• Jun. 5, 2008 - experimenting

We put together a decomposition chamber today. Then I let the kids make terrariums. Emily had been asking questions about water which led to discussions about the water cycle. I thought it would be good for them to watch the water collect and "rain down".  When I moved the soil bag to open it we found several snails.... this led to creating a snail habitat so Noah could keep his pet snails. Now Noah is conducting his own experiment. I guess you could say that he is discovering what dissolves in water and what doesn't. I asked him what he was doing. He said I am just making something. I asked him what he thought it would be. He said he was just waiting to see what it would turn into. I think he is fascinated in how things can change from one thing into another. When ever he builds things he creates things that transform from one thing to another. Now he asked me if what he has mixed together will turn into soil. I wonder how many ants it will attract before it turns into soil (he put candy in the mixture as well.) The container on the left is our decompositions chamber and the jar on the right is the snail habitat. Emily has been doing many experiments as well. Hers have consisted of building a habitat for a Turtle.... which ended up escaping its habitat, growing grass in the turtle's habitat that it never was able to enjoy since it went on to other pastures and digging up and transplanting little plants from my gardens that have sprouted up. Her favorite experiment was collecting bird seed that I had spilled on the deck and dumping it onto some soil that she put in a box for the turtle. She has really enjoyed watching those seeds sprout. Here is a close up of the little plants. If you look carefully you can see drops of water that have transpired from the leaves. It was fun talking about the difference between transpiration and dew.

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• Apr. 27, 2008 - Happy Birthday Sweet Little Girl

Sweet Little Girl, Sweet Little Girl With curled up toes and a button nose Sweet Little Girl Sweet Little Girl, Sweet Little Girl Her name is Emily As cute as can be Sweet Little Girl 11 years. I can hardly believe it. I saw so much in those eyes when she was born. I still do when I look at this picture. I see my grandmother now gone. I see an estranged father who I will never know or understand. I see myself. When I look at Emily now I don't see these things. I see her and wonder what she will be. I see a little girl on the edge of woman hood. I see a little girl who still loves to sit and play with her little animals making up stories. In some ways she will always be my little girl but it is a wonder to see her blossoming into a young lady and all the possibilities that will bring. I am amazed at how much she has grown and matured. I feel proud to call her my daughter. I wonder if she would recognize her little song that I sang to her when I rocked her. Maybe I will sing it to her tonight.

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• Apr. 13, 2008 - White Oak Sinks

Saturday we went on a Hike to White Oak Sinks off of School House Gap Trail. It was a great day for seeing wild flowers. Here are three from the Trillium family:This is one of the pictures that Emily took. I can't find my Smoky Mountain Wild flower field guide that several of these flowers are in. I think this one has something in its name that means big. It is one of the bigger trillium in the park. I think this is a catesby trillium. I like this one It's bloom comes from under the leaf unlike the other trilliums you will see in the park. I always call this a yellow trillium,  I don't have a book that includes this flower. Blood root Rue anemone chickweed (growing among phlox) A kind of woodsorrel? I have never seen this one before and was first drawn to the distinctive leaves when I stumbled upon one flower beginning to open. Spring Beauty A field of blue phlox. The whole area was just covered with these little blue flowers. The pictures don't capture the effect. These are not in the books and seem to be rare. I believe I was told that its name is Star flower. Don't they just look like they love each other? Or at least like each other? They were fighting just before this photo and yet I still got such a sweet picture of them together. They had a friend along that falls between Emily and Noah in age and they both enjoy Adam. As you know though three is a crowd and sometimes Noah loses out. This is one of the first caves that we came to upon entering the sinks from above and I guess behind. I don't think I could ever take us the way our *guide* took us again. There are several caves in this area (the reason for the sinks :) This particular cave was the site of the stranded youth pastor and his little hiking group that was in the news a few weeks ago. I did notice (and point out to my son) that there was a sign right at the entrance that you could not enter without permission. In the white oak sinks area there are several notes of interest. Up on a hill were these cogs. It is not known what they were used for... We also hiked up to a grave site, The only in the area because everyone was usually buried in Cades Cove. I keep saying we hiked up because that is where the home sites would be, up on the hill so that valuable flat land could be used in farming. Here is a stick that Noah called his Chinese stick. We have been studying Ancient China and he thought that the little worm "tracks" looked like chinese writing. It was a huge stick and I wouldn't let him drag it around for fear of tripping up someone who wasn't used to having little boys around. After we came down from the one grave site in white oak sinks I spotted two deer. There were only 5 of us out of the group that got to see the deer. Noah had to bury his snail that had died and was having a hard time dealing with the fact that I was not going to let him carry the sticky thing around anymore. So we had fallen a little behind during the process. When I spotted the deer the three others that were kinda lagging back with us decided to take pictures. I was amazed at how close we could get to the deer. This is the deer that Noah sited. A friend was trying to convince him to find other treasures to show us because he was so good at looking around. She was trying to convince him to walk and to get over his dead snail. This was what he found. A log that looked like a deer eating. This is a water fall that is there in the sinks. (I don't know why my camera isn't focusing sometimes) It tumbles down and back under itself and under ground. It connects somehow with the Tuckaleechee caverns. Here is the bottom of the falls. The kids are getting reading to enter the hollowed out area behind the falls. Noah who was still sticking with me pretty close saw an alligator in this log. Here is a look back up to the opening. To the right you can see the falls splashing on the rocks. Here is a picture of some of the group at the bottom of the falls. It was a slightly treacherous, very muddy trip to the bottom. Here are two bats that weren't disturbed by our group. We did stir up a couple others that flew around and thrilled Noah while we were there. This was a fun hike. I think we did more than the estimated 4 miles. Noah was a real trooper. Emily complained at the end. My feet were complaining at the end. Would I do the hike again. Yes, at the very least the shorter more direct route at least. The longer way again? Yes but with better shoes :) It was fun being with a group. So often the kids and I just go off on our own.

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• Apr. 11, 2008 - College Woods

We walked around the college woods again last night. I forgot to bring my camera *grr*. We saw lots of new wild flowers. We saw of course the dogwood trees, little bluets (which I have decided that I just LOVE) lots of yellow trillium. Mayapples were growing but naturally aren't blooming yet. Three variety of violets. There was one flowering bush that I haven't seen before and found it enough places that there is a possibility that it may be wild..... or just escaped from someones garden. But we found some down in the more wild areas that I do not think have been developed. Here is a picture of a bundle of flowers we brought home. It contains the flowering bush that I have not taken the time to identify.

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• Apr. 8, 2008 - Venting

• Mar. 29, 2008 - Friday's hike on Blueberry Trail

Friday after some other plans fell through (because of weather ), the kids and I went hiking on a 3 mile hike on what is called the Blueberry Trail. Starting out I didn't really plan to do the whole hike. I thought we would just hike maybe to the top of the mountain and then back down. The first part of the hike zig zags up the mountain. Noah had fun pointing out some trees that he could remember and we took photos of a couple of interesting plants that we found. This is running cedar. This is a club moss. There are several but I am not sure which one this one is.... maybe shinning club-moss. Noah never admitted to needing a rest but when winded always asked me if I needed a rest. He is still relatively clean at this point. He wasn't by the end of the hike Here are some views as we neared the top of the mountain. When I worked at Wesley Woods (*cough* 12 years ago), we were just beginning to see the damage from the pine beetle. Now a blight is attacking the hemlocks. I can't imagine the further changes we will see to these mountains. Down the other side of the mountain the trail takes us through a gorge (watershed). This is a very rugged part of the trail. Noah did very well. It got a little tiring that he was avoiding "the lava" as we made our way through. There are two small water falls/ cascades that we have to climb down to continue on our way. I didn't take pictures of these. I guess I was too busy getting a little boy and a small highly freaked out dog through this area to stop and document the hike at this point. Daisy (the dog) perked up after the water falls. I guess she felt that if she could make it through that she could make it through anything. The dog did not enjoy the travel through the gorge and was very happy when we stepped onto a real trail on the last leg of our hike. Over all it was a good hike. I think it took us just a little over two hours to hike the trail. There wasn't much to stop and look at plant wise so that probably sped us up some.

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• Mar. 27, 2008 - Young Naturalists

The kids belong to a little science group called the young naturalists. The kids get a lot of hands on science with this group. I think their favorite is stream ecology. They look for and identify creatures from streams, rivers and ponds. The also monitor water quality. After "class time" the kids always seem to enjoy each other afterwards. It is never wrong to notice other things along the way: These little spring beauties are sweet.

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• Mar. 23, 2008 - Easter

My kids are so sad that Easter is over with. I am behind in posting pictures so here are our pictures from Easter weekend: This is from our Church's easter egg last Saturday. The kids Love this event. Later that afternoon Emily made and dressed up the dog in bunny ears: Saturday night the kids decorated eggs: I almost forgot to snap a picture of the kids before we went to church: Later Sunday afternoon the kids did their easter egg hunt. This is the only photo of the afternoon hunt. I have video of it instead.

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• Mar. 22, 2008 - Parks

One of the things that I am most thankful for is all the places we have to wander and explore mere minuets from our house. You never know what opportunities are waiting for you if you remember to look for them. Even the seemingly simple can please the young. Even the seemingly common can delight the explorer. And the fearless are always ready to defend with a handy sword. The enemy was all around us. It was a good thing we had Noah to fight off the nats. Who's ready to go home? Not I, they all yell.

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• Mar. 18, 2008 - spring treasures

Back from West TN we decided to go on a walk in the college woods. What is it about a new path that brings out the explorer in all of us? This is one of my favorite times of year to hike as the world is awakening from its winter sleep. Also it is easy to find small treasure and wonder what they are if we don't know. This betwix and between time is so enchanting. Even the smallest periwinkles bring such delight. What treasure can be found on a late afternoon walk through the woods.

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• Mar. 9, 2008 - Snow... almost

• Feb. 28, 2008 - To snow or not to snow

• Feb. 26, 2008 - Ukrainian Pysanky Egg Decorating

For years I have seen the Pysanky eggs and thought how neat it would be to do it with a group of people. So this year I took the leap and ordered all the supplies needed to do the egg decorating with a group and looked up history of the Ukrainian Pysanky. I have completed two of the three workshops that I lined up and overall I think they have worked out well so far. For me the difficult part is not how to do a craft or even how to teach the craft. I worry about having enough supplies to go around. I think I lose more sleep over whether or not I will have enough supplies. I originally set the workshops for ages 9 and up. Since these workshops were for homeschool families I have let a couple of younger students into the workshops. This really does need to be done with older kids. The kistka was challenging for younger kids to use especially when lines were desired. If you are interested in trying this with your family I found a WONDERFUL website that will tell you all you need to know about supplies, steps, designs, tradition and symbol and color meaning. The most important thing to know is that you can not use the dyes on boiled eggs. The eggs spoil after a few days and the dyes are not eatable. You will either need to blow out the eggs or keep them raw. On the website it has tips for keeping and storing raw eggs. The challenge with using eggs that are blown before dyeing is that empty eggs float! lol We solved this by placing rocks on top to hold down the eggs. I hope you try this.   Make sure you read through the pages on the website that I listed above. It has many good tips and information that will help you get started. I know there are kits that are sold that also will have instructions.

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• Feb. 23, 2008 - A trip to the Aquarium

Recently we went to the Aquarium in Gatlinburg..... spider crabssea horse sea turtle jelly fish It was fun to see some of the creatures we had been studying about. Noah was quiet the ham, posing every chance he got. One of Emily's favorites are the blow fish.

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• Jan. 7, 2008 - Lessons from Laryngitis

• Dec. 5, 2007 - Noahism

• Dec. 5, 2007 - mirrored images

• Dec. 3, 2007 - More on prayers

• Nov. 28, 2007 - Simple Prayers

• Nov. 26, 2007 - Where are the McIntyres?

Have you wondered why it has been so quiet around this blog? I like to say we have been too busy living life to write about it. But all are well. Noah had a close call pulling a shelf over on him this evening. Scared me to death. Took twenty minuets for me to stop shaking. Took even longer to clean up the mess he caused. He was wearing his spiderman outfit... that has been put up for awhile as his punishment (yes he was climbing). Of course seeing me sit there and cry after I knew he was okay may have been punishment enough. It was a horrible sight seeing him lying underneath that shelf so still. By some miracle he was not injured except his "little pinky toe". We got in yesterday from West TN. We had a good visit with several family members. Even got a little shopping in on Friday while we were there. I think I have most of my shopping for Christmas done. I love the Thanksgiving/Christmas holidays.

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