Thomas Kinkade Rose Garden Rubberstamp may be purchased at

www.cornishheritagefarm.com (Fast/freeshipping over $35!)  I used PRISMA colored pencils and SU! products

The homeschoolblogger photo upload gave this some funky color smudges over the bottom of the pink cardstock.

 Our Christmas Card....Thomas Kinkade rubberstamps can be purchased at www.cornishHeritagefarms.com

We talked about Letterboxing last year; but it didn't happen until this past weekend!

We set out for our first Letterbox in a Dog Park...that should be pretty easy...yeah right!

The box was MIA, and in the process DS 's beloved SHAMU stuffed animal brushed against a swarm of wasps and boy did we anger them!  I heard DS screaming, after I went to calm him down I started getting stung so we were both SCREAMING in PAIN!!!  A wasp was crawling in DS's hair all the way back to the van and stung him on the head. 

We caused much camotion and thankful only 2 of all 7 of us were stung!  We remembered to scrape the stingers out.  We headed to the Drug Store for First Aid and back to Letterboxing!

After two days of letterboxing we were able to locate 2 of the 4 boxes...

one box contained unpublished clues to another box...the kids loved this!  I know we won't forget the First Aid box next time!

Eager to go again!

We used www.letterboxing.org to locate boxes in our area.

PS  CAMERA FOUND bured under my beloved  STAMP DESK! 

PSS  We watched 2 hawks in the tree nearest our home today!  One circled around us and then perched back up in the tree...what a lovely sight!  PHoto added later.

Can you believe I have been without camera in hand for over a week!  My compact digital has slipped away somewhere...it remains MIA! 

So no more photos until it's retrieved and I learn to do the photobucket photo thing!

We returned from a wonderful camping weekend up in the Mountains! 

  DS said,

"Mama, we just went on a three day Nature Walk and learned A LOT!"

 Here's what DS saw:

3 Moose!! (the largest member of the deer family) Mama and baby were in the stream by our campsite

We saw Moose tracks and the tall grass area that was smashed down from them laying in it.

DS10 said he saw the Daddy Moose the next day...with the antlers!

Do they know how fortunate to see these animals in the wild? 

9 fish altogether! (Greylings and Trouts)

Uncle Joe taught boys how to gut the fish and then they cooked them on their campfire (Life Skills!)

 Beaver Dams

Lots of Steller Jays

Chipmunks

and Foxes!  2 different ones spotted at our campsite!

I was so looking forward to the waterlillies; but they were not in bloom.

The boys drew the Moose and Foxes in their nature journals.

Photos to be added.

DS2 months

each month we choose a board book for our baby to re read over and over...this is his second month book along with his first smiles.

Very humid cloudy day nature journals outside under the Russion Olive Trees. 

 We read about bees in

Jeannie Fulbrights Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day Book and discovered why our yard is covered in bindweed!  The kids and I followed the bees around watching them pollinate! We couldn't count all the honeybees we saw...We took many photos; but this is one of the best. DS 10 found the honeybee hive in the woodpile!

I didn't think I was going to get out of bed today, Daddy had to come home from work to help me ...I think I pulled a neck muscle having the baby in bed all night with my arm around him, pain medication, ben-gay, muscle rubs, and hot shower...thankfully I'm up and we were able to do nature outside!  We saw so much on this cloudy day!

2 grasshoppers, uncountable bees on all the bindweed

I'm still hesitant to think yesterdays bird is a flycatcher; but today I think we saw the female!

We went to the Bird Reserve we live by and no flycatchers were listed for sightings for July; and according to chart none have been sighted in our county!  Could we be so fortunate ?!

This weekend I'm going to take the photos over to the Bird Reserve office and see what they say!

Tomorrow I will thank God for the opportunity to get out of bed!

Some kind of birds nest...it was huge and loosely made...it was beautiful!  Maybe it's a Meadowlark nest?  His bragging post is about 20 feet from the gas tank? 

This was the focus of our nature walk today...I knew there was a nest in the lid to our gas tank ..We peeked inside to find 6 white eggs spotted brown....I hope we didn't get too close to the nest, noone touched any part of this nest so I hope it wasn't disturbed too much...the kids loved the surprise!

We'll keep an eye out to see what kind of bird flies into the hole...

We'll save the detective work of figuring out what we have for tomorrows nature study...

Here are some of the nest ingredients:

1.  bits of WalMart Plastic bags from our trash!

2.  lots of feathers

3.  hay and long grass etc

isn't that one feather pretty!

So if you are reading this and have any idea please comment!

Don't laugh!  This is as close as I got of this pretty little bird!  I think it's a vermillion flycatcher We spotted him driving out of our driveway!  He has a short pointy beak and a very graceful quick flight...He flew to the top of the Cottonwood Tree.

THis is so funny!  After reading the above sentence we all had a good laugh at that devilish little bird zooming down our driveway! 

His tummy and head were all red and he had a streak of black from his eye.

this blog will become our nature walk  blog and a place to post kids photos of our nature walks 

our former blog  www.homeschoolblogger.com/dickinsonfamily will 

 We're back online, using blogging for daily journaling of homeschool life and sharing  other tidbits for our friends and family

For those who knew me as "DickinsonFamily"  we're back online...We named this blog "Poverty Knoll" because of some family history...We bought some land from DH's family ...our children are actually the fifth generation to live on this land...that amazes me and I am thankful for the heritage! DH great grandpa called it "Poverty Knoll" there's humor somewhere in there being poor farmers....and my DH suggested we use it for our homeschooling name so it's plain and simple like my computer knowledge of blogging! 

We finally moved into our new home about 2 weeks before the birth of our 5th child...you can imagine the chaos and frustration of being very pregnant and bedrest and not being able to do all the fun organizing and moving!

We were blessed with a precious boy on April 17th ...that makes him  8 weeks old already!  wow!

We've been through some high waters with newborn's health and mine; I am still not 100% on my health and energy levels...maybe they won't return to pre pregnancy ...recovering from sicknesses I developed after C sectionwhich kept me in the hospital for three weeks...  Tomorrow our new baby has to get hopefully his last blood draw...if it's low again...he will get another IV of epotin (any nurses ...help me out on the spelling!) 

We are very blessed to be surrounded by a Nature Reserve and Bird park closeby where they release...so being a mom who knows nothing about birds, I used to "not really care" about birds have slowly become a bird watcher, in part, thanks to Jeannie Fulbrights book on Birds! also The Private Lives of Garden Birds ,love this book  no visuals but interesting!

I say that to say, I can't give you official list of birds on our land, we have recently moved so I have this excuse to say we're new to the land!  Anyways...

We have many Meadowlarks and we enjoy watching the Meadowlark sit on his bragging post which we can see him without binocs!  Last week the children went exploring for Meadowlark nests...here's some neat facts we dug up online!

MEADOWLARKS-

if you hear singing this time of year, it's time for nest number two! 

Eastern and Western Meadowlarks have different songs

longer muscular beaks...God made them to be able to poke into the subsoil and stretch open their beaks, with the ability to move their eyes forward and down to be able to see what they are poking at--dinner!

The mother, nest builder,  begins the nest with an existing dent in the ground and pulls other existing shrubbery or leaves over top to hide the nest on the ground, hence in the meadow to look for nests!

more later!

www.whalemuseum.org   you can download a nice orcas poster of June awareness month at this link.

How do I know this is Orca awareness month?...I have a shamu loving DS, been that way since he was a toddler.

He adopted an orca at the link above  

 DS was very pleased with his orca...membership package was packed full of educational materials!  including a bumper sticker, real photo of cappaccino and all his information and monthly email updates as to the where abouts of the Pods etc...very neat for those of us who don't live by the coast!

His name is Cappaccino (in the K Pod , and has brownish markings instead of all white...this is not uncommon)  Still waiting the arrival of his pod ...

If you are studying any units on Orcas, or homeschool shares unit  Whales Passing...you should visit the whale museum!