Update and nature

It has been almost two weeks since I last posted.  I never do this but I've had personal issues to deal with and school and house and getting ready for a little vacation.  We have still been busy with out math and reading.  We have added science in and geography.  I love having nature studies when something comes across our path.  This time what came across our path was a baby.  A baby what?  A baby snake.  Yep, I said snake.  You can be sure that I will post a picture.  

Let me explain...my youngest has always had a hard time getting to bed.  He is one of those that gets up and has to explain this or that.  I send him to bed then he comes back and tells me something else.  Comes back for a hug and an extra prayer.  Well, this one time he was heading to his bed again and I heard him scream and run and yell, "snake" in the loudest voice I've ever heard come out of him.  Ok, so I'm thinking a snake.  Big snake.  Mean snake.  Nope it was a baby.  I guess to him a snake is a snake.  It is no more than 12 inches.  Although I didn't even try to measure this one.  He is a ferocious little booger.  He kept on striking at me so in he went into our alway ready and trusty little pet carrier.

So now we have a pet for a while.  We checked our Texas Snake ID guide to see if we could figure out what he is and we have come up with a Texas Rat Snake.  It is non venomous but is mean.  They climb up trees and look for baby birds for a snack.  By the way, I let the first one out yesterday.  Yes, I said first!  We have number 2 hold up in our glass aquarium.  I wonder how many more will show up for a visit and a scare.


     

A Texan Friend

Ok, you have one guess as to what we saw yesterday right outside my mom's door. I know you will guess this one right away.

My mom heard something outside and saw the cats surrounding something and yep, you guessed it, a rattlesnake. It was not a happy guy. It was ready and in a striking mood. My mom had already called animal control and they were on their way but being the person I am, hehehe, I got in my van and went to her house to take pictures.

Let me tell you that by the time the handler put it in a container there was venom all over it. It was amazing to see it strike. Just glad it was not close to me for the strikes.

Anyone want to move down here? Oh, come on! It's not so bad.

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.

Amazing Find!

A Word of Caution: If you are not interested in seeing something that has a forked tongue STOP now and turn away. hehehe

Most of you know by now that if it comes too close to our house that we will catch it and observe it for some days. hehehehe We have our empty aquarium ready for that purpose and today was such a day. Now introducing our new find.........

It is a hognose snake. The boys were all excited and wondering if it was poisonous or if it would bite. Of course, I had to find some information about it to be sure. Our trusty resource online is wikipedia. So we read up on him and then came across another page thru wikipedia. You have to go to this page and read a little about him then go to the bottom of the page and see the video.
This is truly an amazing snake. This snake hissed at me when I was trying to pick it up. It also flattened his head making it look like a cobra. I'll have to try to see if this snake will "play possum" with me. hehehehe
I also added another generic notebooking page here and to my sidebar that you can download and use it when you observe anything that crosses your path like we do.

New "Pet"

Hubby was cleaning the pool. Yes, it will almost be pool season here in South Texas. Maybe another month or so but we are starting to work on it and he found our next "pet" in the filter. So being a fun homeschooling dad he got our big pickle glass jar we were saving for science and put him there till we got home. Only a homeschool family has all these kinds of animals in the house.
This is the first time I have seen one of these. It's a bull snake. The only information that The Handbook of Nature Study gives specifically on this snake is that it chiefly eats rodents and can grow to more than 4 feet.
I've looked online to see what it says about it. It said its got a mean streak. Like I couldn't figure that out already. Everytime we got close to the glass it is in it would come up and hiss and strike. It also shakes its tail like a rattlesnake. This is one mean little guy. We have to feed it what is called "pinkies" and that is baby mice. So is anyone already saying eeewwwww, yet.

So off we go tomorrow to buy some pinkies. Anyone wanna come over to watch?