as cozy as spring

Wildflowers

I think the one job I would love above any other, save homeschooling mom of two, would be wildflower photographer for a guide book.  True, it takes me ten shots to get one good one and I still haven't really figured out how to use my camera, but I love hunting them down.  I love messing with the settings until I capture the color exactly.

My husband gave me this most amazing gift of watching the children while I went hiking by myself last week.  It was freeing and surprising.  I had no idea what lengths I would go to in order to snap a photo.  I was surprised and amused to see all the scratches and bruises on my legs that I acquired in the process. 

It was a dry year for the entire southwest and the lupines in particular looked a little worn.  I didn't discover much I hadn't photographed before.  I thought about inserting all my wildflower photos into this post, but after I looked at the list, it would include about fifty photos.  So this is just a handful, not even necessarily my favorites.

 

This little beauty was new to me though. Mountain Gentian.  It seemed fairly common on our hike, but we were in a spot we'd never been before.  

A wild geranium.  Also fairly common, but very charming.

Oxeye Daisy (with asters in the backgroud).  There were huge fields of these flowers.  

Scarlet Gilia.  Look at the purple at the base of the flower.  Isn't it lovely?  I made my husband stop the truck so I could jump out and get this one.  

Monskhood, my favorite.  These grow in a tangle alongside mountain streams, mingled with wild raspberries, ferns, and mosses.  Despite using two cameras and a wide variety of settings, I could not capture the blackish purple of the flowers.  This is the most accurate, but not exact.  The sky blue of the flax flowers is also tricky and came out way too dark in most of my photos.

I still have so many to sort through, but it was another great year for hunting mountain wildflowers.

Wrapping up the week.

Hiya!  The days and weeks are sorting themselves into their own rhythm, over which I have little say.  I'm tired enough on Saturday to really need a break from lessons, which indicates that our school year is going well enough.  Last week, our first full week, didn't go as planned with many interruptions and two days lost to illness.  So I would call it a typical school week instead of the ideal school week I had in mind. 

I promised I would review the Memoria Press Kindergarten program once we started.  It's good.  Some of it's too easy - my son was already reading a bit when we started so we're beyond learning the sound of the letter Mm.  Now learning to write the letter Mm - whole different story!  There are some fun ideas and themes included in the lesson plan book that, to me, make it a valuable addition to our days (activities my daughter can do as well).  In the end, I'm pleased with the purchase.  It provides inspiration and structure as I'm planning for everyone.

We supplement with nature study and art, plenty of read alouds and prayer.  My son is rather attached to the rosary Brother Martin gave him and brings it in every night asking, "Rosary?".  I would say more about this, but it would go against my blogging manifesto of never talking about anything that matters and that might also be interesting.  

I've been planning art and science for Fridays.  We normally take this outdoors, but the heat has returned so this week we brought nature in. I have monarch caterpillars in my dining room.  A lot of them.  I can't get an accurate count, but it's between 25 and 30.  I'm seriously concerned about my milkweed supply as one of my largish plants is only stems at this point.  There's always a bit of humiliation involved in pet care, isn't there?  Mine came yesterday as I lovingly hand scrubbed all the aphids and ants off the leaves to give my babies only the finest cuisine and then swept up all their little... previously digested matter.

 

This is just one (1!) stem.  It's a little gross sitting there next to my dining room table, but we've lost too many caterpillars to wasps for me to put it outside now.
At this point in time I feel like things have gotten out of hand and I care too much about the butterflies (lost my mind entirely).  But in a few weeks, when I release a cloud of monarchs into the garden with happy wishes to 'Fly south!  Fall approaches!" I hope it will be all worth it. 

 

We also delved into our mountain life zone study with my very most favorite wildflower, monkshood.  My daughter read all about it while they colored and I discussed all the points it is mentioned in literature and mythology.  We talked about where we had seen it growing and if that fit in with the descriptions in our guidebooks.  Fun!

Off to plan next week! 

Keep your eyes wide

In the third grade, my teacher asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up.  I immediately answered 'house wife'.  At sixteen I was asked the same question.  I answered 'taxonomist'.  Both lucrative career choices.  Obviously I landed dream job #1 but I am still quite enthusiastic about plant identification and photography.

 

Mountain Bluebells

I spent our week in the mountains hunting flowers and mushrooms.  The mushrooms were nearly nonexistent due to a dry spell that preceded our visit.  The flowers were plentiful, if a bit different than the array I am used to seeing in August.  

 

Heartleaf Bittercress

I had to emotionally brace myself for the possibility I wouldn't find my beloved monkshood.

 

Monkshood

But I found it, growing all along the mountain stream.  

A new-to-me, and apparently rare, find was the Calypso Orchid.

 

I wish I had taken better photos of this beauty.  My family is patient with my incessant picture taking, but there are limits.

I've spent the last week scribbling down names and websites to help in identification and yesterday I stumbled onto the US Forest Service site.  Amazing.  It's bursting with information and coloring pages and please go check it out.  You can search by region.  They have guide books they recommend.  It's ideal for nature study with children.  I'm going to need more printer cartridges.  They have coloring pages or books for so many of the flowers we found on our hikes.  I could really not be more excited about that site.  Go, go, click the link!

This was all a very long way of introducing our "science" for this year.  It will be heavily inspired by our own adventures.  Add in Apologia's Exploring Creation with Botany.  We went through this book a couple of years ago.  I liked it then but I just found the accompanying Botany Notebooking Journal and it's brilliant.  My daughter learned some from the text, but I think she was too young to learn and then apply her knowledge.  I don't mind repeating textbooks one little bit, so this will be our foundation.

I try a general science text almost every year and usually abandon it.  Science seems to be the one thing we unschool despite my partiality towards classical curriculum.  We live it, enthusiastically.  

 

Shooting Star Columbine
 

Monkshood

"As for monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite.  Well, why aren't you all copying that down?" - Professor Snape, The Sorcerer's Stone

Wildflower identification has always been one of our favorite vacation activities (because we are party people).  I happen to be a blue flower enthusiast and am guilty of rolling my eyes at the yellow flowers who think they are going to make it into my photo collection.  Think again, sunflower.  

We photographically collected all we have found for the last few years.  I uploaded all this year's photos to Flickr and ordered a sticker book collection from Moo.

These are all going in our ahem, her nature journal (I'm a bit envious) with ID information and any interesting literary references.  Like, did you know that monkshood was said to grow from the slobber of Cerberus?  And that Athena supposedly used it to turn Arachne into a spider?  And so much more...

I'm not doing the 100 species challenge because I don't like rules when it comes to plant identification but if I were I think we would create a photographic collection using the Moo mini cards. You know, you could write the species on the back and where you found it.  You could play memory games or something.   As it is, it may take us a bit more time to amass 100 wildflower photos.  Especially if I keep excluding yellow flowers.

Now I have to beg for help from the internet.  My Rocky Mountain wildflower book was left out in the rain and the pages are glued together.  I cannot find this flower online.  I'm spending far too much time searching.  Any ideas?  It grew alongside a stream in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

Lovely Spring

(Yes, I know it is still winter, but I really can't label these photos with the word 'winter')

We went on a little hometown tour today, which ended at the city gardens.  Being early March, my expectations were low.  But oh wow, were we treated to an amazing display of flowers and beautiful bright spring green foliage.  It was truly breathtaking.  So here, friends, are some highlights.  Truly, I had to hold back from posting all ninety-one photos I took this afternoon.

Poppy buds - almost as gorgeous as the blooms.

Icelandic poppies.

Snowdrops.  Ahhhhhh.

Mr. Squirrel

Redbud

Magnolia - it is hard to tell in the photo, but this tree was covered in buds.  Amazing.

I don't know what this is, but it has that fabulous bright green that I love.

I love how the sunlight casts a misty glow over the blooms.

Hellebores!  Thses were growing quietly between some rocks.  The dusky colors and green veined petals are gorgeous when viewed up close.

Magnolia

Magnolia

Whoops!

Remember this?  This was four days ago - just barely! 

And now I have this...

Everything has sprouted!  A little too quickly.  I am no where near ready to transfer our little seedlings outside.  The window was far warmer than I anticipated.

Anyway, I do love the little counter top greenhouse.  It came with a clear plastic top and a solid bottom tray for catching drips.  Jiffy makes it.  It was more compact than what I usually use and obviously, things sprouted more quickly as well. 

Each Little Flower that Opens...

"The sun looks at a rose, along with a thousand millions of other flowers, just as much as if he looked at the rose alone.  And God, though He loves a countless number of other souls, does not pour out His love upon one soul less than if He loved that soul alone, since the force of His love does not diminish according to the multitude of rays that it sends forth, but remains always full in its own immensity."

St. Francis de Sales

We are learning about seeds this month.  Perfect timing.  We visited the nursery this morning and the children had so much fun.  The greenhouses are filling up and everything is lovely. 

We brought home several packages of easy-to-see and easy-to-sprout seeds.  Sunflowers, morning glories, cucumbers, and moon flowers are simple for children to handle and very rewarding to grow.  Cucumbers have obvious male and female flowers which is nice for identifying parts.  I planned to do this project with Lucy, but Linus was surprisingly precise when planting the seeds in the proper section.  He has been slow to talk and I was thrilled to hear him happily say, "Seet, Seet!".    Meanwhile, Lucy worked on some notebook pages:

I love the way our botany book describes the hilum as the seed's belly button, where it had been attached to the mother plant. 

And we really are sewing felt specimens for our botany studies.  I didn't have much on hand, but Lucy managed a felt pumpkin seed:

I posted a month ago about starting rosemary from cuttings.  I checked today and there are many happy little roots now.

I try to write about things or events that inspire me.  Usually these things involve our Catholic bookstore or Amazon, other websites, or my children and my husband.  The most inspiring thing for me, however, is the garden.  I (of course) I took the camera to the nursery this morning so I could share some of the loveliness:

Can you believe it was 16 degrees here this morning?

We also purchased little garden shoes for the children.  Linus wanted to wear them to bed.

"

Leaf Prints

Nina asked for details on our leaf prints.  Yesterday morning we began a little leaf print book.  We happened to have everything on hand, which never happens.  Here is what we used:

• A small watercolor paper book
• Several stamp pads
• Leaves from the garden
• a sharpie

OK, this was ridiculously easy.  I ironed the leaves flat and placed them on the paper.  My daughter stamped her fingerprints all around the edges of the leaf (all the while I was urgently telling her, "Don't move the leaf!  The leaf has to be perfectly still!).  The print was made, she labeled it.  Tada!  Easy enough for her and the results are so pretty.

We will continue this through the spring and summer. 

Pretty Homeschooling

As I have mentioned, my husband works in the landscaping business.  It is just one more wonderful aspect of being married to him.  Lots of couples argue about money or children, we argue about rose varieties (hyrbid tea!  Earth Kind!) or overwhelming our garden with our personal favorites (hollies - him, rosemary - me)   The best part, however, is when he brings his work home with him, it looks like this:

I requested a specimen from the Phylum Anthophyta, Pterophyta, and Bryophyta.  Alas, he had no moss, but he did send home this gorgeous Ranunculus and a maidenhair fern (le sigh....) with spores!

Here are our collection of cones from Phylum Coniferophyta....

The larger two are from Digger Pine and Sugar Pine, respectively.  I don't know about the smaller two.

Here is our work space this morning:

Note the big mess o' fabric in the corner - my projects, when I can find some time.....

And just because.....

My first Hellebore (Lenten Rose) bud this year.  Despite the snow yesterday (yes, snow - AGAIN!) there are several signs up spring popping up.  The daffodils, tulips, and anemones are emerging from the soil.  Today begins our study of seeds, perfect time to plan the vegetable garden and fantasize about Heavenly Blue Morning Glories.