A little bit of weekend nature

Great Spangled Fritillary in our garden

Baby robins under the deck Saturday...

...and then on the deck Sunday

Someone ate the tops off all the bean plants (and left us the beans)

But the tomatoes are coming in

And all the lillies are in full bloom

Nature Thursdays—Wildlife detectives at Rolling Hills

Back on the trails again. Today's Thursday program with our county parks and recreation was a bigger hike than usual, and maybe it was the half hour drive that scared away the rest of the regulars, but Calvin and I were actually the only ones there. Funny, because turtles are cool, and logs are cool, but I really thought the "detective" part of today's program title would bring kids out of the woodwork.

A private class was okay with us, though, because when you're out scanning the ground for tracks and other signs of animals, and when you have to talk about things like scat and owl pellets, the smaller the crowd the better (and the larger the crowd, the more "ewwwwws" there are to be had). Calvin is comfortable with both scat and owl pellets, but we found only the former, and mostly from deer. Really the class was a bit like preaching to the choir. Calvin and I have been hiking our fields looking for exactly these same clues for years now. In fact, of the three of us, he was the one who found and identified the raccoon tracks and the deer scat. I also found mole trails, a couple of snake holes, and lots of duck tracks. We found nests, both bird and squirrel, and some gnawed crab apples and acorns. It was a thoroughly enjoyable private event.

Identifying a mole's trail and hole

Checking out pond scum

After our favorite guide left we ate lunch and took our now customary hike. Jon and I had hiked many of the trails at Rolling Hills about four years ago with Calvin in the Kelty pack, but I haven't been there since and I had forgotten how nice the foot trails are—lots of deep woods and wildflowers and some views of the little pond. We found lots of dragonflies and butterflies, identified a few trees and their lichens, counted fungus groups, and scared more than a few squirrels and birds.

Hitting the trails after lunch

Dragonfly and damselfly

Catbird mewing (they really do mew)

My favorite part of the day was right at the end: as we turned a corner there was a lot of rustling in the ground leaves near us and suddenly the strangest looking, most clumsy flying bird took off and flew right across the path in front of us. I was too dumbfounded to handle the camera properly before he was gone, but it was most assuredly a woodcock, something I have seen only in bird books. Calvin swears he looked just like an overgrown bumble bee, which I think was in reference to its strange, butt-heavy flying—and he laughed about it for the rest of the way back to the car. I was just ecstatic over seeing a new bird. Even a clumsy one.

Monday...gone in a flash

We got up for swimming, we sorted books at the library, we attended drop in story time, we played Carcassonne, we watered the trees, we ate popcorn on the porch while reading books, Calvin played a lot by himself, because that's what he wanted to do, we ate dinner on the porch while watching the birds, and just like that Monday was gone. When days fly by at that speed there just isn't that much to write about. My little boy triumphantly filled out his book sheet for the summer reading program, and came home with a plastic zebra I think we could have done without but which now has a name and shares a close affection with the other favored animals of the moment. That was neat, zebra notwithstanding. And so was the moment after all that alone playtime he'd asked for when he showed me the blacksmith hut he'd made to go with the Lego Windmill. He'd fashioned it, out of the barn that usually goes with the windmill, after the blacksmith's shop next to the windmill at the farm we visited for Log Cabin Weekend.

During dinner the male hummingbird came and sat in our very expensive bird perch, as Calvin and Jon call our biggest tree. I've seen the hummers land briefly on the feeder before, and even in our bush out front, but never in spot so exposed as this. He even stayed there long enough for me to sneak into the house for the camera. Just look at what the sun does to that ruby throat. And while you're at it, just look at the new growth on the branch ends of our tree. It looks like he might make it after all.

Neighbors

They are so majestic in the water, and even walking through the neighborhood they are beautiful, though there is something comical and incongruous about their walking down the street, the sidewalk, and through our neighbor's lawns, and cute is, of course, a better adjective for their fuzzy babies. We've seen this same family a number of times over the past couple of weeks, and are relieved and delighted to count still six babies between their parents. Last year the pair lost all but two of the babies, likely to predators, but it's a thought I cannot entertain as I watch them trundle off down the street, the babies plopping down to rest every now and then, anytime the impulse takes them, sitting so briefly that it seems almost like a mistake: "oh, you mean we aren't stopping here?"

Summer reading, and more

Today Calvin signed himself up for the summer reading program at our library. The idea is to get (keep?) kids reading over the summer, so they get prizes each time they meet their own weekly goals and are entered in an end of the summer drawing as well. Even though there is a "read to me" component we've never participated before. I don't go in for goal or reward oriented reading (says the girl with the goal of reading a book a week over the course of the year); reading is a natural part of our day, and Calvin reads plenty without enticement, outside of the pure enjoyment he gains from doing so. But this year Calvin is reading to himself and after reading the brochure he asked me about the program. I explained to him why we'd never participated before and gave him the choice of doing so now, as long as, if he chose to join in, he met his own goals all summer.

He signed up for the big kids program, the "read to myself" program. He filled the form out by himself and chose to set a goal of four completely new books each week, which, as he explained to me almost word for word, "is not very many, but will leave me time to read my old favorites and maybe a "long long chapter book, like the next Oz." I will make him a book log to keep at home, and each week he will fill out the log the library has for him under his name. And maybe I'm mistaken, or maybe it's just the right time, because I can see this being a decent thing. Having to keep the list might get him thinking more about the books and their authors, and about comparing them, too. And since he is a natural reader now, I doubt the introduction of rewards will ruin our natural flow.

And so we were at the library today, and before that this morning was the start of Calvin's two week long summer swim class, which means lessons at nine in the morning, every morning, all week, for two weeks. We're always up well before then, but we're not usually out of the house by the then, or presentable (because I often get up and go running, which is out of the house, but I'm not exactly presentable afterwards). The bright side? Just think of all the things we can accomplish this way. And today was a math day, and a checking on the bacteria we're growing petri dishes day, and a bird watching, reading, and piano day. Pretty much a run-of-the-mill day you could say.

Swan family in our neighborhood! I would have liked better pictures of these guys but it was just before bedtime that they came wandering through so it was dark, and we respectfully kept our distance. I'm hoping we'll see them again, though.