Tag Archives: Nature

Jack Frost needs a blanket

Nature, WV,

Like a large portion of the country, we are suffering the deep freeze that burns skin, gets animals drunk, and causes men to go sterile (well, I made that part up, but you know what I mean!)  Our old house was built before cold was invented I guess as there is apparently no insulation in the place.  We have slowly been remedying that problem, but it is still freezing cold.  

 
Family room temps Kitchen temps
The new, high efficiency furnace has been running pretty much non-stop and has brought our family room temperature clear up to 54.6 deg F (46.2 on the floor).  Our kitchen is much warmer at a balmy 61.2 deg F.  I went down to the bottom floor basement and the pipes are frozen solid. We decided to just cut the water to the house so nothing floods if the pipes burst. Fortunately, nothing had popped yet and no other pipes are frozen. I dislike winter…I just want to hibernate!

Sarah the Penguin

Family, Nature,

Making a penguin Making a penguin

 Abigail is in kindergarten and her class is doing a study series on penguins.  She brought a form home telling of her assignment.  First off, the class adopted a penguin in the Falkland Islands.  I read a little about the World Wildlife Fund adoption program and it sounds pretty neat.  I also learned that Emperor penguins can grow to 4 feet tall and weight 80 pounds…that’s the size of Isaac!  Anyhow, her class decided to name their adopted penguin Crystal. 

Making a penguin Making a penguin

Each student was to research a type of penguin, write a report, and make a model of their penguin.  There are around 23 students in her class and each student was assigned a different type of penguin.  I had no idea that there are more than 20 different types of penguins!  Holy moley!  Anyhow, Abigail was assigned the Little Blue Penguin so we hit wikipedia and learned a lot about Little Blue Penguins.  I read each section to Abigail and she responded back with sentences that described what she thought was important.  I typed in her words and she completed her first school report!  You can read her report here if you’d like.

Making a penguin

Next, we had to work on a model of the little blue penguin.  We brainstormed a little to come up with a base around which to build her penguin.  We finally settled on a 2-liter bottle (it’s about the same size as a Little Blue Penguin).  Emily and I found a pear shaped ornament holder on sale at the local craft store which worked perfectly as a head.  I had to help some with cutting the bottle but Abigail sawed the wooden dowels for legs and used the hot glue gun to fasten it all together.  So, we attached all of the pieces and she covered it all with masking tape (to give her a base to paint and to hopefully give it a feather appearance).  Abigail finished painting it last night and glued the eyes on to complete Sarah, the Little Blue Penguin.

That’s a funny thing about Abigail…she names almost everything..and she always uses the names Sarah (with an ‘h’, of course), Elizabeth, or Kylie.

Another funny thing about Abigail, she was not named Grace for a reason.  The poor child painted the floor, the table, herself and me in the course of painting Sarah.  I can’t help but laugh most times- I am pretty hard on our dining room table as well.  I just hope our house makes it through!

Honeybees under a microscope

Bees, Nature, Technology, ,

It was pretty nice last weekend and my bees were flying around to “clear the pipes”.  In addition to that task, they also groom the hive and remove any bees that had expired.  As I watched them bring out their dead, I thought it might be cool to dissect a bee under a microscope.  I don’t have a microscope with a camera attachment though.  I am, however,  a determined and fierce cheap-skate and I have a web cam.

I gathered a few of the recently deceased bees and dissected and mounted various parts that I thought would be cool.    It took some messing around to get the focus right, but I was able to hold the webcam to the eye piece and capture some pictures.  Have a look at the shots and see if you can figure out what the parts are in each picture.  The answers are at the end.

pics from top to bottom:
-bee knee (a joint on the bee’s leg)
-bee toes (the very end of the leg)
-bee tongue (they have several)
-bee stinger (I have seen this after being in me…you can see the barbs then)
-bee wing
-girl hair (yeah, not a beepart , but a hair from Emily…she conditions!)

Something fowl at Cookskin Park

Adventure, Family, Nature, WV, , ,

Cookskin park's geese

This past Sunday, we decided to clear our house of some extra bread that was going stale.  Coonskin Park has a pond that we knew would have ducks and geese so we packed up the van for a ride.  We grabbed a quick lunch and took a short turn on the playground near the lake.  By the way, the Cookskin playground is pretty awesome.  It has little or no wood (translate:  little or no chance of splinters) and has tons of tunnels and bridges and things to climb and swing on.  Anyhow, I got itchy to feed the ducks.  Cookskin park's geese

I felt a little like a target carrying around a bag full of killer geese treats.  At first, the birds were pretty well spaced around the pond but the smell of bread brought them to us quickly.  They came from all sides.  A flight of ducks and geese came in from overhead, all the time dropping bombs (luckily, they missed!) before they landed.  We were overrun with fowl at the park but we all had a lot of fun feeding them.  One goose in particular kept sticking his tongue out at us.  I fed him every time he did it so we trained each other a little I suppose.

Abigail feeding geese

Anyhow, it was an absolute blast to watch them interact and swim and fly.

We used to live in Bowling Green, KY and Emily and I would go to a nearby park a lot during the summer to walk and talk.  There was a big pond there too and we used to feed the ducks frequently.  We were so poor that it was a stretch to throw even stale bread to the birds.

Kids feeding geese

Anyhow, this was before kids and I really enjoyed feeding the ducks.  I have to tell you, as fun as that was then, it is so much more fun seeing the kids getting into it.  They had favorites, but tried to be fair.  Abigail talked to them like they were unruly children.  It was an absolute blast!  We’ll definitely go again!

Stellarium

Nature, Technology,

Stellarium

Did you see the full moon a few nights back?  I really enjoy the simple things I guess, but the sky was clear and it was full and bright.  I took my telescope outside and focused it on the moon for a quick gaze.  Through a telescope, the full moon is almost blinding.  Well, maybe not that bright but it’s bright.  Stare at it for awhile and then look away into darkness and you’ll see spots.  Anyhow, if you have some sort of magnifying device, the full moon is well worth the look.  It is especially good if you have a tripod or some sort of stand, but even binoculars are cool.  It’s amazing to see the crators and meteor strikes that still look fresh.  Along the edges of the moon are incredibly detailed mountain ranges and all shades of gray.  Besides just looking at the moon, there are lots of other awesome things that can be found in the night sky, if you know where to look.  You can memorize star charts (which isn’t a bad idea, but…) or you can find a program to illustrate the night sky.  I like Starry Night which came free with my telescope.  There is an alternative that requires no purchase and is pretty great.  Stellarium is both popular and powerful.  Besides that, Stellarium is free and easy to use.  It’s also easy to use.  Did I mention, it’s free too?  In a nutshell, it shows the objects in the sky for your location and will plot future locations as well.  You can choose to see illustrations of the consellations or the orbits of the planets, nearby nebulae, etc.  It’s incredible and should make finding objects in the sky much easier.  That was always a huge frustration for me when I started star gazing…where to look.  The other thing is that I never felt like I had enough “fire power” when I pointed a scope at the sky.  I was surely wrong.  On a whim a few years ago, I pointed my spotting scope at the sky…you know, the kind you take to the shooting range or when you go groundhog hunting.  I was able to see the rings of Saturn.  Mind you, Saturn was tiny, but I could clearly see the rings.  It’s also very easy to find and quite amazing to see.  A triod is required but if you have any sort of scope, download Stallarium and find Saturn.  I think you’ll be hooked!

Wooly worm

Nature

Wooly worm

If the tradition of the wooly worm is correct, we are in for a hard winter based on this one observation.  I found this little guy outside this weekend.  The tradition says that the black represents periods of hard winter and the rust color represents mild winter periods.  All black sounds pretty rough to me!  I love to pick up wooly worms and watch them curl in my hand.  The kids are pretty shaky on bugs and critters so they don’t often touch them.  The poor things, they don’t know what they are missing.  Fortunately, they do fully understand how to “get a good dirt on”.  We’ll have to work on bugs I guess.  Maybe we can ponder them around the fire this winter…

More green

Green, Nature, Thoughts, ,

Green Cayennes

Well, yesterday’s post was about bad green. Actually, green is my favorite color and there are tons of green things that I have snapped pics of this summer. These greens are much better than Soylent green.
Green bug on black locust

Humans have three types of color receptors in the eye.  Basically, they are for sensing red, green, and blue.  In general, humans are most sensitive to greenish wavelengths.  I suppose that is why greens seem so vivid (or is it just me?).  I used to do some physiological research on various critters, among them, zebrafish.  Zebrafish have four sensor types and are most sensitive to UV.  I wonder what their favorite color is…
Green zucchini pickles

I guess I am sort of glad, but also bummed that a camera just rarely seems to capture colors as vividly as they are in real life.  I guess that’s one of the things that makes the moment so special.
Green sunflower
Green Hillside

This hillside is outside my office and has been very interesting to watch evolve in color through the summer.  Right now, there are plants that are turning bright red and goldenrod has also really cropped up.  Green dominates but the hillside is alive with color!

My favorite green!

This is my favorite green…I am trying to avoid caffeine and drink more water and milk so it’s rare that I get to enjoy any of this nectar…so sad…

Cicadas

Audio, Nature, WV, ,

Cicada in the backyardCicadas go through life cycles where they appear in adult form every 2 to 17 years.  Most of their lives they live underground and are harmlessly out of the way.  As I understand it, this year was the time for the 17-year-between-adults type to hatch in WV.  Sure enough, we have had a bunch of them.  The big hatch where they molt and leave their dried, older shells everywhere occurred earlier this year.  I am not sure how long the adults remain, laying their eggs and such, but they are still active in great number.  Cicadas are harmless, except I think they can make a person deaf if proper hearing protection is not worn.  We had one land on our kitchen door the other night while Emily and I were doing something.  It started its “song” and nearly drove us from the room.  I went around outside and was able to record the racket it was making for your listening pleasure. 

I don’t think this recording does the volume justice, but it goes on constantly in the evenings.  Really, they are fun to watch bumble through the air.  They are harmless, crazy, prehistoric-looking bugs that the kids are almost brave enough to try and catch.  I always enjoy hearing them is some ways as it is a definite sound of summer!

[audio:https://myhomeamongthehills.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/cicada-on-the-kitchen-door-2.mp3]

Traveling West Virginia

Bees, Family, Nature, WV, , , ,

Brad Rice from WCHS TV interviewed us for the Traveling West Virginia series.  He was pretty brave donning a bee suit and gloves.  Running the camera had to be an experience with the heavy leather gloves but he was able to get some great video to do his story.  We talked for about 2 hours about all sorts of bee-related topics and he produced this most excellent story about our meeting.  Within 5 minutes of the story’s first airing, I had 3 phone calls from people who wanted to buy honey!  My kids were SO excited to have Brad come and do the story and their biggest concern was whether they would be on t.v.  He was very gracious and assured them that they would have their chance at fame!

What the heck is this?

Garden, Nature,

The beast larva!

Abigail and I were harvesting the potatoes the other day and I dug this up…at least I think I dug it up.  Anyhow, it ended up in the pile of dirt from which we were picking potatoes.  At the top it seemed like a cocoon but it was very much larva-like at the bottom.  I guess it was a moth or butterfly larva weaving its cocoon but I do not know what type.
A mystery larva

That crazy thing was wiggling around and really freaking the kids out ( I, of course, was quite brave and unmoved by its actions).  It was several inches long and full of ugly.  I decided to just put it back in the dirt and hope for the best.

Taters!

We are pretty fond of butterflies but I have sort of mixed reactions to moths…due to a bad experience with wax moths and my stored honey supers…I still can hardly talk about it!

Anyhow, we had a pretty good haul of potatoes and the kids were absolutely fantastic at helping me harvest them. I have never seen them work so hard as they did then.