We saw this neat guy last week and we had no idea what it was! My oldest was the first to spot it as it was making music in our garage. It then landed on our van and I opened a side door, hubby opened the other, and we were both in wide-eyed wonder of this magnificent creature!  We didn't know what it was; we'd never seen anything like it. I went to my handy-dandy computer to find out!

A Katydid! It's apparently named b/c the insect makes music sounding like 'Katydid this and Katydid that.' But I honestly don't hear that when I hear the various types. You can hear the sounds below.

 It also comes in this awesome shade of pink!

 Here are a few facts we learned today.

1. they are relatives of grasshoppers & crickets
2. male & females make sound, unlike grasshoppers & crickets
3. they rub their front wings together 'to sing' to each other
4. they hear each other with ears on their front legs
5. they grow over 2 in. and are leaf-green in color, except for that hot pink one up there
6. their oval shaped wings have lots of veins, just like leaves
7. they can fly short distances when threatened, but prefer to walk or climb
8. breeding season is late summer, early fall
9. they lay their eggs in straight lines, eggs don't hatch till the following spring
10. they eat leaves of deciduous trees, esp. Oaks

Nature Notebooks ~ drawings of Katydids

For the past month I've had daily visits from a friend. At first I didn't think much of her visits; I just gazed at her beauty and thanked God for His creativity. After several weeks of her daily visits, excitement grew within me as I began watching for her. I waited ever so patiently and she always came.  When the kids would see her they would yell, 'Mom, your butterfly!' or 'There's Mom's butterfly.' I would talk with the Lord as I watched her flutter about. Then we'd say good-bye until the following day. I believe it was the same butterfly because she was very small at first and the more times she came, the bigger she grew. I'm saddened knowing adult butterflies have a lifespan of a few days up to a few weeks. I'm praying the Lord sends another friend my way!

I had a desire to photograph her, but she wouldn't sit still long enough. I asked the Lord to keep her still so I could capture her beauty. Today was the day!

.....I'd like to introduce my friend to you all.....

The Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly

I hope you all find her as lovely as I do.

We found this awesome Yellow Wooly Bear caterpillar ( Spilosoma Virginica ) in an odd sorta place; on my husband's foot!!

My eldest daughter, my husband and I were outside talking and my daughter says, 'Dad, what is on your foot?' He felt something but didnt think much of it.

Isn't he cute?!  It's the larva of the Virginia Tiger Moth or the Yellow Wooly Bear Moth. The moth itself is rather icky looking, but the caterpillar is cute!

 Parrot Flower ( Impatiens Psittacina ) Facts:

This fella was found hanging from our garage door opener. Look at the detail of his body. Isn't that amazing?!  I can't help but smile and think about how awesome our Creator is.

 Here are a few interesting facts about dragonflies:

• Dragonfly eyes contain up to 30,000 individual lenses. Human eyes only have one.
• They have two sets of wings. They don’t have to beat their wings in unison like other insects do. Their front wings can be going up while their backs ones are going down.
• They only flap their wings at about 30 beats per second compared to a bee’s 300 bps.
• Excellent and strong fliers, they can loop-the-loop, hover, and fly backwards.
• An Australian Dragonfly has been clocked at 36 miles per hour.
• Dragonfly nymphs (the first stage after hatching) live in the water for about a year.
• While underwater they eat mosquito nymphs, tiny fish, and pollywogs. When they have matured to airborne insects, they catch mosquitoes and gnats in mid-air before devouring them.
• After leaving the water and becoming flying insects, they only live for about a month.
• Fossil records date the dragonfly back to dinasour time or beyond.
• The largest dragonfly recorded from fossil records had a wing span of about two and one-half feet.
• There are approximatley 5,000 different species of dragonflies in the world today, on every continent except Antarctica.
• There are approximately 450 different species in the United States.
• Dragonflies are known as beneficial insects because they eat so many harmful insects such as mosquitoes, gnats, ants termites and even butterflies, spiders and other dragonflies.
• Dragonflies do not harm people. They do not bite and they do not sting.
• Sight is the dragonfly's most important sense. Each eye can contain up to 30,000 tiny lenses.
• Their natural predators are birds.
• Among the many names for dragonflies around the world are Old Glassy from China, Water Dipper from England and Big Needle of Wings from the ancient Celts.
• The largest dragonfly today is found in Costa Rica. It has a wingspan of 7 1/2 inches.
• In spite of their delicate appearance, the wings are remarkably strong, which is a tribute to the weight/strength characteristics of the tiny tubes, called veins, that reinforce the dragonfly wing.

While enjoying our backyard this weekend we found this cute fella!

I've been trying to find out what kind of toad he is, but not having much success.  I've looked up Colorado toads, but none of the pictures look like him.

Here's another picture, the kids thought it would be fun to see him kiss Joy, our rabbit. 

Anyone know?

Tonight while we were enjoying our tempura shrimp we heard this. Kaden noticed it first as he was sitting next to the open window. He calls out, 'Hey Mom, what kind of bird is that?!' It was the American Robin. And we all stopped to look and listen. He stayed on our fence for nearly 10 minutes, puffing up his chest at the sparrows around him. We had the best time watching him. And the sound is beautiful......he was a welcomed guest. The kids were sorry he left but we told them that he'd probably be back b/c of all the bird food we have in the backyard.  We're hoping he comes back for dinner soon.
It's blurry b/c I didnt have my camera settings correct, but I didn't want him to fly away before I captured him.

We've been learning about cattails ( read more ) and have attempted to grow our own ( grow your own ). Melissa was kind enough to point me to another fabulous blog that had a cattail notebooking page, so today we added to our cattail notes. We read how the Native Americans used cattails years ago -- for mattresses, doll making, furniture, to make diapers, they also roasted the female part and ate it like corn on the cob! Very informative!

Thank you again, Melissa & to Jetihoja Academy for putting the page together!

 

Kaden's page

After our cattail adventures the other day, my son Kaden decided he wanted to see about growing his own cattails. ( YAY ~ isn't that what we want, for them to keep wanting to learn on their own? ) So mom got online and did a little research and sure enough you can! Kaden read it and went to work, with dad's help.

Things you need

small cardboard container ~  e.g. cardboard egg carton

sand

larger container with no holes

cattail seeds, of course!

water

Step 1

Kaden fills in each egg section with sand

Step 2

Water the sand well

Step 3

Place seeds on top of the sand, but do not bury them, gently push into the surface

Step 4

Put your smaller cardboard container into your large container; fill the bottom with 1/2 inch of water

Step 5

Keep the sand wet at all times, seeds should sprout in 1 month. Once they've sprouted, place container in a sunny area until seedlings grow to 2-inches

Step 6

Transplant seedlings into larger pots that are filled with soil. Allow them to grow in the pots until the plants reach a height of 1 foot.

Step 7

Plant your cattail plants in a shaded wet area. Of course a swampy area would best, but they can grow in any stagnant water up to 6-inches deep.

With clipboards ( I got one for each of the kids and puffy painted their names on ) in hand, erasable colored pencils and lots of drawing paper in our take along pack, we headed out. Dad came along too -- YIPPEEE! 

Kaden drawing one of the many grasses we found. He thought these were cool - we have these to plant in our backyard garden this spring.

 Jayda drawing a couple of trees -- we went over the difference between deciduous vs. evergreen trees. We have a couple evergreens in our backyard and we saw a couple on our outing.

Here's a tree that had much of the bark pulled off to reveal the beauty of the insides, Taylor thought it was pretty cool!

 River drawing the bugs he found

 Dad took 4 of the kids and found a canal or some sort of water source, I forgot to send the camera with them so I have no pics of that ~ BUMMER! I was nursing Zane at that point and didnt tag along. They brought back a ton of cat tails! And lots of fun drawings of what they found. They were fascinated by the cattails and all the 'fuzzy seeds' that wander in the wind! Here's Jayda banging the tail on the ground to make the seeds blow around, it looked like it was snowing!

Jayda was dancing in the 'snow' of the seeds, but I didnt catch the seeds in time before they flew away....

Here's Kaden inspecting the cattail so he could draw it better

Their favorite of all they saw were the cattails so dad was able to talk more about them and ask lots of questions to get them thinking ~ asking about the location of the cattails, them needing a water sorce to grow, the seeds blowing in the wind, which in turn led to a discussion about how God made the wind so that seeds could be spread to grow more of the same plant. It was a very productive afternoon!