If April weren't busy enough, May was the craziest month (nature-wise) that I have ever experienced!!!
Here's a quick run-down of our May here in Texas...
7 - mama cardinal not on the nest so much today; thought we saw a tiny crack in one of the eggs; first baby hatched!
(For more on our Northern Cardinal nature study, read this post.)
- earthquake at 5:20pm (4.0)
8 - the other two baby cardinals hatched; mama ate eggshells
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| Aren't they precious?!? |
11 - Glory seen feeding babies; later brought food to mama, who in turn shared with her brood
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| The whole family :-) |
15 - only see two baby birds now in the nest
- Carolina wolf spider spotted in various holes in our yard; they like to bring their large white egg sacs to the surface. (More on our Carolina wolf spider study here.)
- large tadpoles in pond
17 - fireflies
18 - only one baby cardinal in nest
- tomato plant blooms
- empty nest :-(
- cactus bloom
23 - wolf spider babies - eek!
28 - house finch visited our yard :-)
29 - wettest May on record; major flooding this month; river is at its highest level today at over 28' gauge height!
- Standing Cypress flower blooms
31 - officially just over 20" of rain this month! Although May is usually the wettest month of the year, the average is only a bit under 5"
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I can't believe I just started keeping a Calendar of Firsts in January.
Now I am seeing so many things I never knew about and am excited to have record of when I can expect to see these same nature-wonders next year!
How is your Calendar of Firsts coming along?
I have not done a calendar of firsts before. Is it separate from your nature journalling or do you combine them?
ReplyDeleteThose cardinals are priceless!
Lucy, the Calendar of Firsts is a separate "keeping" endeavor. Basically it is a running log of what you notice *firsts* of in nature (i.e. first blooms of certain flowers, first snow of the year/season, first spotting of certain birds, etc.) And, as you can see, I have even included some major weather-related events!
DeleteThis could be a springboard for a nature journal entry; however, it is kept apart as more of a list of sorts, and evidently Charlotte Mason was a huge proponent of lists! You can check out my Calendar of Firsts post here for a bit more info if you like:
http://beracavalley.blogspot.com/2015/03/keeping-calendar-of-firsts.html
I'm glad your family wasn't harmed in those awful floods!
ReplyDeleteFound you via another AOer's blog. Really enjoying your posts and your spiritual point of view in the "About" section!
Thank you, TenArrows :-)
DeleteWe are very thankful we weren't harmed in all the flooding as well. What a scary ordeal for so many.
So glad you stopped by and were able to enjoy some of what we are doing and how the Lord has led us to this grand adventure!
This is just LOVELY! We just started more faithful keeping one this year and I'm loving it also! I love that you caught a lot of things with your camera too. I might have to try that more faithfully also! :D
ReplyDeleteHow wonderful that you are finding all this keeping as fun and eye-opening as we are.
DeleteFor me, capturing as much on camera as possible really helps me remember more ... along with writing things down (I need as much help as I can get: my mommy-mush brain is incurable, I am afraid)
So much going on over there! I too have started noticing so much more since I started our Calendar of Firsts a couple years ago. And am I the only one that doesn't know that mama birds eat the eggshells of their young?!
ReplyDeleteActually, Celeste, I don't remember ever knowing the mamas ate their babies' eggshells either. And if my kiddos hadn't told me they saw it, I still wouldn't most likely :-) . After they told me, I had to look it up, and sure enough apparently it is a good source of extra calcium!
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