What is the difference?

We were watching tv and a program was on about alligators and my baby asked what the difference was between alligators and crocodiles. So what was my response?
I promptly told him we would go over the information in the morning. So I made a notebooking page and the next morning we read about it. We looked up some sites on the internet and looked at some books in our library. Then they wrote and drew. I just love these pages. These are pages I will keep forever and when they are bigger I will look thru them and remember the fun.

I put this page on the google group if you want to use it feel free to print it out.

"On The Watch" Wednesday

Today was a long day for us. We started out going out in service with the tract work. We had a great time. The boys each had a brother to go with and the little one went out with a sister. I was alone today but it was nice seeing the boys have a nice time.

We ran home and had lunch then the older boys had art class. Then went to get groceries. Then went to mom's house to take her some fruit and water her plants before rushing home to start dinner. I hadn't planned "school" for today but hoped to at least get our article done today.

We did start it. We actually listened to it since I had already downloaded it. It is so much easier on my throat and I love to hear the readers. The article we concentrated on was Six Keys to Personal Success and we were able to listen to the first 3 points. The first was Keep Money in Its Place, second was Cultivate a Generous Disposition and third was Forgive Freely. We paused the article at the end of each point and discussed them and how we could do something to better ourselves. Tomorrow we will finish up the article with some further discussion on possible ways to improve.

I am looking forward to this Wednesday routine. Glad you set it up Jackie.

Do you remember a while back on this post that I mentioned that we were going to try to grow some vegetables in kiddie pools?
Well we did but all my things died. The reason.....they were pot bound by the time we put them in the pool. So we had given up. Then my brother started a garden and pulled some cucumbers up because they were overcrowded at his garden. He brought them to me and he put them in my little kiddie pool.

So guess what is growing on our plant in October. I plan on taking good care of these plants and see how many cucumbers we can get before we get a freeze. Just so you know we don't get many freezes but it is usually enough to kill everything.

Next year I plan on the larger pools which are not only larger but deeper than these little ones. I hope it works out better.

Nature Picture Quiz

So let me tell you about this caterpillar. I had seen my lemon tree losing leaves. So I went outside to see what was on it and found not one but two of these ugly looking things.
Don't forget to click on the picture to see it up close. They look like bird poop, don't they?

I hope you all will take a guess at what these might be? As of this moment we have chrysalis'. I'll update the pictures later in the week so you can see. Come on take a guess. Look thru any Id books you might have or on the internet. I'll post an update on what this is next week. So look back on here to find out what it is. Who knows maybe I will have a butterfly by then.

Update: Ok, It's a Giant Swallowtail butterfly or at least it will be one.

Echolocation

We are doing Apologia swimming creatures for science and we are on lesson 2. We have been reading about whales and their differences and what they do and where they live. Today we came across our first Try This part which is a little fun experiment to do. It had to do with echolocation.

What you do is roll up two pieces of cardstock in the shape of a funnel and tape it up. Then you talk thru one while you listen from the other one. We talked toward a wall and the other listened and heard what the other said. It was fun and they all got into the fun of saying crazy things to each other.

Picture Quiz

I found this guy in the pool so he is still wet. Now I think I know what it is after all that investigating. Does this one go in the ooohhh pretty or ooohhh gross category?

It was pretty big. The wing span was about 4 inches.
So take a guess. What is this? This counts as your nature study time. Search identification guides and the internet to see if you can figure this out. I've gotta do a notebooking page on this one. When I do I will put it on my homemade homeschool goggle group. So be on the lookout.

Now as always leave your guess in the comments and next Friday I will post the answer on here and put up another picture quiz. Wait till you see next weeks quiz.
Update: From what I have found this is a Carolina Sphinx Moth.

Arm-a-dillo

The boys had fun this day. Isaac came inside and told me he saw an armadillo. So of course I went outside with my camera. We found it trying to hide behind our shrubs and it did not being found. It started running. The one thing I found interesting about an armadillo is that while running they also take big hops.
That is how he got into the pool. He took a big hop into the pool. I guess he thought it would be easy to get out. WRONG!!!! We had to get this long pole we have with a net to clean the pool and Isaac put it under the armadillo to give it a chance to get out.
It did get out and went right to a sprint and hop and ran into the tall grassy field by our house.

So in honor of our armadillo I made a notebooking page. I put it over on Homemade Homeschool.

Where Were We?

We decided at the last minute to take off and spend a night at this cabin and take off in the morning to some sightseeing. We stayed here when we evacuated for hurricane Ike. It is a really nice house cabin.
It is all pine on the inside and looks very cabin-ish.
This was the master bedroom with a very high king bed. I literally had to climb into bed. Not a good thing for someone with arthritis pains.
This is the boys room. Two full size beds. Oh each room had its own tv. The boys liked that.
A little relaxing that night before our next day of fun.
So where did we go? We were going to head on over to Fredricksburg to do a few things but saw this on the way and decided to stop. I sure am glad we did. It was amazing.

We started our drive into the land and came across the family cemetery where LBJ is buried along with Lady Bird and other family. It was a very beautiful place for a cemetery. Huge oak trees overhead. It was breezy and cool in that shade.
This is LBJ's stone, Lady Birds was still not there but there was a vase with flowers where she is at. All the stones are smaller but LBJ's is the tallest one. You can see it under the oak tree in the picture above.
Next stop was the home which was known as the Texas White House. As of now only one room is open to the public. Since Lady Bird died in 2007 only one room has been fixed up and eventually, little by little other rooms will be fixed up and opened up.
This next picture is one I have seen before in books. These chairs under the tall oak trees that were dated to be some 400 yrs old is where the president would sit and hold meetings. It was the most beautiful place to live. I told hubby that that is what I imagine paradise to be. To be cool, breezy, large oak trees, rivers and creeks where you relax and not worry about a thing.
This river passes in front of LBJ's house. It is low at this point but has a little more water in front of the house.
This building was the school house LBJ went to as a child.
An interesting thing is that they still have cattle on the property and they have the brand on its horns. See the LBJ?
We did make a little side trip to Enchanted Rock but we just drove by and didn't stop. The high light of today was the LBJ tour.

Picture Quiz

Ok, here is an easy one. We saw this guy today. I think everyone should be able to figure this one out. There were so many of them flying around today. It was very nice to see them all in their natural environment. You have a week to post a comment with your guess. Come on....don't force me to call you CHICKENS! hehehe

I'll post the answer next Friday on this post along with a new picture quiz.

Update: A Monarch is the answer to this picture quiz. Thanks for those of you that commented.

Uninvited Guest part 2

I had to add this in to our learning experience. I found this info on wikipedia.

It is said also that the gaminess of the meat causes gas. In Mexico, opossums are known as "tlacuache" or "tlaquatzin". Their tails are eaten as a folk remedy to improve fertility.
Opossum oil (Possum grease) is high in essential fatty acids and has been used as a chest rub and a carrier for arthritis remedies given as topical salves.

They are small to medium-sized marsupials, with the largest about the size of a large house cat, and the smallest the size of a mouse. Ours was about the size of a house cat, yikes!

Now who has arthritis and needs a cure? hehehehe This is the sort of information my kids love to learn. hehehe Just thought I would share.

Uninvited Guest

Early this morning like around 1am as I was sitting on my computer....ok, don't tell me you all don't sit at your computer at that crazy hour every now and then....anyway, I heard water hitting the ground. I thought that it couldn't be raining. So I got up and went to the window. hehehehe Look what I saw! Earlier in the day the hummingbird feeder was full but then it was empty so we thought the boys must have knocked out all the yummy food for the hummingbirds. So I had just filled it and then at 1am again it's empty. You can see in this first picture that there is still a bit left at the bottom. There was none left when he left though.
Of course, I had to get my camera. It was dark and I couldn't see this guy thru my camera but I still took pictures. I got some good ones. Don't you think this guy needs his nails clipped. He was hanging on for a very long time. I was outside in my pj's for at least 30mins. By the way, it is nice and cooler outside. It is supposed to get down to 58F tonight. That is why I heard the water fall...I had the windows open to let the cool air in.
Anyway, to make a long story short, he got tired of hanging on. Slowly he started losing his grip. He was on top then mid way then it looked like he was on the monkey bars trying to get some muscles. hehehe He was holding on even with his tail. Oh, yes, I got the boys out of bed for this show. They came to the window and Aaron was so excited and he said that he has never seen a 'possum' before in his life. hehehe
So how did this story end. I got a big stick and yes you guessed it....I knocked it off. I like my hummingbirds more than I do that 'possum' so it took off when I went chasing it around the corner of the house with this long ruler and a flashlight in my pj's. hehehe Good thing it was dark. Now I gotta fill that other feeder in the morning. Oh wait....aaaahhhh in a few hours. Goodnight!

Picture Quiz

I haven't done this in a while. I thought I would start and see how it goes. I did this picture quiz game every week. I would post a picture and you the trusty blog viewer will guess what is in the picture. So if no one plays along then I will eventually give up. If you enjoy this then you need to play along. Here is the first one. I will be posting the Picture Quiz on Friday and you have all weekend and the following week to guess. I'll update this post the following Friday with the answer and post another picture quiz. How's that? Let's get started and see who will guess? It doesn't matter if someone has already guessed, you can still guess. Don't cheat by looking what others have commented. Ok, ready....set.....go......

As we were driving to go to town we came across this bird on a telephone poll. Now we live out in the country so we have plenty of times that we come across animals on our drives to town. This was a great one and it was great that I was able to get these pictures.
I was disappointed that it took off as soon as I started to take pictures. I kept taking pictures and hoped that I had taken some good ones. When I got home I quickly plugged my camera into my computer to download the pictures.
These are the pictures that I got. If you click on them you can see them closer and you can see a little more detail. Can you guess what this is? Come on take a guess?

Update:Thanks to all of you that joined in and guessed. This is a Red-tailed hawk that we saw. Great guesses, everyone. The next Picture Quiz will be posted either late Friday night or early Saturday morning. We are going on a little over night trip so you will not hear from me till then. Stay tuned for the next picture quiz.

Nature Time

I was looking at MasterpieceMom's blog and she wrote about a neat site. The site is Make Tracks. This site is pretty neat. If you click around you will come to a page that will ask for your zip code and it will show you all the places you can go for a walk or hike. Then there is always the Green Hour site. You can always find something interesting there.

I am not one of those nature nuts but I do love nature and since next week hubby will be on vacation we have some plans for some state parks. Maybe you will see more posts from me next week about our adventures out in nature.