Happy Winter Solstice!

Today at 12:47 PM, don't come knocking on our door. We'll be locked in the basement.
It's time once again for me to force nature on the kids by making them celebrate what I think should be a holiday.
Our winter solstice tradition has been, in the past, to drink hot chocolate with lots of marshmallows which is all well and good, but as usual, I am feeling like I need to bump things up a notch.
A read an article in some chicky magazine that I don't really care for about the ways that women celebrate certain things. One very wise woman celebrates the winter solstice by turning off all of the lights and having an entire evening by candlelight.
Sounds romantic. But I'll bet my bottom dollar she doesn't have 3 small kids.
So I'm putting them together, my old idea and her storybook one, and at 12:47 PM we'll be in the dark of the basement, drinking hot chocolate by candlelight.

A very happy winter solstice it will be.

Forget not our little animal friends

We have a simple Christmas book by Nancy Tafuri called "Counting To Christmas" that continues to be one of my favorites. In this very simple book, a girl counts to the big day by doing different events. Days 1, 2, and 3, she makes cards. Then she sends them. Etc.
But my favorite part of the book is that she makes outdoor animal treats as a gift to the creatures who live near her house. There are strung dried fruits and popcorn and more.

For me, it seems a no-brainer that we should be gifting something to the animals which entertain us so much all year long. Our bird feeders are in constant change-- watching the cardinals come, the blue jays scare the others away, the woodpeckers devour the suet, the goldfinches that seem to come from nowhere by the hundreds. Sometimes we just sit and watch without even knowing.

There are also the deer and the squirrels who bounce up and down on our squirrel bungee apparatus, and in the warmer months, the wave of frogs and toads that sing us to sleep and let us catch them.

So we're going to follow this little wise girl's countdown this year and make some simple gifts to give to our friends in the woods, and maybe next year we'll once again be blessed with another beautiful show to watch and enjoy.

HOMEMADE BIRD FEEDERS

Here are two things to try!

Pinecone Classic
Hook a pipe cleaner around the end of a pine cone where it attached to the tree. Coat the pinecone in either peanut butter or vegetable shortening and get it nice and gooey. Either roll it in birdseed (the easiest) or else stick on there various nuts and berries such as raisins, peanuts, sunflower seeds, dried cranberries, and even Cheerios. You can then roll it in birdseed if you'd like to cover the bare spots. Hang it up nearby, and remember it might take the birds a few days to find it.

Popcorn and more strings (Animal candy necklaces!)
String, using a needle, popcorn and other such foods. Raisins, Cheerios, pieces of apple, etc. will all work great. You can do one long string or a few shorter ones. Make sure you use sturdy thread, and when you're finished, decorate low branches or shrubs with your animal candy necklace!

Saving Isabella: A wooly bear for the winter

We own a fun nature book for children (which I would credit but I loaned it to a friend and don't have the name on hand), there's a page that gives directions for keeping a wooly bear catapillar over the winter.

What fun!
So we're giving it a try.

The wooly bear is the fun fall version of the Isabella Tiger Moth which emerges in the spring. For years I've never taken the time to know this. For me, the wooly bear meant one thing: how hard of a winter we were going to have.

I remember as a kid seeng how many I could collect and making my own predictions about the winter-- long before we had the power of the internet and computer forecasters to tell us all in detail and in every form of media.

But now, they are just catapillars that we can hold. Fuzzy and non-poisonous, after reading the how-to in our book, we kept one this year.

Here's the basic how-to...

1. Find a wooly bear in the fall. That's RIGHT NOW!!

2. Store it in a plastic jar with a top that you've drilled holes in, and keep the jar outside and out of direct weather. Ours sits right out our back door under the covered part of our porch.

3. Put in a few twigs and a few blades of grass.

4. Change the grass every day, and as we've found, dump out the catapillar poo. (You'll be amazed-- trust me.)

5. Eventually the little critter will appear to die and curl up on the bottom. He's sleepng. Shhhh!

6. Wait until spring when you see some action from your awakening wooly bear. Continue to feed it fresh grass.

That's our plan. Stay tuned for updates on our little friend!

The Rock Type Blues

Some things are best learned in song. (Or rather, some people like to make fools out of themselves in public?) While volunteering at a local nature center on geology day, I just couldn't help myself. I had to write a song to help explain rock types.
I don't have the guts to sing this on video, but teachers are welcome to make up their own tunes and sing away. I'm sure this will be a hit song on the geology charts one of these days...

The Rock Type Blues
copyright 2009 Karrie McAllister

I got a collection
of all kind of rocks
There’s pink and there’s brown
There’s stripey and dots.

But it would be much better
If only I could see
What these rocks were
And how they came to be

Now I’ve got those blues,
Those low down rock type blues.
Those sedimentary, igneous
And metaphorphic rock type blues.

Now all over the world
Rock’s being eroded
Those little small pieces
Are all getting molded

And settling down
Cementing together so complimentary
You got your sandstone and your fossils and
Well, that’s sedimentary.

Now I’ve got those blues,
Those low down rock type blues.
Those sedimentary, igneous
And metaphorphic rock type blues.

Now deep underground
Waaay down I exclaim
Is the melted rock
Magma is its name.

But sometimes that rock
Is different I know
Because it’s called lava
When it shoots from a volcano.

And when the rock cools
It’s name you just can’t miss.
Whether its granite or obsidian
It’s all called igneous.

Now I’ve got those blues,
Those low down rock type blues.
Those sedimentary, igneous
And metaphorphic rock type blues.

The last type of rock
It’s a little more strange
It’s been cooked and squished
It’s gone through a change.

And shale becomes slate,
You just can not ignore it
And when granite become gneiss
We call it metamorphic.

Now I don’t have those blues,
Because I know all the rock type clues.
Goodbye to those sedimentary, igneous
And metaphorphic rock type blues.

Yes, mam, you are a bit like a zoo animal

Yes, mam, you are a bit like a zoo exhibitby Karrie McAllister
There’s something to be said for the coati. It’s not every day that we can learn so very much about ourselves when we go to the zoo and stare into an exhibit of obscure animals.
My first introduction to this magnificent mammal happened a few years ago while visiting our favorite little zoo. An enclosure full of these critters that look like a raccoon that stuck its nose into a vacuum hose completely fascinated me.
The first thing I learned that day was that “coati” is not pronounced “coat-ee” but instead “co-AH-tee,” not because the sign clarified that, but because my daughter, then age 5, corrected me and told me I should watch more animal TV shows so I can learn as much as she does.
Beyond that embarrassment, I discovered that coatis are pretty smart animals. They have, I’m assuming, over many generations, learned how to get things done and thrive as a species. They have figured out how to best increase their populations and grow in strength and numbers. They have determined how to feed and raise their young and all the while live in a happy-go-lucky (or as happy-go-lucky a coati can be) social setting.
They kicked out the guys.
Coatis live in groups consisting of only females and immature males. Once the boys hit coati puberty, they leave the group until mating season and live a solitary life like the other older men, who I’d bet sit around and watch coati football games and work on coati cars.
Female coatis take excellent care of each other and each other’s young, babysitting and even sometimes nursing each other’s babies. They are chatty animals, and spend a lot of time grooming themselves and each other.
And if I was a betting woman, I’d also guess that they get a heap of stuff done and have a great time. I’m sure there’s the occasional coati bickering session and most likely little fights over the latest kill or fruit, but all in all, I think we can learn from these girls who really know how to band together and get the job done.
I say this with such certainty only because I recently spent my very own weekend with all women. It was my annual trip to the Becoming an Ohio Outdoorswoman event hosted by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. Besides a few instructors and a couple of cafeteria workers, it was all girls girls girls.
And boy oh boy, did we have a great time.
This event, held annually, provides women the opportunity to step into a so-called man’s world for a few days and try their hands at everything from candle making to muzzleloading. I personally spent my weekend laughing, dancing, and gabbing, not to mention kayaking, shooting trap, and learning to hunt ducks and geese.
I also spent a windy Saturday afternoon climbing a 50-foot wooden structure. Let me rephrase that. I monkeyed myself up a 50-foot tower, contorting myself into positions that I haven’t seen since I had to buckle an infant into the back middle seat of an SUV. Only instead of being hunched over in a car, I was dangling 40 feet off the ground, totally relying on the woman holding my safety belay rope and the cheers of the other women watching.
If it weren’t for the cheers, I would have never made it to the top. If it weren’t for the applause while sitting on the top of the tower, I would have frozen up there. And if it weren’t for the high fives and hugs, I would have never climbed it again.
There’s just something empowering about getting a big group of women together. Almost as instinctively as our dear friend the coati, something deep inside of us knows to take care of each other, to help each other and how to sweeten our days.
Women know our strength in numbers, yet to the onlooker it might seem puzzling and almost enigmatic.
Unless, of course, the onlooker is a coati, in which case she might just join in.

Check out Becoming an Ohio Outdoorswoman here!

Waxing fall leaves, 1, 2, 3

I have such memories of this as a child, collecting fall leaves at their peak color and perfection. Mom or dad would set up the wax, and we'd sit and dip until we had heaps of waxed leaves.

And yet, I can't remember what we did with all of them...

Some we waxed right onto a piece of slate from the old fallen-down barn near my uncle's farm, the autumnal colors coordinating with the dark gray slate.

The rest? A mystery. I think we just liked to wax the leaves.

Today, before the first official day of Fall had ended, playing out in the yard we spotted a few ideal leaves. Just had to dig out the double boiler and the wax.

It's really easy as 1 2 3, this method of preserving fall color.

1. Find some good lookin' leaves with nice long stems.

2. Melt wax (Paraffin works fine--don't blow your $ on beeswax) in a double boiler. Holding the stem, dip the leaf in the melted wax.

3. Let the wax harden before setting the leaf down. You can just wave it around while holding it, use clothespins, or as I discovered tonight in a pinch, just tape them from the bottomside of your kitchen cabinets.

See? 1, 2, 3. After that, it's up to you. They are preserved, so you've got plenty of time to think about something crafty. Just get it done before the Christmas decorations have to come out.

The turtle story

A few months ago I entered a contest in an online children's magazine called the "Amazing but True" competition. The idea was to write something Amazing, but True about the world around you. I chose the story of the snapping turtle that tried to lay eggs under our back porch a few years ago.
It's a timeless story.
And wouldn't you know it, I won first place in the "for ages 3-6" catagory.
The story can be found here, but I'll tell you those aren't my photos. Our turtle was much, much bigger!

2010 resolution and a thought for a Sunday afternoon

Last night while our husbands watched the football game and the women played spud and otherwise corralled the many children, we also chatted about where we were going on Sunday morning.
This church, that church. "I'm thinking of heading to "Our Lady of the Holy Mattress," said one very honest friend. I kept my mouth shut, but secretly had plans to head to my favorite place to spend just about any morning. The Woods.
We took the kids on a four-mile trek up and down the hills and valleys of Wooster. If you think that Wooster doesn't have hills, you've never been to Wooster Memorial Park. You should go. It just may surprise you, and kick your butt all in the same wonderful visit.
Down the ravine, across the creek, up the other side, etc. etc. etc., we were about 3/4 of our way through and I had a revelation. When you're in the woods, the air must be better and a little more oxygen gets to the brain. It lets you think, put things into perspective, and reflect on everything that isn't in your normal life. Maybe it's the fact that you can't see anything but trees and dirt or maybe it's that cell phones don't work down in the thick of it. Maybe it's just one of those cosmic things.
In any case, here's the glorious thought I had: (Thanks to kerc for the initial idea!)
"I've got our New Year's resolution for 2010. We're going to spend 10 nights in a tent and hike 100 miles next year."
This, I think, should be very doable. 365 days to get it all done. I'll buy a notebook, keep a log. If it goes well, in 2011 we'll shoot for 11 days and 110 miles. And so on, and so forth.
I realize some readers are thinking that I'm absolutely crazy, that any night in a tent or any measure of wooded walks that hit the three digit mark (toting three kids along, mind you) makes me completely off my rocker, a half a bubble left of plumb, a few raisins short of gorp.
This is where I come clean.
There are things you know deep down, the things that make you feel absolutely at peace with yourself. These things make you happy, give you energy, and become an obsession and/or passion. Some people go ga-ga for horses. We all know at least one horse person, the kind who wear western clothing in non-western places. They've got horseshoe stickers on the backs of their pick-up trucks and talk about their animals more than their kids.
They love horses. And that's wonderful.
There are also the people who are really passionate about politics. Their bumpers are covered with political stickers and can change any conversation into a debate about health care or government funding.
"I made chicken for dinner last night. It was delicious."
"Good thing it wasn't undercooked. You'd have to go to the doctor, and then you'd have to wait four hours and get poor care all because....yadda yadda yadda...." (I tend to block it out.)
There are the school sports people, the ones whose entire lives revolve around home vs. away games and that name their pets after school mascots.
There are the ocean/beach people, who would sell everything they have just to live in a shanty where the roar of the surf puts them to bed every night.
I am, I declare, someone who belongs in the woods.
I love the smell of dirt, walking on a bed of pine needles. I get all googly when I see an odd mushroom or a chipmunk run across the trail. Creek crossings send me sky high and stopping for a quick break on an overlook is as about lovely as it gets.
Last weekend on a short hike I got a bug in my eye that went in so far I had to pick it out with a Q-tip. And you know what? I didn't care.
I have poison ivy on the back of my leg and a skeeter had a nice dinner on my neck today. Don't care.
It's all part of finding that place in your life where you belong and it makes you so happy that people start referring to you as "that" person. The beach bum, the horse lady, the democrat/republican. The woods girl.
I'd better go get some stickers for the back of my car.

The end of the summer, and saving sunflower heads

Around here, the poison ivy is starting to turn. Even a walk around the neighborhood shows me the yellowish creeping up the trees, and although I'm all for the poison ivy dying off, the end of summer is always bittersweet.
The kids are back in school...and the kids are back in school. We had such a great summer, but I'd by fibbing if I said I needed a break.
The bean plans are done...and the bean plants are done. As much as i love the snap of a fresh bean, I'm getting tired of picking them.
The sunflowers are dying...and the sunflowers are dying. Our sunflower house this year was so wonderful. Small, but wonderful. We had a few really big sunflowers grow, including the extra ones we put at the edge of our little garden, which is right out my office window. One particular flower took a hit or two or three from the western wind and as a result never quite stood up straight. When the plant decided to droop over, it made a perfect resting spot of thie little birdie, a nuthatch, I think. I have watched this little guy day after day, come to this flower, reach under and pluck out a seed. Then he sits on the top, a perfect little perch, and feasts away. Over and over, like it was just supposed to be there, like it was supposed to happen.
It's a fair reminder of the change of seasons, and of the season of change. My children, they grow. My beans, they freeze. My sunflowers, in their death bringing the feathered friends as much happiness as they brought me during the peak of the summer.

I've never before saved sunflower heads to use as actual bird feeders, but since we have quite a few this year I'm going to give it a try. From what I've read, I'm going to let them mostly dry on the stem. If the birds eat the seed, well, that's OK because that's what I'm planning on using it for. If they get too hungry, I suppose I could cover them with some garden netting. The head needs to be brown, and the back yellow. Once that's done, I'll just cut the heads off and save them in a dry place. Mildew, apparently, isn't good for the birds. There's a quaint craft on the Martha Stewart site I might throw together, someday when I'm missing summer and the snap of a fresh bean.

The sunflower house! It bloomed!

We came back from vacation to find that our sunflower house, though on the puny side, had bloomed! So excited, I made the kids run out for a photo without changing from their travel clothes (stained, dirty, smelly, etc.)

It is marvelous. Small, but marvelous.

I have learned a few things from this year's sunflower house, my first successful one. I have learned:

- Plant seeds in dixie cups. Plant a lot more than you think you'll need. You can always use them somewhere.

-Plant more than you need. Some might not make it.

-Protect the ones you plant. Sharon Lovejoy recommended talcum powder. I used baby powder...and a small fence. Keep those bunnies away!

-Plant in good soil, and in good sun. This one mostly is for personal reasons. Living on the edge of the woods, I planted the house too close to the woodline this year. Next year, it will be out in front, away from all of the trees. And I will haul in bags of soil, instead of just planting the seedlings in the lawn. Not a lot of nutrients left in the soil there.

-Tell your friends! Give them seeds! These are beautiful things, too nice not to share with the world. I may be out of my league here, but I reckon the more sunflowers this world had, a better place it would be.

The essence of her childhood

I have three children.
The first, a girl, always wears skirts and dresses. She wavers on the girly side, and her idea of playing outside is making flower dolls and writing poetry about the birds.
The second, a boy, is as rough and tumble as they get. He currently has poison ivy on every limb, scrapes and bruises, and can identify all of the plants in our little patch of woods.
The youngest, a girl, remained a bit of a mystery in her early days. At a few months she began her relationship with the dirt, the one who always rolled off the blanket to feel the mulch and the grass.
My friend joked, "this little girl is going to be a perfect combination-- wearing dresses and playing in the dirt."

She couldn't have been more correct.

Barefoot and clad in the sweetest of dresses, she has unofficially claimed the blue shovel as her own. She works with her brother diligently as he attempts to dig out a rotten stump, or to China. Whatever comes first.

While mowing the lawn the other day, I noticed at the turn of every corner, the two of them working in the back of the yard and even though it meant another pull start of the mower, I ran to get the camera and snap this picture. For whatever reason, I have a feeling that this one will grow up and look back at this shot and call it the essence of her childhood. That's what it is for me.

A Wilderness Walk is a Birthday Present Indeed

Every year for my birthday and for mother's day I have only one simple request.
A hike.
This year's birthday is no different, but because the forecast is calling for rain on the actual day, the children and I took an early adventure. They were happy to get woken up with the mention of a breakfast stop at the donut shop (Michael's Bakery-- dangerously delicious) and before I knew it they were waiting in their boots in the car. The presents were starting already.
A drive down to The Wilderness Center was filled with singing my favorite songs, and upon arrival we even got our favorite parking spot, which isn't anything special but somehow we find peace in routine.
We grabbed the 'trees' Family Pack from the shelf and headed out on the Wilderness Walk, a 1.75 mile trek that was a piece of cake for the older children, but an impressive task for the 19 month old who hopped along most of the way. The Family Pack supplied ID materials as well as a lovely storybook about trees, so when we reached the pond that had pretty much dried up in the summer heat, a perfectly placed bench was waiting for us.
Fruit snacks, water bottles, story book, and surrounded by three kids and one thousand mosquitoes, my present didn't need to be wrapped at all.
It preferred the fresh air.
Along the way, the smallest one who is quickly earning the nickname of "rocks" must have stopped every 20 feet to pick up another small rock. Bless her, she thought she was sticking them in her pocket, but instead fed them all through a loop in her brother's hand-me-down cargo shorts.
I took a pebble myself, for her collection, and to remember the wonderful way I celebrated my birthday.

Plaster casts of Animal Tracks

We're going through a bit of a dry spell these days around here, but earlier in the summer the ground was a perfectly soft substrate for animal tracks. At the end of the street there's a patch of land that is either puddle or desert, but animals always pass through that spot on their way to the neighboring farmer's field. Deer, raccoon, and turkey are what we normally find there, and it has become a daily ritual to take a walk after dinner with our first stop being the stomping grounds.

Over a few trial runs, I think we've just about perfected the casting process. I wrote a full article about it here, complete with detailed instructions.

Do a rain dance, and while it's pouring, go get yourself some Plaster of Paris.

Introducing The MommaVlogs!

A mom-writer/publisher/everything friend of mine is launching a new site! http://www.themommavlogs.com/ is a place for moms who blog and vlog to network and chat.
What's a vlog? Video blog.
In an effort to help a friend, I had my daughter video me this evening making these lovely flower dolls (care of Karen Geiser's creativity and classes).
After just arriving home from a day of family reunioning, twirling a jump rope for 2 hours and following distant relatives into the wonderous Cascade Park, this is not my best movie by any means. But that doesn't mean that mom bloggers and non mom bloggers alike shouldn't zip over to http://www.themommavlogs.com/! I think it'll be a really fun place to share and network. The community of mom bloggers and writers is such a great one, and even though we are always emailing and reading, we never SEE or HEAR each other. What a great way to make a fabulous community even better.

Endless summer

It's only something I could wish for, an endless summer.

Even as mid-July approaches I find myself secretly weeping about the return of school, when I will be sending two of the three off to the big brick building. For now, we have been enjoying every day and night of these warm and wonderful days.


THe best thing about summer has to be the time. There's no rushing, there's no strict schedule. I can see how some people flounder in this kind of scenario, but it works well for us. Especially as we live our season through the outdoors.


Yesterday was beautiful. We went outside.


Today they are calling for rain. We won't.


The blackberries should be ripe anyday now, and when that day comes we'll be ready. Sorry birdies, you're out of luck this year. We've got a Scout on patrol daily.


And if it's a nice cool night, we might just break out the tent for a little backyard camping and enjoy our berries by campfire light.


No need to get up early.

Great Nature Podcast!

Readers, rest your eyes. The Wilderness Center, a nearby non-profit nature center and all around super cool place now has podcasts. Wonderful stuff. Check it out and subscribe today!!

Slacking on the blog

It occured to me that I really haven't written much on this blog of late. At least not as much as I had hoped. But the funny thing is, I haven't had time to do much writing on here because I've been living exactly what I've been preaching.
There's only limited wireless service in the back woods. And I don't want to get creek mud 0n my keyboard.
In fact, this is all reminding me once again of my column in Mom Writer's Literary Magazine this summer, where I give my best reasons for why being a "mommy blogger" is a bit of an oxymoron. Read my Small Town Soup here, and then shut your laptop and put on your flip flops.

A short story about a tall tree

We didn't spend much money on fancy flowers or trees at the cottage. It was just a little cement block house in the woods and even though the forest was endless and the lake enormous, the land we owned was tiny.
But it was ours, and we wanted to surround it with the nature that surrounded us. Local plants, you might say, which is why one day my dad and I set out with some buckets and a shovel in search of a few saplings.
"The woods are full of them," he said.
And so we went, trudging over the hills for what seemed like hours and hours before we headed home, my dad carrying the buckets and I dragging the shovel behind me. Our hands were dirty, but we both smelled of pine sap from the load we were transplanting.
After a quick glass of iced tea, it was time to get planting, which we did without whine or fuss. We put a few pines down by the lake, a few along the driveway, and just a couple behind the cottage. With the shovel patting down the dirt on the last one, we left them be, their future up to Mother Nature and the storms that came down off the hill.
Weeks or months passed and on another trip to the cottage I noticed that one of the trees was looking rather puny, its green branches small and kind of droopy, and the entire thing tilted down hill like it had been pushed over by a thundering gust of wind. I couldn’t bear to see it like that, so with the grace of my eight-year-old hands, I righted the little pine and tucked it in. Using my best Tinker Toy skills, I collected small sticks and twigs and built a log cabin around the little tree. Round and round I worked until it was well protected for the upcoming winter, and on each returning visit I checked the construction and made any necessary repairs.
Sure enough, I fell in love with that little pine tree.
My parents sold the property when I was just old enough to take my own children there. Although they were very young, I still could barely believe they were tromping over the same ground and around the same trees that I had so many years ago.
Before we handed over the keys, I posed my children in front of my pine tree for one last photograph.
“Why do we need to stand by this giant pine tree?” the oldest asked.
“Exactly,” I answered, and snapped the photo, in awe of what a little love can do.

Toads in our fairy house!

It appears our fairy house has attracted more than just fairies...

The little guy is fairly hard to see in the top photo, but he's there, perched just on the carpet of moss so lovingly supplied by us. We think he's there, waiting for us to set up the tiny stone dishes (iron-weathered sandstone makes fine china) for a little toad tea party.

What an excellent way to celebrate the Summer Solstice!

Transfixed by a turtle and spit bugs

We spent this past Tuesday morning at The Wilderness Center, a favorite hangout, doing a program for kids (and those who have them) about insects. Armed with sweep nets and bug boxes, we headed outside to collect bugs.
I learned about many things, including a little tidbit about spit bugs. You know, those bugs that create a little blob of spit like stuff on branches to hide in? Found out that they should actually be called "diarrhea bugs" because that's the end they make the bubbles with. Save THAT one for your next friendly conversation!
In any case, after collecting the bugs, we brought them back to feed to the resident box turtle, the only turtle in Ohio that can completely pull in its arms and leg. Incidentally, this is a rescued turtle who is missing a leg.
And sure, it was fun enough for the big kids. Flower girl was a bit fearful of touching the turtle, but she gave in. Scout was all over the thing. But it was the little one, who has yet to earn her name (I'm leaning towards Rocks because of her love of hematite, but more on that later) that showed unbridled enthusaism. I'm talking loud and violent enthusiasm. Screaming and clapping, arm waving, foot stomping. All for the love of this 3 legged turtle who is slurping up worms and other slow bugs that we showered him with.
For me, it was just another one of those moments, the kind that makes me stop in my tracks and think about what really matters. Shopping lists, laundry baskets, vacuum cleaners, neglected blogs. They don't matter. It was that moment, that very moment, of pure innocence and fascination with that turtle that really makes the world go round.
Not that I'd ever get a pet turtle, but I can tell I've really been blessed with a child with a love of nature. Truly blessed.

A REAL Review: CAMP The Board Game

This is one of our favorites. And I'm pleased as a peony (?) that Momicillin.com has accepted my review to run on their really fun site!

Go. Visit. Read. Sign up for your Daily Dose-- it's about the only newsletter I get that I actually read. But not after you check out my Bruce the Moose review!

Make your own wormery: One heck of a conversational centerpiece

I have perfected the wormery. Or at least I think I have. Not only is this design functional, but it's also attractive. Put some flowers in there and leave it on the dinner table for hubby/in-laws/neighbors/bosses/etc. Guaranteed it'll be the talk of the town!

Find all of the directions here and get digging! This is a fun one!

Native American sign language, so beatifully simple

This past week we attended a free lesson on Native Americans from a man who lives a half an hour from here. Talking with him before the session started I learned that he actually grew up just beyond the back fence of my own childhood home!
In any case, he talked for one hour about Native Americans to a group of children that I know personally can be a bit unruly.
But the kids SAT. They LISTENED. And at least my own kid LEARNED.
Of the many things he taught us, one tidbit was about Indian sign language. He showed us a very simple thought: Yesterday I went walking in the woods. I saw leaves falling. I was happy.
For some reason my daughter absolutely fell in love with these sentences and has been repeating them over and over for the past 3 days.
They are, I admit, astonishingly beautiful.
Take, for example, the last sentence. The sign for "I" is obvious. Point to yourself with your thumb. The sign for happiness, however, takes the cake if not the entire bakery. Happiness, or joy, or some other grin-wearing, warm-hearted, glowing emotion that we probably don't have a good word for in English, is done by making the sign for sunrise and having it rise out of your heart. A sunrise out of your heart.
I want that every day for myself and for all I love, for the rest of my life. If everyday I have at least one moment when I feel like a sunrise is coming out of my heart, I will be one happy camper.

But as beautiful as it is, I was getting a little tired of hearing about falling leaves and went online to find something else. What I found was a plethora of signs and everything I would want to know here as well as looking at their home page which made me want to drop everything and run out the woods with pocket knife, a rope, and a boy scout tune.

Of the things we found, the site offers a Native American blessing which, after sifting through all of the sign, is another keeper. The words are fairly plain. MAY THE GREAT MYSTERY MAKE SUNRISE IN YOUR HEART.

I turn on the news and there is religious turmoil causing so much pain and suffering. Closer to home I feel pressures from churches, to do this or that, to join something or other. But for me this sentence trumps it all.

Interestingly, the Indian sign for this blessing, according to the site, is actually translated into the following motions:
Medicine
Great
Work
Sunrise
Heart

Great Medicine, great mystery. It's really all a mystery, but it's one that is Great.
Work. It really does take work...I wish more people knew that good things come to those who work.
Sunrise. A new day, a new promise, a new smile.
Heart. What really counts.

Next time you're bored at the computer, do yourself a favor and close the entertainment news or fox or cnn, and learn this beautiful blessing in its beautiful sign. I can't promise, but it just might make a little sunrise come out of your heart.

Open Window on a Summer Night

Last night, underneath my summer sheets
I listened to the summer tweets.
The crickets chirped, the katys-did,
The spiders creeped from where they hid.
The peepers peeped, the raccoons scratched,
I’m sure from eggs new critters hatched.
I listened and wondered, at close of day,
Do they listen to me when I play?
Do my laughs and giggles and runnings about
Help sing them to sleep when the sun is out?

-klkmc

Toad condos for rent. cheap.

I kind of feel a column coming out of this, but let me just say that as much as I love wildlife, wildlife doesn't really like me. I've got a long history of bad run-ins with critters, from dead bunnies to chickens to otters etc.

So it puzzles me greatly that I should work extra hard to get critters in my yard. It seems this year I am outdoing myself with the backyard wildlife landscaping, attempting to attract all sorts of fauna that essentially I don't like.

It's taken me a long time to come to terms with this, but I'm finally ready to admit it.

I only like to LOOK at animals. Touching is not something I'm good at, and if I never have to hold another snake or frog, I'll be all the more happier.

But still, my most recent backyard addition is a series of small toad houses that the kids and I made. Very fun for them, cute outcome, and as if there aren't enough toads in the yard, here I am putting up free housing and water.

I suppose I can consider it paying back the toad Gods of the animal kingdom, because I know I have caused my fair share of toad deaths.

Not that I'm keeping a count, but I know that there's already one dead one in the door jamb in the garage. And once they get super crazy this summer, we'll loses at least a couple to the final leap down the basment steps. (These are known as Kamikaze toads.) And finally, knowing that the lawn practically moves at certain times in the summer because I see it up close when I'm mowing, a few [hundred thousand?] must go to that big dirt hole in the sky once those blades start spinning.

And apparently the circle of life for toads also includes a stop over at the McAllister condos. For free.

MAKE YOUR OWN! I posted my own here. Thanks for clicking!

Let the week begin- sunflower house update

We are now officially on summer break. No more getting up early to pack lunches, unless of course we're off on an adventure day and I'm not feeling in the mood for a swing through french fry feast. I'm hoping that my kids learn, the EASY way, that peanut butter tastes 5,000 times better in the woods. Because it does.
This weekend we planted our sunflower house that I am so bound and determine to have succeed. We started many, many seeds and after the irritating cardinal who knocked itself senseless on our kitchen window got through with them, we had about 100 seedlings. And after much digging, they are all happily planted in the ground.
I'm really hoping that our neighbors tremendous landscaping is more attractive to the deer and rabbits that frequent our neighborhood than my puny, yet oh so tender, plants. Sharon Lovejoy, author of Sunflower Houses and a very nice person I've come to learn via email, suggested to me (on this blog, actually!) to use talcum powder to keep the rabbits at bay. So this evening I packed up the kids and went off to purchase some only to find that our regular store doesn't carry anything called "talcum powder." We settled for baby powder whose main and only ingredient besides fragrance, is talc. Sounded good enough to me.
After a sprinkling of baby freshness, I checked the tiny fence and wished my seedlings goodnight.
Tomorrow, fertilizer. If they survive the critters of the night.

Sand candles!

I have always wanted to try these sand candles, and today, even though we had a million other things to do, I broke out the wax and gave it a try.

SO easy and so very cool! If I can do it with three kids running around, a normal person can surely pull these off.

We made them in our back sandbox, but it would be a perfect beach project if you've got nearby access to a stove to melt the wax.

Burning the candle, I could almost see the future... I foretell future mother's day gifts and birthday presents...

Check out my HOW-TO article here and have fun!

Simple geology projects for children

This is about the extent that I use my geology degree these days. Check out my latest suite1010 article here, and get ready for some rock hunting!

Do tadpoles like fish food?

A friend called today saying that their pool cover was full of tadpoles and asked if I wanted any.
Well, duh. Of course I do!
Last year we found a gobblety goo of eggs in the pond at Getaway Acres and successfully hatched them into tadpoles, but then I think I left them in the wrong place and they all baked in the sun a little too long. So we never saw any frogs.
But this time is different!
We picked up our tadpoles today and currently have them sitting on the kitchen counter, where any tadpole should surely thrive. I am planning on some web and book research tonight, but in the meantime I went ahead and sprinkled a tiny bit of betta fish food in the bowl. They went after it, but I saw one tiny little tadpole with a pellet in his mouth sinking slowly to the bottom... A tap on the side brought him to, but still I wonder if I'm going to wake up to a bowl of dead tadpoles. Thankfully I've got a son who really likes to dig holes and a garden that just might like a little natural fertilizer...

Mushroom Spore Art

New really neat craft here! I mean, really, really neat. And really, really easy.

Try it! I'd love to see what you come up with!

Twig Dolls at Suite101!

I have decided to write for suite101.com, an informational web site, but will share links here when a new article is published. Thanks for clicking!
My first published article is a How-to on creating twig dolls, a rather simple project that has been called "a little Blair Witch-like" by a friend. But hey, for a couple of twigs and leaves, I think it's pretty cute.

Writing Jobs at Suite101

Latest Articles by Karrie McAllister

Fingerprintless

Tonight after spending just a bit of time in the dirt, I washed my hands and felt that same familiar feeling of dryness. The soil around here is just so full of clay and sand, that it really does a number on lady softness--not even a bathtub full of Palmolive dish soap could help.
That familiar feeling was almost like hands-a-vu, and it took me back to one of my most proud moments, (A column might come out of this, wait and see) when I was being fingerprinted for a substitute teaching job about 7 years ago.
Our garden was in full swing and my hands were really taking it hard. Dry, cracked, the works.
While being fingerprinted using the fancy digital machine, the woman could not get a good print. She tried, over and over, and at one point exclaimed, "you've got hands like an old man!" and tossed a bottle of Corn Husker's Lotion at me.
I'm still proud of my "old man hands," because they're hands that actually work and feel the good earth (albeit poor soil.)
Eventually she got the fingerprint and while my substituting career was interrupted by becoming a mother again, I may someday return. And maybe then, when I have those ears for a few hours of one day, I can tell them the value of a good hard work, cracked hands, and of course, Corn Husker's Lotion.

Holy Moly: A Backyard Fieldguide

As part of our learning adventure this summer season, we're making a fieldguide to our backyard.

We've got just shy of one acre, but about half of it is wooded and full of the most exciting things. I have always wanted to do this, and this summer seems the right time; Flower Child can work a digital camera and will probably think it's dorky next year, and I'm afraid the mighty call of the soccer ball might take my son away once he starts school. This is the year.

And so far, so good. We've identified spring beauties, jack in the pulpit, trout lily, wintercress, morels, and it goes without saying that poison ivy has topped the list.

There is an abundance of snakes this year, and while I am usually running away instead of remembering to snap the camera, one of us is bound to get a shot.

The greatest find so far, though, has been a mole. A plump dead Eastern mole. What an attraction for everyone, to be able to get fairly close to this little creature that usually remains so hidden, to see his giant hands and tiny eyes.
And then to poke it with a stick because, well, that's what you do when you're a kid and you find something dead.

The mole miraculously lasted two days/nights before falling victim to a fellow creature, one we have yet to identify and capture on film.

The goal for this project, which I think is really cool, is to record our photos and ID's and then have a photo book printed up via Snapfish or whatever service. An actual hardbound fieldguide to our backyard! It'll look splendid on the shelf, complete with dirty fingerprints.

Fairy House-- How I did it

I have always wanted one of these, but poison ivy and baby circumstances always seemed to get in the way. Not to mention that I really didn't know what I was doing.

But today the weather was right, the inspiration flowing, and I had just enough frustration to let out though the swing of a hammer. Flower Girl was thrilled and together we set out to build our first ever very own fairy house.

As fairy houses go, there are a few rules to follow:

1. They have to be small. Because, well, fairies are small.

2. They have to be made of natural things. Fairies, I'm quite sure, aren't familiar with shag carpet and nylon straps.

3. They have to be made with magic and love. I'd bet that's what really brings the fairies to them.

We started ours on an existing stump that we'd been using along with a fairy door that the kids got for Christmas.

After finding the right supports and sawing this giant limb into little pieces by hand (because I'm such a woman), it took somewhere around 52 nails until I finally figured out how to attach them to the stump. (I won't bother explaining, because again, 52 nails...

After some patch-up work on the sides and thankfully not running across anything with too many legs in the woodpile while prospecting bark, we had gotten the little house together. I should note that I tried at first to use the staple gun to attach the bark on the sides, but the staples weren't long enough. Good ol' hammer and itty bitty nails.

We dug up some of the johnny jump ups that had jumped up in the wrong places, dug up some moss for carpet and the fairy house is open for business!

Best of all, my daughter holds up her muddy hands at the end and says, "Look mom, dirty hands. Means I'm a kid. Real kids have dirty hands." She does listen.

Fairies Welcome!!!

Backyard morels, 2009

I really should be making this public knowledge, but we've got morels in the backyard.

I didn't know it when we bought this lot, but had I seen them I would have paid them on the spot in cash for the land.

In the past, I have frozen the morels I didn't eat, but this year I was going to dry them and present them to my dad as a late birthday gift. I get my love of fungus from him. So every day I have been walking the one acre property in search of the little golden goodies, cup in one hand, baby in the other, hoping to strike the mother lode.

But day after day, I'm striking out, instead.

I don't know if this year isn't great for our morel crop, or if there is some other reason why our yield is so low, but I'm pretty bummed.

But behind every low yeild mushroom crop is a silver lining, right? While out looking for these little guys, my little kids have become quite fond of tracking the growth of the spring wildflowers in the woods. They're all about jack in the pulpits.

More on that later.

How to plant...and name...potatoes

I don't know how it started, but we name our potato plants every year. There's something about saying "hey, Spuds is growing!" that is strangely rewarding. Almost as rewarding as frying up Spuds in a cast iron skillet in a blob of lard over a campfire, but I'm getting ahead of myself...
So yeah, we eat our friends that we carefully plant in the flower bed every year.
This year we planted 10 potato plants, some red variety that I forgot to write down when I bought them. I carefully cut them into their sections, leaving at least 3 eyes to each piece for good measure, and we dug 10 little holes. Carefully putting the chunks in eye side up and covering them over with about 3-4 inches of dirt, we blissfully planted:
Sponge Bob
Patrick
Mr. Krabs
Pearl (Krabs' giant daughter-- the largest of the potatoes)
Mrs. Puff
Plankton
Karen (Plankton's computer wife, if you're not up to speed on the show)
Gary
Sandy
Squidward

I'm a little picky when it comes to eating seafood, but I'd bet my bottom Krabby Patty that these sea kritters will taste pretty darn good.


(Click here last year's column on potato planting.)

Earth Day song follow-up

If you haven't seen the post below, take a look at the beautiful song my daughter wrote for a local Earth Day fair contest.

She took home first place! (There was only one song entry, but still. She's proud as punch about her medal.)

As part of her piano assignment, she is going to write the song out. If anyone is interested in the sheet music, please contact me here.

The day after Earth Day-- bird nest activity

Holidays come and go, and Earth Day is definitely included in that. I guarantee that for every person who recycled something yesterday, that at least half of them tossed that same styrofoam cup in the trash today.

But as they say, "Earth Day is Everyday." It's a lot easier to say than to do.

So today with the sun shining, we did our part by partipating in a community clean-up and setting out some help for our bird friends. It's both sides of the Earth Day spectrum as far as I'm concerned-- there's something to be said for keeping the world clean by not being a part of it (litter clean up) and there's something to be said for learning to enjoy nature and the world by being a part of it (the birding activity.)

Here's my Boy doing his part. All that good for the Earth and a little sunshine, too.

BIRD NEST FUN FUN FUN

You only have to clean out nesting boxes once to know all of the stuff that birds collect to use for their nests. Some birds prefer sticks and twigs, others grass, others mud. And for what it's worth, some might like yarn.

I have seen this activity in numerous nature books, and last year gave it a try using grasses and some yarn. Although some of the materials we put out were gone, we never saw where they ended up. (Once the leaves are off the trees in the Fall you can go on a nest hunt and look for the materials.) Last year we also tried using a mesh onion bag and pulled out some of the ends through the holes.

This year we're trying something new-- just a box of shredded up yarn. We've got three nesting boxes on the property. Two are currently vacant and one has a family of chickadees living in it (I think.) Regardless of whether the activity works or not, it's a fun, cheap, and easy thing to do with kids not to mention a great way to get rid of your scraps of yarn.

Earth Day Song 2009

A local Earth Day fair is hosting a competition for the big environmental day. Students of all ages can enter posters, skits, songs, videos, etc. honoring the green planet for a chance to win something, although I don't know what it is, nor do I care.
As part of her piano assignment, my daughter wrote this song to enter. Being in first grade, I admit I had to help a bit, but I can assure anyone that these are her words, her thoughts, her ideas. I just gave them some meter--the song doesn't even rhyme.
And I know she's my kid and all, but I am just so proud of her. I think she gets it, the whole idea of loving nature and nature will love you back-- you just have to see it.
The video follows, and because she's got a few holes in her mouth and a desperate need of braces, I'll post the lyrics as well.



The Love of the Earth
by EMc

The Earth is our mother
We take care of her
And she gives us gifts in return.

We have to remember
To notice her gifts
When we go outside in her world.

We see all the animals
Feel cool creek water
Smell wildflowers and spicebush too,
We hear little chickadees
Taste blackberries
And know all the love of the Earth.

So reduce your garbage
Reuse what you can
And recycle everything else.

And you’ll be rewarded
When you go outside
And know all the love of the Earth.

You can see all the animals
Feel cool creek water
Smell wildflowers and spicebush too,
Hear little chickadees
Taste blackberries
And know all the love of the Earth.

Sunflower House 2009

Here I go again.

Last year I think I planted 100 sunflower seeds. I planted another 50 or so in little tiny peat pots and nursed them to seedlings. And not once, or twice, but three times I attempted to plant a sunflower house, but my work and toil was all for naught. The bunnies got the best of me, and a fabulous salad to boot.

Boy Boy was so furious that in his best 4-year-old thought process he suggested we put up fences with lasers and cannons. I don't think I'll go quite that far (although I have to admit that lasers sound pretty attractive), but it's time to get thinking about this year's grand attempt at a sunflower house.

Don't know what I'm talking about? The idea, I believe, was first written about Sharon Lovejoy. She's got an amazing book, one of my favorites, called "Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots" and among other whimsical garden ideas is a sunflower house.

By planting giant and not-so-giant sunflowers in a square or circle, at full-growth they create their own little room or house. To me, it sounds incredibly magical, a place where fairies would surely live and prosper.

I'll try to post updates on here, including photos of me loading up the cannons should the bunnies return.

I should add that last year before the bunnies, we had to deal with the toads. Here's a shot of how we lost a few seedlings:

Mom, pass the nachos

This is an old post that I felt I had to include on this new blog, mostly because my mom didn't know that Pluto is no longer part of the family and I couldn't remember the 'real' reason why.

My very educated mother just served us nine pizzas???
It no longer works. Instead she's serving nachos. Poor, poor Pluto, we learned, isn't a planet anymore. It's a dwarf planet. And it's got a messy orbit.
My kids are always asking me obscure questions, so that we have to look them up. i've decided to start posting the answers should anyone else have this problem. Today, Flower Child asked why Pluto is no longer considered a planet.
Apparently it was decided in 2006 what the real definition of a planet is. In order to be a real planet, it has to, among other things, dominate it's orbit, which Pluto doesn't. And Pluto's not doing it's part to clean it's orbit either, which is very similar to the way Flower Child doesn't clean her room. Pluto's orbit is filled with asteroids and other such outer-space garbage, Flower Child's room is filled with dirty clothes, notepads, and Barbie shoes. Not only that, but Pluto's moon is nearly half it's size, so much that Pluto isn't the real 'boss' of the orbit, similar to the way that Boy Boy is over half the size of Flower Child and therefore doesn't let her rule the roost.
Who knew kids and planets could be so much alike?In any case, we've got to change the old saying. I chose "nachos" but if someone else has a better idea, by all means chime in!

If you haven't read this book and you're reading this blog...what gives?

I have dreamt for a long time of writing a book that makes nature fun. A collection of activities that parents and children can do together, a way to explore the natural world while having a good time and maybe learning a thing or two while you're at it.

So I read a lot of "nature activity" books, and I gotta say, I get a little tired of the foo-foo watch-a-leaf fall, touch-a-tree kind of stuff.

I want the good stuff.

I want the get dirty stuff. The stuff that is flashy and makes me look really cool to my kids, and more importantly, to their friends.

But someone has already beaten me to it, and he did it very well.

This book is a staple of my library, something I leave on my desk rather than piled up in the bookshelf. I read it every year, each time filing another activity into my repertoire, ready to pull out at a moment's notice.

If you haven't read this, go get it today.

If you have read this, then you totally understand where I'm coming from.

Here's the Amazon link for "Talking to Fireflies, Shrinking the Moon" by Ed Duensing.

Spring beauties and dead deer

The darn first entry of every blog. It's almost as bad as the first page of any book.

We took a long hike (despite the photo of the 4-wheeler!) this weekend at Getaway Acres and were super happy to find the first wildflowers popping up. I'm sure they've been popping up for awhile now, but in our little world that's bombarded by school and diapers, finding the first wildflowers of the year are a sign of spring.

Spring Beauties are all over the hills of eastern Ohio. The ODNR has a great site with Ohio wildflowers here. The Spring Beauty is fairly easy to ID. I remember it as having 5 leaves and little whiteish stripes. Small and dainty, like the first wildflowers of the spring should be.

Those little flowers were the best thing we saw on our hike.

The worst? What was left of a dead fawn floating in the lake. Gu-row-sss. But all part of the world we live in. Flower Girl held her nose and ran away. She doesn't do well with death. Boy Boy, who is 150% testosterone as you'll learn, was screaming with excitement as we pulled it out of the lake. He then proceeded to poke it with a stick, learning that the fish hadn't really eaten it.

And The Babe, who has yet to earn an official nickname, took a nap in the backpack.