Posted by Cindy on July 23, 2009
Most of you probably remember that my husband is the youth minister at our church. We try to be as family oriented in our activities as possible, making sure there is at least one family event per month. This month’s event was planned by a very neat family that used to homeschool and love the outdoors. We went seining in the creek on our church’s farm!
(Seining for sport is actually not legal in Kentucky, but fear not, we were only seining for educational purposes. All the “catches” were put back into the creek unharmed.)
Our big “kids” – my husband and the gentleman who planned the event – enjoyed the seining tremendously. Everyone else did, too – for a time. Then there were bigger and better things to tackle.
Here are a few nature shots I took while I waited on the creek’s edge with Eli.
And here’s Eli deciding his turn had come to get in the water.
A wonderful time of food and fellowship ended the evening. What better way to worship God than enjoying His creation with brothers and sisters in Christ?
Posted by Cindy on May 29, 2009
Here are some more very cool discoveries from a recent nature walk.
Can you see inside the hole? The picture below this one shows the mushrooms that were growing in the hole – and they were huge even if the picture doesn’t show that very well.
We wondered who enjoys this cozy little burrow.
Ants were busy, busy, busy going back and forth on this little path they had created between two ant holes.
Conks aren’t a good sign for the health of the tree, but they sure are pretty to look at!
We have several old brick piles from a house we tore down on the farm. Take a look at this amazing and fuzzy orange fungus! We believe it might be called Spreading Yellow Tooth.
Can you see the puff of pollen floating off of the plant? Every time we stepped on one of these plants, pollen dust went flying through the air like a little bomb.
What cool nature finds have you made lately?
Posted by Cindy on May 20, 2009
This month’s Creation Club focus was on creeks and creek banks. Sadly, though, the creek bank was grown up more than I had imagined and we didn’t get to do nearly as much exploring as planned. For me, it didn’t matter because I can enjoy any nature walk. For the children expecting to explore a creek in wet and wild ways, they were a bit disappointed. Below are a few pictures from our walk.
These were bright red mushrooms!
This one is bright red, too, although the color didn’t show up quite as well in the picture. See the little snail sitting on it? Can you see the worm holes in the wood?
This was found in the yard once we returned. Our best guess is a Brown Headed Cowbird. Any other suggestions?
And this one wasn’t found yesterday, but I couldn’t resist posting it. We found it at Melissa’s house this week when we went for a visit. It’s a cowboy hat shaped mushroom! Eli tried to pick it up to put it on his head!
Posted by Cindy on May 8, 2009
Spring is such a fun time for studying mushrooms! It’s been raining a lot around here and a quick trip around the yard led to six different types of mushrooms found in about five minutes time yesterday.
Towards evening, we headed to a spot on the farm where leftover hay has been decomposing. What treasures we found there!
If you’ve never taken a mushroom walk, now is a great time to do it! Damp ground, decomposing logs, old leaf piles, and dung piles are great places to look.
Posted by Cindy on May 1, 2009
We found some beautiful signs of spring on a farm walk the other day!
A fallen robin’s egg
A huge ant hill – they are everywhere!
All sorts of mushrooms
A big snail
1,000′s of ants on a rock
A shell fossil
Raccoon prints
Woodland wildflowers – several varieties
A tired nature walker
