Willow Update

Willow study update -- we have weeping willow and the (sandbar) willow from RRNP in a bowl with rocks and water. Waiting for roots. We pointed the twigs every which way to see if the Handbook of Nature Study was right about the plant setting down roots no matter which way it was oriented.

We also identified a wildflower/weed that we've seen for years and never knew the name of -- Shepherd's Purse. I did not have a macro lens at the time, so I'll have to snap a pic later.

100 Species #47

Specimen #47 Bloodroot
Sanguinaria canadensis

Photo by me, Greenwood Park

Look while you can -- the flowers open fully only in full sun, for up to two days, then disappear until next year. I tried to choose the picture that showed a leaf and flower. The leaf has a distinct shape, and there is a very good picture of the leaf at the Illinois Wildflowers website. This particular site had the smallest bloodroots I have ever seen -- 2.5" high. I remember them being more like 6" high. I am unsure what determines the size. It may be the age of the plant or the location.

About the name: One year, I got the 'puppy face' from the girls, so we pulled up a root. It dripped red juice. That was the first and last time we ever looked at the root in person. You can go here for pictures of the root. Also from that site,

"Poisonous, red-orange juice in the roots was used by Native Americans as a dye for war paint, clothing, and baskets, and as an insect repellent."

100 Species Challenge #46 May Apple

Specimen #46 May Apple

Podophyllum peltatum L

AKA Mandrake

Photos by me on Wed,. April 22 Greenwood Park 2009

All parts except the fruit are TOXIC!

"I" of GAIN came running down the hill and over the creek to get me to see this plant! Was it a mushroom? What is it? There were many of them! etc. I ran up the steep hill, sweating with worry that I wouldn't know the plant she found, until I saw the plants in question. Yay! an easy one.

The may apple is pretty easy to spot and ID because there is no other flower like it. We've spotted large patches of this wildflower in late April and early May. The leaf color is distinctive and there are one or two leaves.

The one leaf plant is like an umbrella. The two leaved plant (they are opposite each other) has a flower. The flower (not pictured here) is white and droops under the leaves.

Since we're 90% done with school, I may try to get follow up photos of the flower and fruit.

May apple plants are very poisonous (except the fruit) and have historically been used for everything under the sun.

www.2bnthewild.com says:

The fruits may be eaten raw, cooked, dried, made into jelly, or the juice mixed with lemonade and sugar as a drink. Native Americans used the rhizomes as a purgative and the juice from the rhizomes as an ear drop to treat deafness. They would boil the plant and sprinkle it on potato plants to kill potato bugs.

Interesting Facts from www.altnature.com:

May Apple was once called the witches umbrella and thought to be employed by them as a poison, which may not be untrue! The English version of this plant has much lore told of it, being called Manroot (mandrake) believed to be alive and its screams when pulled from the ground would render a man permanently insane.

All parts except the fruit are TOXIC!

100 Species Challenge -- Species #45

Specimen #45 Wild Ginger

I am slowly getting to 100 species. I photographed this today at a local park, bottom ground, rich and moist woodland. The flower has not opened, and I'll hopefully get a photo of it in bloom. It is a very interesting flower. I like that you can see the hairs on it in the photograph.

I was inspired right before Holy Week to have my children dissect old flowers from a florist. Why are kids in 7th grade doing the dissection and not younger kids? There have been a couple times when I talked to the kids about looking for a particular part of a flower to help ID it, but they didn't know their flower parts. Until we could dissect, it would be difficult. Just yesterday my youngest child drew a flower, a still life, and I could tell that her nature study and dissection have heightened her perception when looking at her older drawings.

The florist had no problems saving old flowers for us. I wasn't charged a fee, and our field guides had all we needed to know. The multisensory experience of a dissection helps us internalize what we learn more than reading can.

My younger son has also paid attention to our nature study. As his art class creates paintings with birch trees, he's talked about decisions -- details from grey and paper birches. My family has all benefitted from nature study and it gives us a common interest for discussion. Once we start, we want to learn more.

Find #196

<-- G of GAIN skateboards down the nearby rope bridge.

Big Mamma's House, GC16YEQ, was a fairly quick find. We had a son's friend along, and practiced good stewardship by using a found plastic shopping bag for Cache In, Trash Out (CITO).

CITO will accompany us during our programming on Earth Day, where we hope to find and identify animal tracks with a guide. This program is presented by a fairly new nature club on meetup.com. I am interested to see how this group evolves as its members seem to come from all walks of life. I'm wondering if it will truly supplement programming that is already available. Does our community have any underserved populations that need different times and different types of programs? Will it be a unifying or bridging group for the current nature programmers of Saylorville Lake, the county, and the cities?

Frogging

My youngest and I went "frogging" (her term) last Friday. Our quest to see a chorus frog is everlasting. How sneaky do you have to be to see one? Spring peepers, too.

We left with photos of flowers -- they hold still! We knew there had to be trees and flowers blooming since our bees' pollen sacs are full whenever we spot one.



Son #1 (N of GAIN Academy) and I saw two more commas in the urban woods last week. You can look at the Butterfly Forecast and see Harlan's challenge for finding small butterflies. This link is the one he recommends. We'll study it and see what we can see.

100 Species Challenge #44

Specimen #44 Willow

Photo by me, Raccoon River Nature Park

I'm unsure what kind of willow this is. I've looked at enough images to be confused about all of them. My guess is a sand bar willow, and we'll be able to confirm once leaves come out. Maybe. Catkins are the flowers that some trees have. Our paper birch has catkins.

These catkins are larger and looser than the traditional pussy willow at the floral shop ($2/stem). I'm not sure if the different is due to the kind of flower (male vs. female) or kind of willow. The _Handbook of Nature Study_ by Anna Botsford Comstock has a chapter about willows. The kids were very interested as I read it aloud.







Here are the tips of the branches. I had a hard time getting the trees in the viewfinder of my camera with the beach being narrow.

One interesting thing about willows is that they take root from snapped off branches and twigs. This means that fallen willow branches can float downstream until they wash ashore, then grow where they land. We now plan to observe the rooting habits of twigs to confirm our reading -- right side up, right side down, and sideways.

100 Species Challenge -- Species # 43

Specimen #43 Honey Locust Tree

BIG SPOILER ALERT for GC1N83A Woman's Best Friend

Setting aside the NVG's twisted sense of humor, here is a common tree. I saw it today at Walker Johnston Park where I made finds #196 (GC16YEQ Big Mamma's House) and 197 (GC1J6K7 (dd) The Tall One) and of course find #194 (listed above). You can see the thorns year round. My kids have the idea,which I can completely understand, that these thorns were early American needles. They collect these thorns with the hopes of sewing with one. (They are still waiting for the sinew and hide to stitch.)

Natives used every part of this tree for food and medicine.

Find #195

Find #195 GC1JMJ8 Climb Iowa

I am slowly getting to 200 finds. Today's cache find was an earthcache, which involved this piece of quartzite. Earthcaches must provide earth science lessons and must be approved by the Geological Society of America. I've considered developing two or three earthcaches, but I've been intimidated by the paperwork and feel inferior in my knowledge. I've been to a couple earthcaches, and they don't seem intimidating, so I may just expect more from myself than other cache developers. They don't require maintenance, so really, I guess I'm just a wimp.

This particular cache was nice as a homeschooler because it requires you to estimate the weight of the rock. Here is the mini- (life) lesson: 1) estimate the volume of the rock and 2) find the density of the rock. Since density = mass/volume, then volume = mass/density. This brings the discussion of estimating volume -- cylinder vs. sphere vs. prism? We don't have a tape measure, how tall is it compared to "G" of GAIN, at roughly 5' tall? Which leads again to the question of cylinder vs. prism. And of course, the actual calculation. We could have measured the rock a lot better. No one wanted to lie on the ground to measure the length (the wind was terrible), we didn't have all of GAIN Academy there to hold hands and find a circumference, etc.

The other discussion was about metamorphic rocks. Quartzite begins as sandstone (if you see it you'll understand). With heat and pressure, it becomes quartzite. My 11 yo clearly understands this process, but my 8 yo does not. There are a few ways to increase her understanding, including formal lectures with the county naturalists, but my 11 yo decided to give her an analogy about baking. "Take ingredients, then heat them and mash them, and the ingredients turn into something completely new, yet the same." Well said.

American Coot

I posted on my Facebook account that I thought I saw and heard coots. I remembered reading about them in the field guides of my youth, but had never seen or heard one.

How did I figure out they were coots? I used these resources -- Waterbirds of Ohio book and CD, and a Golden Book entitled Game Birds. I have been using the Urban Birds book and CD shown in the photo for my "continuing education," but this bird was not urban. The CD's were both free to educators.

I had taken video of my kids, and realized that the background noise included birdsongs. Listening to my video and then using my print and audio resources, I decided that we sighted American coots.

Waterbirds of Ohio came from the Ohio DNR. It does not appear to be available, but you can view the website here. I debated about requesting it, and I am glad I did. Iowa shares many of the 138 birds mentioned in the Ohio resource. A photo book with details for each bird accompanies the CD.

The Urban Birds CD came from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Click here for their electronic teaching materials. This is a neat resource, because kids created it. One kid describes one bird's physical appearance and other statistics, using words such as "dimorphic" and relating its size to real-life objects like "a soda can." The kid then creates lyrics for the birdsong, and there are quizzes every four or five birds for a total of 22 birds.

Although these sites use electronic audio files, I find that CD's are easier for me than electronic media. It seems like one or two less steps to get the sounds I want to hear. And my younger kids can play CD's on their own, no assistance needed. I also appreciate the pdf files to accompany the audio resources. No shelf space to store masters (I have a few binders of masters from our early homeschool days).

I see my birding CD's as educational and use them in the same way many people would use foreign language CD's. Birdsong is a foreign language. Many homeschool families use CD's for other purposes -- memorizing poems, learning geography and times tables to music, appreciating orchestral selections, etc. These particular CD's are great in that they enable us to increase the enjoyment we find outdoors.

Woman's Best Friend

Find #194 GC1N83A Woman's Best Friend

Half of GAIN Academy did not want to go to the park today. (Picture a kid walking down the path reading a book.) Once we get there, someone spots a nice place to play and goes down the path. Everyone follows. The books is put away for the rest of the day. Getting everyone out the door is the hurdle. Once you can get everyone outdoors, they're fine.

We kept thinking we would hear frogs, but it was ducks today. Many black ducks (not the American Black Duck, a mallard-like bird). "A" of GAIN suggested that they are migrating. I'll enlarge the photo I took and attempt an ID. I also have audio of its calls. Unless the water goes down and the banks are more exposed and grassy, I doubt we'll have frogs here. The island (GC15HNN NVG's Isle) is tiny. It is still early, though. We remember frogs being around in late April and early May.

Photo inspired by Sarah. Left to right: N, A, juliecache, I, and G.