots you can almost always find used ones at garage sales or thrift stores for super cheap.
After our pots were all cleaned we filled them about 1/4 full with moistened potting soil....
and then placed one of the peat pots of tomato seedlings into the pot.
Very gently we then placed the soil up and around the stems of the tomato plants burying them deeply in the soil. You can cover their stems with dirt up to 75% and this will encourage them to grow new roots all up the buried stem creating an enhanced root system and a stronger plant.
All finished and ready to be placed in front of the window again. We made sure to label them A or B so that we didn't confuse the different groups. So far both groups are still progressing the same, although we have 2 more plants in group B than we do in group A. Whether or not that means anything we will see :)
This week is our first time participating in Unplug Your Kids' weekly Unplugged Project, and this weeks theme is eggs. With it being Easter weekend I thought it would be a perfect time to jump in since there are so many egg related projects associated with this time of year! The kids and I have been saving our Araucana chicken eggs because they are such beautiful green and blue colors for planting in :)
To get a good egg shell for planting in try to crack them really close to the top of the shell so that you leave behind a nice deep cavity for placing your dirt and seeds in. We used a store bought all purpose soil mix and filled up a measuring cup with it....
and mixed in a really generous amount of water so that it was good and wet, not just damp.
With our egg shells all set up in a carton to keep them upright we started to spoon in little bits of the potting soil at a time until they were about a centimeter from the top of the shell.
Then using some of the hard red spring wheat I had on hand for bread making we put in a solid layer of the grain completely covering up the potting soil.
And the last step was to cover them again with just enough wet potting soil to cover the wheat. You don't want to put to much on or it will take longer for the wheat shoots to come through :) We placed the eggs right in the egg carton in the stereo cabinet where it was guaranteed to be warm all the time from all of the electronics, on an empty shelf of course not to close to anything *grin*. Now we wait, not very patiently I might add. Do you know how many times I was asked if they were sprouted yet.... on the first day!! LOL.
The results were fantastic!! The wheat sprouted on the 2nd day, and by the 4th day it was well on its way :) I made some funky little egg cup holders for them with copper wire and we placed them on our bright yellow chicky plates for Easter brunch today. Maybe we'll try juicing the grass next and see who will drink it. It's supposed to be super healthy *grin*
If you had fun participating in the Great Backyard Bird Count you're going to want to participate in the Urban Birds Celebration! Just because it says urban doesn't mean you have to live in a city setting either, rural dwellers are happily accepted to join in. Signing up gets you 2 posters to help you out with identifying any or all of the 16 birds they ask you to be on the lookout for, a data sheet and return envelope, and flower seeds to plant :)
They're also looking for your photos & videos of birds in urban places for their contest ending April 22nd. So don't delay.... go sign up!
We had a new visitor to our feeder today, a House Finch (Carpodacus mexicanus) or at least I'm pretty sure it's a House Finch.
My second choice would be a Purple finch (Carpodacus purpureus)but from what I read they have a more red or raspberry back and a white dull underbelly and the above one as you can see has quite distinct white and brown streaks.
He was a rather brazen fellow and wasn't camera shy at all :) Perhaps he's taking the sunflower seed home to the missus *grin*
Today I thought that I would share some of the plants we have with indumentum or fuzzy leaves or buds on them :) Above is a photo of a bloom on the Viburnum carlesii 'Aurora'. I just love it's silvery colored leaves coated in a thick fuzz. The clusters of bright pink flower buds actually look like the bloom from a distance but the true bloom is more of a pale pink but still equally as pretty and very fragrant.
Did you know that rhododendrons have been grown in Britain since the 18th century and that the only place that they don't occur naturally in the wild is in Africa & South America. The above rhodo 'Silver Skies' is a Yakushimanum hybrid or 'Yak' and you can see the fawn colored hairs or wooly covering that is coating the spring growth. The kids love to run their fingers along it since it is so soft :)
Above is a better picture of the complete coverage of indumentum on the underside of a 'yak' rhododendron leaf.
And finally this is one of the fuzzy blooms on my mom's Magnolia tree 'Susan' which happens to be one of the girls from the 'Little Girl' series started in 1965. There are 8 sisters in all ~ ‘Ann’, ‘Betty’, ‘Judy’, ‘Randy’, ‘Ricki’, ‘Susan’, ‘Jane’ and ‘Pinkie’. Wouldn't you just love to have all of the little girls playing in your yard?
Today the true leaves of our space tomatoes have become clearly visible at the top of the hypocotyl. They are the two emerging leaves between the cotyledons which are where the beginnings of photosynthesis for food is happening right now :)
This is the beautiful lace like remains of the Shoo-Fly flower (Nicandra physaloides) also known as the Jewel of Peru or Lantern Flower. This annual was originally introduced to us from South America and is well known for its insect repelling properties. It is a vigorous grower of upwards of 1 meter in height, covered with very pretty bell shaped flowers.
The very first photo shows the seed pod berry fully intact inside the paper calyx and the one above shows it opened and all of the seeds are visible. You can harvest the seeds for future planting or let them fall to the ground and hopefully reseed itself which is possible.
We checked our tomatoshpere tomato sprouts today and to our surprise they had shot up quite vigorously! Tray 'A' seems to have a better germination than tray 'B' so far but that could change in the next couple of days. Sometimes some of the seeds are a little slow to germinate. All in all it's a success so far :) I'll update you again in a couple of days.
All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair--
The bees are stirring--birds are on the wing--
And WINTER slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring !
(Photo Taken by Misty Lawson/Atleo River Air Service)
(Click on above picture for a larger view of it & for copyright info)
