Girls and Goats

These goats (below) were watching the dogshow next door. I thought it was cute.

Park experience today

Today we wanted to stop by the park to take some photos of the girls. After only a couple photos taken, Olivia heard rustling in the bushes...and found a bunny. Along came Tyler and Brian to scoop it up and show it to the girls. Here's a slideshow of the encounter...

Here are the photos of the girls we managed to take...

After the park we had planned to stop by the library to return a few things...guess what books they wanted to borrow this time?? Yup, rabbits! (among other topics...)

Enjoying the fair this week

Games, rides, harness racing, barrel racing, pony rides, agriculture, and bad food....oh yeah!

Summer Concerts in the Park

We've been to a few concerts in the park this summer.

The girls were able to go up on stage and help sing and act out a few numbers at one of them.

Life in the Undergrowth

Two recent documentaries we have watched recently are Life in the Undergrowth with David Attenborough, (just disc one so far) and Microcosmos. Microcosmos is now one of Olivia's favorite movies, and she says we definitely need to buy both of them. She is so fascinated by bugs, and I must say, these documentaries do make them seem less intimidating and much more interesting and beautiful.

They still like to catch grasshoppers and keep them for the day, letting them go in the evening. They have talked about the differences in the types they find, and they have been able to watch them grow from nymphs at the beginning of summer, to the adults with wings they are catching now.

Fireflies in the Skies

It's firefly catching time! Today we got a book from the library about fireflies and read it as we waited for the sun to go down. Then we headed outside with our bug nets and bug barns. The girls only caught a couple each before the the mosquitoes started bothering us. We had fun looking at the blinking bunch before setting them free and hanging up our nets until next time.

Here are some sites on fireflies we want to check out tomorrow.

http://www.firefly.org/
http://iris.biosci.ohio-state.edu/projects/FFiles/
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/bugs/firefly.html
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/insects/beetles/Fireflyprintout.shtml
http://www.backyardnature.net/lightbug.htm
http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20060614/Feature1.asp

The Boston Museum of Science is asking for volunteers to sign up for Firefly Watch. You can learn more about this citizen scientist opportunity here. They also have a lot of information about fireflies and help in identifying them.

Garden Fresh

We have been busy making goodies from the garden fresh produce given to us by family and friends, or from what we find at the farmers' markets. Today we made salsa and blueberry jam.

We used Vidalia onions, a peach, and some chili peppers in the salsa. Something is missing...I think I'm going to try adding some more of the peppers tomorrow. But it's not bad.

The girls loved making the jam, and the taste test was great, too!

The extra will go in the freezer...but they may not stay there long!

Musical Auditions

Georgia tried out for the musical, but unfortunately she wasn't cast this time around. She had a lot of fun, though, and definitely wants to try out for more. I am so very proud of her. She is such a confident and resilient girl, so outgoing and willing to try new things. In the picture above, Georgia is singing in front of a bunch of people. (there were 79 kids that tried out) We are all looking forward to going to see the show on Saturday.