The Early Bird

Write me how many notes there be
In the new robin’s ecstasy
Among astonished boughs; Emily Dickinson

We live in Southeastern Virginia, on a little finger of the Lafayette River, which provides a micro-climate of warmth to our backyard which faces South and faces water.  Winter in our region is rarely really cold.  We have temperatures in the 40′s and sometimes the 30′s and in a terribly harsh winter for a few weeks there might be a few days in the twenties.  So, we have Robins year round. 

In winter, they shelter in the hedge rows.  We have a boxwood hedge on one side of the front yard, and an old rickety fence in the backyard made out of something that looks like really thick chicken wire that is overgrown with ivy.  So many birds shelter in it year round we don’t have the heart to tear it down.  We can count on an enormous flock of robins or cedar waxwings (depending on who gets there first) descending on our American Holly and stripping it of red berries sometime in late January, and then bedecking our cars, sidewalk, driveway, etc with lovely purple spots. 

In the Spring, the Robins move to nests that they build in trees.  We’ve seen nests in the Holly, or our overgrown Ligustrum on the sheltered East side of the house.  It is narrow there, so harder for the Cooper’s Hawk that visits occasionally to navigate.  Sometimes, we’ll have a nest on one of the brackets that accent the roofline of our Craftsman Bungalow.  They are pretty popular nesting sites, this year the finches and sparrows seem to be getting the best ones.   

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We were excited to see Robins chosen as a topic for the Outdoor Hour Challenge for April.  This topic was easy for us to work in!  We strove to be more observant of our Robins, watching their movements and habits much more closely than usual.  We usually focus on the feeder outside our kitchen window, so we made a point to look around more in the yard, and watch for robins in the bird bath.  If we didn’t see many, we watered some flowers or herbs in the yard, and it didn’t take long for them to show up! 

As I sat outside the mornings of Easter Weekend, a Robin kept me company, coming around the corner of the house around 6 AM each day.  He sings beautifully!  We watched together as the full moon slowly set in the west while the morning sun was busy gilding the leaves on the trees as he rose in the east.  

Here are a few photos, and there are one or two from last year since we haven’t located a nest just yet…Last year we were studying Flying Creatures (Apologia) and Grace was observing a Robin’s nest in the Holly tree.  She had to wait for mom to fly off, and then set up a step stool under the branch in order to get the photo of the nest! We were stunned at the rich beautiful blue of the eggs! 

Quote is from #39 “Bring me the sunset in a cup” by Emily Dickinson, in Emily Dickinson Complete Poems, Part Two:Nature

Lion around…

A recent field trip to the zoo yielded a funny feline moment. 
Here are the photos…

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Lioness is resting in front of a rock.  She peers at the Lion over her shoulder. 
Lion is also resting about 30 yards away in front of a different rock.  He notices her inquiry…
He walks over…
She walks away…

Poor lonely Lion.

Strawberry Picking with Papa Gene

Well, when Papa Gene sent an email early in the week and invited Grace and I to go strawberry picking and then out to lunch we had to say “Yes!”  We planned for Friday, and after Grace’s homeschool P.E. class,  we drove out to Papa Gene’s house, who then drove us another mile or so further to Salem Berry Farm near the intersection of Lynnhaven and Salem Rds.

There are quite a few berry farms out in Pungo, a region where Ralph’s mom, Midge lives.  Pungo is in the rural Southeastern portion of Virginia Beach, and many of the farms are more than an hour away from us.  The farmer who owns Salem Berry Farms has another farm out that way as well, but he wisely decided to put a stand and a small pick-your-own-field in Kempsville which isn’t as far of a drive.  For Grace and I driving from Norfolk, it was 25 minutes instead of 45, and with gas at ridicularious prices, the closer farm wins! To make this fun outing educational too, I printed off a few pages about Strawberries, both wild and cultivated, from Anna Comstock’s Handbook of Nature Study, and Grace and I read over it at breakfast.  This gave her a few things to look for when we got to the field.

The weather was gorgeous!  The size of the strawberry field is modest, but there were plenty of berries, and lots of lovely white blossoms, green berries, and buds in various stages of berry formation.  So, strawberries will be in abundance for next week’s harvesters too!  We took a few moments to study the leaves, berries, blossoms and buds.  We also looked under the plants for runners, which along with the “seeds” on the outside of the strawberry, called achenes, are the two ways strawberries propagate.  I took some pictures so we could sketch when we got home. 

It didn’t take us long at all to gather a tupperware container full of strawberries.  We turned them over to be weighed and were amazed that we’d picked 4 lbs!  Papa Gene paid for the berries and a nice fat bunch of Asparagus that we later grilled for dinner (Thanks, Papa Gene!), and then we headed to Five Guys for lunch! 

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Since our excursion we treated ourselves to strawberries for breakfast over waffles, strawberry smoothies, and strawberries over Blue Bunny Vanilla Ice Cream (THE BEST VANILLA ice cream in the world) with chocolate sauce.  I froze some too.  The fresh berries were gone pretty quickly -  no pictures.  We ate them up before I thought to grab one!  Picking strawberries with Papa Gene was a fun outing! Papa Gene, Grace and I decided we must plan to pick blueberries when they come in, and drive out to Knotts Island for peaches later in the summer!

Anna Comstock’s Handbook of Nature Study is in the public domain.  It’s a large download, but then you can read or print the sections you need for whatever plant, animal or element of nature you’re interested in studying.   Click HERE for a link to the Internet Archive.
What little I know about Nature Study, I learned from another homeschooling mom, Barb, and her tremendously helpful blog: Handbook of Nature Study, which offers a free helpful  monthly newsletter, blog posts with study ideas, as well as ebook curriculum.

Biking Cape Henry Trail…

#2 Ratchets work the best...

Each trip to Walmart or Target towards the end of 2011 included a side trip to the bike department to look over the bikes on display.  When you consider that the last quarter of each year includes a cluster of holidays that require copious amounts of shopping – you’ll realize that we looked at a lot of bikes!  Or rather, we looked at a bike, a lot.  A purple one, of course.

The bike that we selected actually came in a box, and after a detour to Papa Gene’s for quality assembly it appeared Christmas afternoon when Papa Gene and Uncle Mark arrived for Christmas Dinner.  So as the New Year began, it seemed a good time to begin working on Grace’s American Heritage Girl Bicycling Badge.  

Pumping the tires!

A focus on hand signals, safety, and proper clothing for day and night are the initial badge requirements, and from there, girls must learn to use tools to do basic bike maintenance and repair, and last, complete some lengthy bike trips.  This Kids Health Bike Safety web site article hits all the major points!  Ralph worked with our Explorer on adjusting her seat height, and pumping tires.  He also showed her how to put a bike chain back on the track! 

Next up was looking for appropriate locations for 5 mile and 10 mile bike ride.  This requirement has taken a little longer to meet, partly because of the weather, partly because of our hectic Saturday schedule, and partly because we wanted a good ride that isn’t streetside.   In our city, there aren’t many locations for long rides that aren’t on a major road at some point.  Looking farther afield at Virginia Beach we were reminded of a great option! 

Our first venture out for a long ride was to Seashore State Park (aka First Landing State Park).  The park has many trails, but only one for bikes, a multi-use trail called the Cape Henry Trail.  Ralph and I rode this trail years ago with friends, and then again with Ian when he was little.  Grace had never been, so this was a new adventure for her.  We headed out to the park late morning after getting a few chores done.  Turning in to the Southern portion of the park at the Trails entrance off of Shore Dr., we paid $5 for parking ($4 on weekdays, and $40 for a season pass according to another biking family), unpacked the bikes and set off!

Map of the various trails at First Landing (aka Seashore) State Park.

The trail is just over 6 miles, but it is not a loop! So, if you ride the full distance, you must turn around and ride 6 miles back to the parking lot!  12 miles sounded like a lot first time out on a longer ride, so we decided to play it by ear and see how we did.  Riding a bike on a woodland trail is a little more demanding than riding the flat streets of our neighborhood.  When we reached the 2.5 mile marker (it was really more like 3 miles from the parking lot), we saw that our water bottles were already low, and faces were a little pink.  We decided to turn around and just plan to meet the 5 mile requirement this time.  Everyone agreed that it was way fun!

The trail goes up and down alongside bogs and marshland,  the still waters are studded with cypress trees draped with Spanish Moss.  The sun filters through the upper canopy lighting up new green leaves along the path, but doesn’t penetrate enough to be too hot.  In the summer we suspect it will be a tad steamy and buggy, so note to self, “pack the Sawyers.” There were lots of walkers, joggers and other bike folk, and we found that everyone was quite cordial, sharing a greeting and the path.  Back at the car, Ralph and I looked at each other and asked “Why don’t we do this more often?” After loading up the bikes, we drove over to the North side of the park (it is bisected by Shore Drive) to show Grace the campsites, and to go dip our feet in the Bay.  The water was still very cold!

We’ll be striving to massage our schedule to allow for more time on our bikes in God’s great outdoors!  The Cape Henry Trail is only one of several wonderful hiking trails at First Landing State Park, and we hope to return without our bikes to enjoy Kingfisher Trail, or Osmanthus Trail, or Fox Run Trail!  We are really grateful for our local American Heritage Girl troop!  Working with our Explorer on these badges has been a lot of fun, and has nudged us out of our stodgy routines! 

In about two weeks, we are hoping to visit the Dismal Swamp Trail in  Chesapeake for the 10 mile ride - we’ll let you know how it goes!

A few photos: 

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