Around early evening the other night, I heard Alex shouting for me from the garage, "Mom, it's a hummingbird moth in the garage!"  Evidently hummingbird moths, unlike most other moths, become sedentary at night, and this particular one had taken up residence on my garage wall for the evening.  Over the last week or so, we had been given a few opportunities to watch this beauty in action on the red clovers in the field next to us.  See my post on that HERE.  But this time we were given a wonderful opportunity to study this magnificent creature really up close!  So many times the Lord has done this, when we take interest in something in particular in His wondrous Creation, He just loves to hand it right to you to enjoy!

This little fellow had no intentions of leaving us, he climbed right into our butterfly pavillion and stayed for the evening.  During the early morning time, we got him out and he sat contently on our fingers (we were too excited to think of taking a photo then!).  We took him outside thinking he would fly right off, but he actually acted like he wanted to stay.  The sun wasn't quite up high in the sky yet, perhaps that's why he was so comfortable.  So I sat him on the marigolds on the back deck and got some fantastic photos!  Please do "full size" these photos!

Can you see the irridescence on the back of the body.

The edges of his wings almost look like they were sprinkled with glitter.

Or how about the little tuft feathers at the bottom of his body?

 I love the cute little beady eyes and cool stout antennas!

Can you see the black proboscis curled up under his chin?

Ok, how could you think that's not cute?!

He looks like he has a little yellow beard. 

 He can hover and fly like a hummingbird, has the body of a moth,

and looks similar in ways to a bumblebee.....

another remarkable Creation.

He stayed here just until the sun got nice and high in the sky and the temperatures were on the rise, and then just as if a switch had been flipped, off he took to the skies to go about his business.  Later in the morning, when we went out to take our nature walk, we got a great video of one (who knows if it was the same little fellow or not) buzzing about happily doing his work! (please ignore my son telling my 2 year old to be quiet in the background, he has no patience when Gabby is being whiney!)

The following is a great web page on the Snowberry Clearwing Humminbird Moth, which gives lots of info plus shows all it's stages of life.  We will be using this next week to complete a nature journal page.

Snowberry Clearwing Hummingbird Moth

Black and Purple Petunias, by Georgia O'Keeffe

I really love it when I can combine lessons!  And yesterday I was able to combine many lessons into one fantastic project!  For this year, I have our Art and Music lessons scheduled on Wednesdays.  We do not try to accomplish a great amount of other subjects this day, because I wanted this day to mostly focus on this.  Because the truth is that Art projects usually take a larger amount of time, but they are so worth it!

I'm going to attempt to walk you step-by-step through what we did:

1) Read a Book:  Through Georgia's Eyes, by Rachel Rodriquez

- This is truly a great living book on the life of Georgia O'Keefe!  It was our favorite that we checked out at the library.

2) Discussed Ms. O'Keeffe's Style of Painting Flowers.

- I showed them several examples of Georgia's flower paintings.  We discussed how she saw great beauty in flowers and she painted them big, close-up, and colorful in hopes that other people could see them the way she would!  Isn't that beautiful?  I want others to see them that way as well!

3)  Nature Walk

- Took a nature walk focused on looking at the details of wildflowers.  Each of the children picked their favorite flower, which they would be using for an art project.  Hannah and Alex both picked Chicory, I picked Spotted Touch-Me-Not, and Gabby picked a Robin's Plantain.

Also while we were on our nature walk, using super macro on the camera, the kids and I tried our hand at taking wildflower photos as close up as possible, just like Georgia would have liked it! After uploading the photos on our computer, we cropped them in even closer!  Can you see the beauty?

Chicory

Queen Anne's Lace

Black-Eyed Susan 

After returning inside and placing our picked flowers in some water vases, I moved onto the next step.

4) Read the Summer Section of Nature's Paintbox, by Patricia Thomas

- We've been working our way through the seasons in the above book.  Our Spring study can be found HERE.  For Summer, the illustrations are done in watercolors, my personal favorite art medium.  So, we used watercolors to do our art project!

5) Listen to The Four Seasons - Summer, Masters of Classical Music - Antonio Vivaldi

- I put this CD on to listen to while completing our Art project - specifically on The Four Seasons - Summer suite.  I reminded the kids about the last time we listened to Vivaldi and about The Four Seasons suites.  And like the last time we listened to it, we discussed the music and how it sounded like the season.

6) Complete Art Project:  Georgia O'Keeffe Watercolor Flowers

- The children used their selection of wildflower to paint a watercolor picture, George O'Keeffe style.  I gleaned this art idea from this book:  Discovering Great Artsts, by MaryAnn Kohl.

The two older children used Reeve's brand watercolors, it's an excellent quality paint for the price, and Loew-Cornell brand artist brushes.  For the toddler, Crayola watercolors and brush worked just fine! ;)

Alex is my art scoffer, so sometimes I can expect refusal from him, but he gave this project a try!  However, he did not like working with the watercolors and became very frustrated and discouraged with his work.  He was about to quit and I asked him if he'd like to try a different medium.  He chose good old-fashioned crayons.  And he ended up very pleased with his project!  And he got the point - he drew a smaller Chicory in the background and a larger one in the front to get your attention - Georgia style.

Hannah also did a great job with her Chicory.

And, of course, I couldn't refuse trying my hand at it!

Spotted Touch-Me-Not

Gabby, well, she did her painting "toddler-style" and only painted for about 3 minutes!

We used our final projects as a fantastic addition to our nature journals!!

The children and I were so excited to get started back up on our Outdoor Challenges, provided by Barb at her Handbook of Nature Study blog!  We will not be attempting to catch up on all of the challenges, but we definitely wanted to complete the Summer tree study.

Back at the beginning of May the kids adopted two trees in our backyard to follow through the four seasons.  Our Spring tree study can be found here.  Hannah adopted a Pignut Hickory tree and Alex adopted some type of Oak tree, we believe it is a Northern Red Oak.  I'm finding that tree identification is definitely more of a challenge than I prefer!

So for our nature walk time yesterday morning, we spent it getting further acquainted with our trees.  It was so nice to observe them all dressed up in their summer attire.

View of Leaves on Alex's Tree

"I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines. - Henry David Thoreau

We started out our observation by first looking at our spring tree photos and then tried to make a list of the differences we saw.  They both noticed the same things:  the leaves were much larger and more full; the trees had the appearance of being larger and we discussed that was probably due to the leaves being so thick on the trees; more growth around the bottom of the trees such as moss, plants, wildflowers, and Hannah's tree was generous in giving us leaves and pignuts to observe.

Hannah's Pignut Hickory Tree

 Pignut Hickory Leaves and Nuts

She also observed the very noticeable poison ivy growing up the trunk!

View up Top of the Pignut Hickory

This is a close-up picture of the bark of the Pignut Hickory.  She took a magnifying glass and observed lots of little critters running upon it.

This is a photo of Alex's Red Oak.  It's hard to see in the photo, but it's the one directly in the middle.

View up Top of Northern Red Oak

They also both measured the width of the trunk of their trees.  Hannah's measured 34" around, and Alex's was 44.5" around.

While we were out there we also went searching for a tree that had some damage on it to do some observation.  It didn't take long to find one.

We used an activity I found in Nature in a Nutshell for Kids, by Jean Potter and discussed the factors that can be responsible for tree damage.  These factors are weather conditions, fires, people, and animals.  Then we learned that when a tree is damged, it first leaks sap from the wound opening, much like we do when we bleed.  And then, in most cases, a callus quickly forms at the edges which keeps the sap from oozing out.  Sounds like us too.  If the edges are jagged, the opening may never close completely and large wounds form permanent scars on the surface.  You can see these as knots in the tree's bark.  We tried to make our own conclusions about what may have happened to this tree (the above and below photo are the same tree, it has suffered some significant damage).

Here are few more things we observed while we were out on our walks today and yesterday.

Alex is holding a cicada nymph shell.  Cicadas are Alex's favorite insect!  So this was a grand discovery!

A dead tree knocked down by the severe storm we had the previous night.

Two new wildflowers were discovered yesterday.  You can read about that in my previous entry or click here.  And today we discovered yet another new one!  They certainly do love the rain we've had!  I must update my slideshow!

Hairy Hawkweed

Today, the kids both completed nature journal entries for their tree studies.  Hannah was the only one who wanted me to share hers. :)

She also completed one from our nature walk today.

Tomorrow I have a very NEAT arts and music project which will tie in quite well with our nature walk we will take in the morning.  Stay tuned!  Here's a preview:  what do Georgia O'Keefe, watercolors, summer nature, flowers, and Antonio Vivaldi have in common?

Our first day back to school went very well!  The first half was, I admit, rather rocky, but once we worked through our "boundaries" all seemed to straighten out.  We started off our day with listening to a Jonathan Park Adventure for Bible and then we headed outside for our nature walk and to catch up on the Outdoor Hour Challenge - Seasonal Tree Study (I will post on that later).  It was so nice to get back to the challenges!

Backing up a bit, last night we had an absolutely furious and very scary storm come through.  There were many funnel clouds reported around our area and lots of wind damage.  We, thankfully, fared well through it.  Here is a photo of the approaching storm facing from our front porch.

The good news is though that we got some MUCH needed rainfall.  So the plants all over were very thankful for this.  So this morning, while we were on our nature walk we were so excited to see that two new wildflowers had popped up, I suppose due to the wonderful rain!

Alex discovered them both, my little hawk-eyed nature boy!  He found them both down by the creek.   First he yelled, "A new orange flower!"  I immediately yelled out the warning command, "DO NOT pick it!"  We've had much trouble with this in the past you know.  I came over to find one solitary beautiful orange flower.  Take a look at this beauty (click to full size if you'd like)...

It is called a Spotted Touch-Me-Not (or Spotted Jewelweed).  Now, funny story, I didn't know it was called this until after I took photos and had handled it a bit to adjust it for a better picture.  So when I first saw the name I thought, "Oh Lord, why is it called touch-me-not, am I going to break out in a horrid rash or something!?"  So I immediately searched the internet for information, and was relieved to find out that I was going to be just fine!  And I also found out just how cool this wildflower is!

They are called touch-me-not because of their little seed pods (in the first photo above, notice it just to the right and below the flower right by the leaf, it looks like a little leaf itself).  If you even barely touch this with your finger (I obviously did not), it will explode like a balloon and spread seeds in multiple directions.  The technical term for this ability is called dehiscent.  Also the stem contains juices which are known to be an antidote for poison ivy in some people.  And this could be really handy because while we were observing this beautiful flower, Gabby was over giving a tree a hug that is covered in it!  Ughh!  This poor wildflower may become a "sacrifice" soon!  Also another cool thing, if you enlarged the first photo you may have noticed the little water droplets standing on the leaves...the leaves are covered in a waxy substance that makes them waterproof.

Before we were finished observing this one my nature-boy calls out again, "Mom, more new wildflowers!"  This time he had found the Heal-All (or Self Heal) wildflower; also known for their healing abilities on wounds.  There were about 7 of these all popping up just right down a ways from where we found the Spotted Touch-Me-Not.  You can also click on this photo to enlarge it.  Notice the delicate purple/white blooms?  They look like little miniature snapdragons.  And there's the most beautiful violet color just inside the middle. 

This was truly a special gift today to find both of these beautiful new additions to our wildflower discoveries!  I distress though that it was hard to come back inside to finish the rest of our table studies!

And one more thing...the rainbow promise after the furious storm last night was a pretty special blessing too.  Thank you Father for remembering your covenant.

And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.  Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth."  - Genesis 9:12-16

There's no doubt that everyone loves a neatly trimmed and manicured lawn.  One kept with grass and landscaped with beautiful store bought trees, shrubs and garden flowers.  But have you ever thought about what might grow in your yard if even just a small part is left to itself?

My husband has a gifted ability to make our landscaping around our home look wonderful, but he's also well aware of letting nature show off it's own landscaping abilities.  All around the bottom edges of our yard, right where our creek is and where it meets the woods, we allow about a 5-6 foot area to "grow wild".  This is where we've been blessed to be able to identify some of the most beautiful plants and wildflowers (see that patch of Black-Eyed Susans in the above photo?  That's where I got the photo for my blog banner!).  We've also observed countless cool-looking insects and have discovered little bird's nests perhaps built by Sparrows who prefer their nests down low to the ground.

And another thing that is really neat about God's natural landscaping, is that it changes through the days and seasons!  One week we may have Robin's Plantain growing and the next Chicory, it's always giving us a different view.

Around the base of trees is also a neat place to "let it grow".  There we may find different kinds of wildflowers and insects.  And we keep a few old logs and rocks around the bases of some of our trees just for those instances when we'd like to turn them over!

Even if your yard space is limited, perhaps you could spare just a very small area to let it grow wild.  Even in a small space, a new world awaits to be discovered!

Gabriella was wondering where her Binkie was today...

I've spent much time nuturing my children's love of nature by being out amongst the great outdoors as frequently as possible with them.  This is so important!  However, recently I also realized how important it's been that I've also been taking time to experience God's creation on my own.  A couple times a month (or more), at night after my sweet husband comes home, I've ventured out just for a bit on my own with my camera in pocket and peace on my mind.  In this solitude I've been able to connect with my Lord on a deeper personal level which serves to greatly refresh my mind and soul.  The last two nights I took time to do just that and here are some of the discoveries I made. (click on any of the photos to full size)

Dragonflies are truly beautiful, delicate, amazing creations.

Male Whitetail Skimmer

Female Widow Skimmer

Butterflies are much friendlier and less scared of you when you are by yourself.

Great Spangled Frittilary

Tawny Crescent

God put simply breathtaking colors and patterns even in beetles.

Japanese Beetle

When all is quiet, God will show you something that you've never seen before, and maybe didn't even know existed.  The following photos are of the Hummingbird Moth.  He (?) looks like a combination of a humminbird, bumblebee, and a moth!  Very awesome!  I crouched down and for several moments he fluttered about me as if I was just another flower!  I took 20 photos, but these three are the best!   I admit I felt a bit nervous because he looked a bit like a bee, but I knew he was harmless.  I saw up close details and watched as he put his little proboscis into each red clover for a drink.

"The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul.  He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake."

Psalm 23:1-3

My sweet friend Cindy at On Our Journey Westward has posted her MSG (that would be monosodium glutamate) story.  Please take time to head on over there and read it.  The Lord brought Cindy and I together in life for many reasons, and one of those reasons was that she was going to share with me her story about gaining freedom from MSG caused health problems.  And her story was to free me from years of chronic colon pain, digestive problems, and frequent violent vomiting.

I will not repeat everything she said, but just know that I could have wrote it myself!  The only difference was our exact symptoms varied a bit.  My problems also started in my young 20's, like Cindy said, perhaps that's when our bodies finally just have enough of the garbage, and similar to her, that's when my eating habits (living out on my own) became much worse.  I found myself frequenting my doctors office with colon and digestive pain, migraine headaches, and frequenting hospitals violently sick with unbearable stomach pain.  I too received lots of diagnosis' such as spastic colon, colonitis, gastroenteritis, and the sort.  I was put on a little blue pill to try and "calm" my colon down, which had undesireable side effects and only helped a bit and didn't keep the violent throwing up from happening.

I too, like Cindy, ended up on my knees praying for the Lord to help me find the truth and to set me free from this misery.  And one Sunday morning, I was in service, standing up at the doorways serving as an usher, and our pastor was speaking about healing.  And the whole time, I was having constant colon pain.  He said a prayer of healing and I reached down and held my stomach where it hurt and cried out in my heart for healing.  On to the scene He rushed His servant and my good friend Cindy!  In a simple sentence she ask me, "Have you thought about the possibility of it being MSG?"  The rest is history.

I did the same as her, researched, researched, and then did a "clean sweep" of my pantry, started cooking more from scratch, and started reading the ingredients in boxed and canned foods and pre-processed meats with a different view!  Read her story to know the rest of what I did, I do not want to be redundant!

Praise the Lord, since less than a week after changing my diet, I've not had any pains in my colon, NO violent throwing up, no severe stomach pain, and no migraine headaches (UNLESS I get ahold of some MSG unawaringly).

I so agree with her statement...whether or not you noticeably react to MSG or not, it's bad stuff for everyone!  If you have doubts about this statement please read what is MSG. And then do your own research to find the truth.  At first, the changes in diet are overwhelming, but it DOES get much easier.  From then on, I've been praying for God's Truth to reveal the dangers in trusting man when it comes to the choices of what we put in our bodies.

Stay tuned to Cindy's blog for great recipes she uses for replacing those nasty pre-packaged, pre-made spice mixes and more!  Perhaps I will pull a few out from my recipe book as well.