It's a Boy's Life: bugs

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Thursday

Field Trip Friday: Asheville Botanical Gardens

This week Rylan asked to go to either the NC Arboretum or the Asheville Botanical Gardens so that he could take some pictures of flowers to enter in the fair. We decided to try the Botanical Gardens since we've never been. It was very nice, and not at all what I was expecting. I was thinking it would be similar to the University of Tennessee's Trial Gardens, but it was much more naturalized.

The kids were automatically drawn to the water and rocks. And flip flops are not the shoes to wear while chasing an excited toddler over slippery rocks! We spent a lot of time skipping rocks and stomping in puddles and streams.

Rylan took pictures with my camera so he could get a better shot for his fair entries. He also hogged the camera taking pictures of every tree he hasn't seen before. And their leaves. And their sign. He was pretty excited about some of them since they were on his "want to see" list. He also has an "already seen list" which currently lists about 115 tree species.

We saw a few caterpillars to identify later. And we found a tree with an odd fruit-like seed pod. Rylan collected some seeds from the Cucumber tree and Spice Bush to try and plant at home. We also came home with a new Peterson's Field Guide- A Field Guide to Eastern Trees. And a new bird book too. Rylan is excited to go back in the spring, since he saw signs for many of the wild flowers he's been wanting to see.

So that was our field trip of the week. Now it's your turn! Did you take a fun outing this week? Did you let your kids explore nature? A museum? Zoo? A neighborhood walk? Link up below and share your experience! If you don't have a blog, just leave a comment with your favorite field trip.

Please link back to It's a Boy's Life and Field Trip Friday to spread the word!

linked to Fantastic Foto Field Trips,

Wednesday

Glimpse

A glimpse into our week:

Playing, building and creating with wire

Painting. Lots of painting. For fun and to enter into the upcoming fair.

Reading. Lakin got every book on vehicles he could carry at the library. Today Rylan got the next 4 books in the Warriors series he is reading.

Oil Pastels. I have always loved working with oil pastels. So much nicer than crayons. Lakin and Cohen were inspired by my numerous art peacock art projects on my Pinterest board. So they got some feathers out to draw. Rylan finished one to enter in the Mountain State Fair.

Clay and Airplanes. Lakin made an awesome model of a Thunderbolt out of clay.

Nature. We found this spiky thing crawling outside. We haven't identified it yet. And this morning I found this huge beetle outside the back door. They identified it as a Dung Beetle. Cale was disappointed that it didn't suddenly start rolling the chicken poop he set it by.

You may have noticed that I like peacocks. I have always wanted to own a pair. I almost had one. He was hatched weak. He was unsteady on his feet and always tired. He fought to survive for 2 weeks, before he lost his fight. I'm sad, he was a sweet little bird. One day I'll have my beautiful birds, but for now I'll just collect my polka dotted guinea feathers.

Tomorrow we are heading out to do some bird watching. Don't forget to come back on Friday, to read about that adventure and to link up any of your own field trip posts on Field Trip Friday!

Linked to Meet Me Monday

The Life Cycle of a Butterfly

We have passion flowers growing wild in our back yard.

And it just so happens that the passion flower is the food of choice for the Gulf Fritillary Butterfly. Which, as a caterpillar, is orange and spiky. Some have more stripes, some more orange.

We've done this before- a couple years ago. So this year when the caterpillars started to appear, we pulled a few vines and brought them inside. We started with 3. Then Cale couldn't help himself and brought in a few more. And we ended up with a couple of unseen eggs that hatched into tiny baby caterpillars. And of course when the boys went to fetch more food, there always seemed to be just one more on the vine.

And throughout the past few weeks we've been able to watch these insects grow and change. And we've also gotten a lesson in survival of the fittest. We started with 3 chrysalises- one looked good, the others a little funny. Those funny one's didn't make it. One didn't stand a chance, one looked like it died while trying to emerge. Then we had a couple attempt to turn on the floor of the tent as opposed to hanging. They didn't get too far.

That is not a healthy chrysalis. Another was hanging, looking great. Almost ready to make the change from a caterpillar to chrysalis. Then it turned black and fell. We have 2 more caterpillars and 2 more healthy chrysalises that should open within a day or so. And 2 have emerged so far.

The first emergence was last week and we saved the butterfly all morning until our co-op met and released it then. I didn't get too many- or any- good pictures of that one. Too chaotic.

But this one emerged this morning. We found it seconds after, still wet and wrinkled.

It rested and by mid-morning it was fluttering around and ready to be released.

I absolutely love the coloring of these butterflies. And between the passion flowers they lay eggs on, and the cosmos they love to drink from. We get our fair share of them in our yard.