More Frog Hunting

I took Danielle back to the park today. She had better luck finding some frogs. She saw a leopard frog but couldn't catch him. Instead she managed to catch these tiny little cricket frogs. I can't believe she can spot those tiny little things out of the dead leaves and duckweed. If I let her, I think she would spend the whole day searching the banks for wildlife. Maybe next summer we'll look into some type of week long wildlife day camp for her. At the very least we should probably invest in some waders for her. :)

Baseball, Bunnies, & Bricks

Tball practice is in full swing. Danielle is doing great! Games should start the weekend before Memorial Day.

We had a picnic at the park for dinner tonight and then spent some time wandering around. Danielle really wanted to find the treefrog she found Monday night, but we didn't see any frogs at all. We did see a bunny, a baby bunny, a vole, 2 swans, and 3 deer. The kids were searching under the boardwalk for the "big" bunny. She was not really so big, as you can see in the picture. (I call the picture of the kids on the ground "A Tick's Delight". They are so bad this year.) We saw an even smaller baby bunny further down the boardwalk. He also ran under the boardwalk. Tyler was trying to peek through the cracks to see him but didn't have any luck.

Here is a current picture of our patio. (They aren't really bricks, but pavers would have messed up the alliteration.) The "great wall" looks nice but it's going to take a little getting used to. The slope of our yard is so bad, we really didn't have much choice. Unfortunately it doesn't look like they're going to finish before the weekend.

My Daughter the Frog Hunter

As if to prove the point I was trying to make about Danielle last night, look what she found tonight:

It is a gray treefrog. Tyler's Cub Scout pack went bird watching at the metropark tonight. Out of all those boys, Danielle is the one who spotted the frog and managed to snatch it up. She was very annoyed, though, that the boys all wanted to touch it. She really didn't have a chance to look over her treasure. She thought it was funny, though, that after they released it, no one could catch it again.

As far as seeing many birds, well, we saw about as many as you'd expect to see with 15 2nd grade boys who have no interest in seeing birds.

This and That

Here are some pictures of the progress on our patio. I use the word "progress" loosely. I didn't realize how much our yard sloped until they started adding all the gravel to level it. This is about 18 tons of gravel. We are waiting for about 8 more tons to be delivered.

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I had a lot of fun walking through the park with Danielle Thursday afternoon. She really is such a neat kid. We are 99% sure we saw a swan in the pond that afternoon. We saw lots of turtles basking in the sun. Danielle had fun trying to catch some nickel-sized frogs she found along the bank. I don't know how she is able to spot a teeny tiny green & brown frog against the green & brown ground, but she can. I'm still amazed she found the tiny little turtle in a path full of gravel. We had Chinese for dinner the other night, and my fortune from my fortune cookie said: You discover treasures where others see nothing unusual. That's exactly how I feel about Danielle. She can find the treasure in an ordinary thing (like seeing a heart shape in a funny shaped piece of mulch) or find the ordinary thing that most people overlook. She looks at things just a little differently, which I think is quite a gift. I am excited to see how God will use this gift as she gets older.

I went back to the park on Friday, hoping to see the swan, but he wasn't there. I did see some turtles (the one pictured is a red-eared slider) and some different types of birds. I realize ducks are birds and it makes sense that one could be in a tree, but I have never seen a duck in a tree. I guess that's why I thought it was so funny to watch these wood ducks land in the tree. I think they had a nest on the other side of one of the branches.




































































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Finally, I need to brag on Tyler for a minute. Last month all the 2nd graders were tested to see if they qualify to be in the gifted enrichment program starting in the 3rd grade. Depending on their scores, kids either don't qualify, qualify for more testing to better determine their eligibility, or qualify for the program without any more testing. We got Tyler's test results back on Thursday and were delighted to find that he scored quite well and made it into the gifted program starting in the 3rd grade. We don't have all the information yet, but do know that, starting next year, one day a week he and the other kids in the program will be bussed over to the middle school where they will have special classes with the enrichment teacher. The classes are usually catered to the individuals in the program, so hopefully Tyler will see these as fun and rewarding, while being challenged more than he has been in the regular classroom. He's pretty excited, and we are proud of him.

For the Birds

Call me a geek if you'd like, but I went bird watching today. I ignored the cleaning, let the laundry pile up a little more, and shirked my other stay-at-home-mom duties. My brother joined me, and we had a nice morning out.

I am not a very good "birder". The birds need to be bright purple and jump up and down in order for me to find them most of the time. We went to a large cemetery/arboretum that is supposedly a good birding location and stopped at the main office to see if they could offer any pointers. I'm glad we stopped.

They told us that their resident great horned owl had two babies that were pretty easy to spot and gave us directions to find them. I was not disappointed! They looked so fuzzy. They were almost ready to fly, and the mom was not around. The babies were really big. I would have loved to see the full grown mama! I thought our trip was worth it just to see these guys "in the wild".

Here are some pictures of a few woodpeckers we saw. I like woodpeckers. They aren't purple and they don't jump up and down, but they do make lots of noise, which makes them easier for me to find!

This and That

First, here are a couple more pictures of Snappy. We tried to measure him yesterday so we can keep track of his growth. Turtles are measured by the length of their shells, so our little guy is about an inch long. If he is a male, when he is fully grown he'll be between 4 & 6 inches long. He ate a piece of a worm today, so that was a very good sign. It's fun to watch him swim; he moves each leg independently rather than 2 of them at a time. I'll post a video some time.

Danielle humored me and let me take some pictures of her today. Apparently it was too sunny, though, because she was squinting in most of my pictures. She is crazy about dandelions.

Uncle Ron & Danielle had some fun at the playground this afternoon.

In Danielle's Words...

(Danielle asked me if she could pick out a picture of the turtle and write a couple things for me to post. So, basically, this is Danielle's post.)

I found a turtle at the park. It is an Eastern painted turtle. Its name is Snappy. Snappy is a baby turtle. He is funny. Snappy likes to eat worms. Snappy likes to swim. Snappy is cute.

More Wildlife

Although a cold front moved through last night, it was a beautiful day today! We took advantage of the sunshine and tried out a new-to-us trail and pond at a nearby metropark.

We went for a walk around the pond. Some of the trail went through a wooded area, which is where we think we picked up some ticks. Danielle was the only one who didn't have a hitchhiker. We found one on Tyler's head after we got home. It had already attached itself, so we had to get out the tweezers and fingernail polish. It was our children's first experience with ticks. I guess I didn't adequately explain to the kids about the ticks and overlooked telling them that they don't suck out all your blood. Apparently losing all his blood was a little more than Tyler could handle, so he was pretty upset about the tick on his head. Oops. Once I realized why he was so upset I quickly explained. I think he's traumatized now. Anyway...

When we got to the other side of the pond, the path was covered with gravel. Danielle loves shiny rocks, so she was paying close attention and happened upon a treasure today. She found this little turtle hatchling. As you can see, it was all dirty and kind of dry, like he hadn't been in the water for awhile. With as little as it is, it's quite possible it hadn't made it down to the water yet. The kids thought it was really neat and begged me to let them keep it. More about that in a minute. I was amazed she noticed him, but Danielle always manages to find the bird that's hiding in the branches or frog that's partially covered in mud. She's neat like that.

We finished out our afternoon with a little fishing. Danielle had several bites but didn't manage to land any. Tyler didn't catch any either. Ron caught the first fish of the season. Isn't he HUGE? We laughed so hard about this little guy. And holding him closer to the camera still doesn't make him look bigger! Ron ended up catching 4 other fish that were bigger than this guy. We had a good time.

I gave in and we brought the turtle home. We searched the internet to identify him. What did people do without the internet??!! We discovered that he is an Eastern painted turtle. Most likely it is a male because the gender of these turtles is determined by the temperature of the eggs. Since it has not been consistently over 80, it is probably a male. It does not still have its egg tooth but does still have a rather fresh looking scar from where its yolk sac was attached, so it can't be more than a few days old. He loves the water and is fun to watch. Already I like him better than the leopard frog, and his coloring is very pretty. Once we get his habitat set up, I'll post more pictures (assuming he survives overnight!).