Pines and Cones

We are living in a different land now, and so much is new that sometimes it's hard to know where to start with the discovering.

So we're starting with whatever comes up whenever it comes up, and we'll see where that leads us.

When we first arrived in South America we were immediately aware of the importance of the pine cone in daily life.  First of all, pine cones were everywhere.  The most obvious ones lay on the roads and in the yards. But then we also saw bags of them for sale at the neighbourhood supermarkets and gas stations. And at the firewood sale-lots. Quickly we learned that, in a country where homes don't have central heat, fires play a key role in staying warm in winter, and pine cones themselves are the items used as kindling!

Brown Eyed Boy gathering pine cones for our family

Seeing how key they were going to be to our life here, when I saw an Outdoor Hour Challenge on pine cones on the Handbook of Nature Study blog, I thought it might be interesting to take a closer look.


I read the background information on pines and pine cones in Anna Botsford Comstock's book, Handbook of Nature Study, and gathered the family. Even My Dear Man came along on this one!  We walked three blocks to the woods that have become a shortcut for us when we go visit friends, for we knew that there we would find an abundance of pines.  I asked each person to gather one open and one closed cone as well as a bundle of needles.

Did you know that the topmost branch of a pine, the one that points straight up, is called the 'leader'? And did you know that the new branches form below the leader, in clusters of 3 or more, depending on the variety? That in itself didn't intrigue the children too much, but then I asked them to look for trees that had more than one leader, either two or three.  When a certain insect lays its eggs at the top of the tree, in a little hole it has burrowed, the developing and hatching process kills the leader branch. But to compensate, the tree establishes a new leader from the new-growing branches at the top. Usually only one steps into the role, giving a new, off-centre leader, but occasionally two (and sometimes even three) will share the role. 

After hearing that information, the children and I began seeing trees with lopsided or multiple leaders! This forest was filled with trees that gave evidence of a storied past!


The pine cones we took home, sketched in our nature journals, and then each child and I narrated about the walk and the cones.  I was very pleased with the resulting drawings, especially since it has been many weeks since we've brought out our nature journals.

Outdoor Hour Challenge - Dandelions

We had to leave our for-sale house for an hour again today so people could go through it, and before we left I let the children choose if they wanted to do an Outdoor Hour Challenge on maple trees or dandelions.  They chose dandelions, so I loaded up my bag with supplies and we headed out.


As we walked to the park, Little Man and Brown-Eyed Boy picked dandelions for me, pulling them from their host plants and proudly carrying them to me.  I gathered them together and laid them beside me on the bench once we arrived at the park.

I let The Ones I Love play while I read the Handbook of Nature Study, pages 531-536, and obtained some background information about dandelions.  (Did you know that their name comes not from their lion's-mane-like blossoms, but from their leaves which look like lion's teeth in profile "dents de lion"? Well, you do now!)

The play was going so well, and I was so intrigued by my study of the dandelions the boys had brought to me, that our hour passed quickly.  

It wasn't until we were home that we continued the dandelion study.  While we ate our snacks, I read a few highlights from the Handbook:

One spring when all the vegetables in my garden were callow weaklings, I found there, in their midst, a dandelion rosette with ten great leaves spreading out and completely shading a circle ten inches in diameter; I said, "Look here, Madam, this is my garden!" and I pulled up the squatter.  But I could not help paying admiring tribute to the taproot, which lacked only an inch of being a foot in length.  It was smooth, whitish, and fleshy, and, when cut, bled a milky juice; it was as strong from the end-pull as a whipcord; it also had a bunch of rather fine rootlets about an inch below the surface of the soil and an occasional rootlet farther down; and then I said, "Madam, I beg your pardon; I think this was your garden and not mine."

HNS p.532

I sent My Girl and Little Man outside to gather some specific specimens. My Girl brought in a dandelion plant, complete with root intact. 

 Little Man was brought five dandelion buds at various stages of development.

We then began our observations.  My Girl and I sketched and described the leaves of a plant, while Little Man dictated his description to me and I wrote it in his nature journal.  Then we investigated the root, noting the things about it that make it such a hardy little plant, so resistant to removal.


I described to the children some of what I'd read earlier about the buds and blossom heads, one particularly interesting point being that a dandelion is a composite flower - each yellow head is actually hundreds of small florets tightly packed together.


Out came the paring knife and cutting board, and the intricate examination of the buds and roots began. 

The children enjoyed looking at the tiny internal parts of the flower heads and buds, and My Girl's nature journal drawings are quite satisfactory. 

I, too, completed my journal entry, and included the exerpt from a poem by Lowell about this "dear common flower" --

'Tis the Spring's largess, which she scatters now
To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand,
Though most hearts never understand
To take it at God's value, but pass by
The offered wealth with unrewarded eye

HNS p. 531

Domestic Work Rewarded

Once or twice I have seen an American Goldfinch flit across our backyard.  Never have they rested on our property, but in seeing them I realized that they are actually nearby.

The Ones I Love gifted me with a thistle feeder for Mother's Day, thistle being highly desired by those little American Goldfinches.  I promptly hung it and began to wait.

Nearly a month has passed and still no American Goldfinches are coming.  I know it takes time for the birds to discover new feeding sites, so I'm waiting patiently.  But at the same time I wonder, sometimes, if they are still in our neighbourhood or if they were just passing through.

This morning I stepped outside to hang my freshly washed quilt on the clothesline.  As I wiped down the line (we've had a lot of rain and wind, so the line was somewhat dusty) I caught sight of a male American Goldfinch flying across the lawn two houses down!  So now I know.  They are still around, and I can keep hoping!

For today, though, the simple act of hanging out my quilt brought me a sight that I'd been longing for.  Who says there's no reward in housework?

Cardinals in the Nature Journals - Backyard Bird Focus #1b

Little Man's cardinal, coloured and cut out from the Cornell University bird colouring book. Much care and time went into colour selection and labelling.

My Girl's cardinal. She is trying to include realistic details of shading in her illustrations.

We once again used the Cornell University Ornithology colouring pages as the basis for our nature journal entries. As I see My Girl getting more comfortable with bird features and shapes I'll ask her to begin drawing her own birds rather than using the outlines in the colouring pages. For now, however, this is working very well, allowing her and Little Man to concentrate on colour details, distinctive features in the feathers and so on, while still having the bird's overall shape clearly before them.

As we walked to the dentist this morning, Little Man and Brown-Eyed Boy kept pointing out the birds they recognized: house sparrows, robins, and now grackles, too, although they aren't part of our backyard bird "collection" so far.

Little Man has been counting the robins he has seen this spring, and he's up to seven, I believe. I haven't been keeping count, but have been trying to find ways to identify individual birds among those who come to our yard and feeder. That is pretty hard to do. I'm not sure exactly what to focus on to see individual differences in the sparrows or robins. But I'm trying.

Today while they were playing outside, The Ones I Love called me out twice to see birds they were quietly watching. One was a chickadee hiding in a neighbour's shrub, the other was a fat little robin, hopping merrily along the ground which, thanks to the recent snow and thaw, is once again moist and yielding many yummy treats.

The fact that The Ones I Love are pausing to watch the birds while they are playing, riding bikes, digging, etc., brings me much joy. THIS is why we are doing Nature Study: so that it will become a natural part of their lives and so that their familiarity with the species around us will give them a greater love for creation and the Creator.

Outdoor Hour Challenge - Backyard Bird Focus #1b

Following Barb's Backyard Bird Focus, we pressed on with our Outdoor Hour Challenge this week, despite two inches of new white snow.

We read about cardinals and house sparrows, and I finally believe that I can confidently say that the little birds that come to my feeder so often are house sparrows. I'd looked them up many times, but promptly forgotten what I'd discovered. This time, however, focusing on one bird at a time, I've finally internalized what I read.

There are so many nondescript little brownish birds around. I know, it's not really true, but until I started looking closely, all I could say was that maybe it was a sparrow or a finch or some other little common bird. In fact, I had a mental picture of a sparrow in my mind that was completely wrong: it was too slender, too delicate, too small. What was I thinking?

Well, now I know. These little sparrows have rusty caps, tiny little bibs below their bills, brown streaky wings and lighter brown bellies. And those bellies are very round. There is almost no neck length on a sparrow (something I had wrong in my mental picture), although you can definitely see the indentation that separates head from body.

We are now confidently identifying house sparrows all over our neighbourhood. And we're even starting to be able to pick out their calls among all the other bird sounds we're hearing these days!

We haven't put entries in our Nature Journals yet for these little fellows, but we have done our cardinals. I'll put pictures of both in my next post on the Challenge.

Outdoor Hour Challenge - Backyard Bird Focus #1

The winter was a very quiet time for us as far as nature study goes, and now we are excited to be able to get out and enjoy more moderate temperatures and bright sunshine. There's no telling how long it will last, so we aim to make the most of every opportunity.

It was with great excitement that I read that Barb, at Handbook of Nature Study, was starting a backyard bird focus for the Outdoor Hour Challenge. It was just the kick-start I needed to get back outside. Barb's challenges are so manageable - they require very little in preparation, equipment, and time, but they are effective ways of focusing attention. Anna Botsford Comstock's book, Handbook of Nature Study, is Barb's main text, and thus the name of her blog, and her challenges give me an incentive to pick up the huge volume and take a bite out of it - a small bite, directed by Barb's suggestions in preparation for the challenge.

I spent some time on Sunday evening reading the section on robins that Barb had pointed me to and highlighting some of the paragraphs that I wanted to read to my children. There were so many interesting things! Here are a couple of the parts I enjoyed:

The robin has many sweet songs and he may be heard in the earliest dawn and also in the evenings; if he wishes to cheer his mate he may burst into song at any time.

A robin can run or hop as pleases him best, and it is interesting to see one, while hunting earthworms, run a little distance, then stop to bend the head and listen and look; when he finally seizes the earthworm he braces himself on his strong legs and tugs manfully until he sometimes almost falls over backward as the worm lets go its hold.

The most noticeable thing about a very young robin is its wide, yellow-margined mouth, which it opens like a satchel every time the nest is jarred. This wide mouth cannot but suggest to anyone who sees it that it is meant to be stuffed, and the two parents work very hard to fill it.

Handbook of Nature Study, Anna Botsford Comstock, Cornell University Press, 1911, pages 58-59.

Can't you just picture those little mouths, bulging with food?

I read the section on robins to the children on Monday after lunch as we sat on the couch together. We looked at our field guide and examined the pictures in the HNS. Then we prepared for the outdoor portion, pulling on shoes, mitts, and jackets.

The objective of our outdoor time was to spend 15 or so minutes looking and listening for any indications of birds in the area. (We chose to walk to the nearby playground and not limit ourselves to our own little backyard.) We knew that at that time of day we might not see any birds, but we were going to try. We listened for bird calls, looked for signs of nesting, and watched for little bird footprints in the sand.

And our efforts were rewarded. On the way to the park we saw two robins, both male, perched in two neighbouring trees.

Then, while at the park, we heard crows and began to look for them. The children saw one, but I managed to see two!



After a little bit of time just moving around, looking and listening at the playground, we were getting chilly and decided that it was time to head home. I was thankful to have seen all that we had, and was ready to call it a successful Outdoor Hour Challenge.

And then My Girl spotted this little fellow.


He was hopping along the ground, probably trying to stay out of our way, since the little boys can be a bit noisy. Once the boys had progressed down the street a little way, My Girl and I were able to stand and watch him for a while. He moved to the middle of a small front yard and hopped a bit one way and another.

After watching him for several minutes we were ready to move on toward home when we noticed that he had begun to lean close to the ground. Suddenly he jabbed his head down and snapped it back up with a long pink worm in his bill!


He dropped it to the ground and began to nip at it with his bill. I don't say 'peck' because that brings to my mind a repeated back and forth motion, whereas this little robin was giving a single stab at the worm then pausing while the worm wriggled and resettled on the ground.

Finally the robin lifted the worm and gulped it down!




Now, doesn't he look like a fellow who's proud of his accomplishments? But modest: see how he faces away from us out of humility!

I'm so thankful that we stayed around long enough to see that sight! It was fun to watch his little head tip side to side, listening for whatever sound it is that worms make, his body parallel to the ground as he got close enough to hear. And then the "gulp, gulp, done" with which he dispatched the worm. Fascinating, but icky if you think about it too much!
We walked home and the little boys played outside while My Girl and I went in to do an entry in our nature journals.

My Girl, giving the final details to her illustration before cutting it out and pasting it into her journal. She traced the outline of the robin from the Cornell University bird colouring book and then added markings and colour.

My Girl's finished entry.

Little Man coloured and cut out the robin from the Cornell University colouring page to illustrate his journal later in the day, and Brown Eyed Boy was permitted to put his illustration in Little Man's journal, too, as he didn't have his own. (That matter has since been rectified and all of us - except for Dear Man - now have our own nature journals.)