7 Quick Takes Friday: Backyard Nature Photography

Over the last 1 1/2 years, my photography has "gone by the wayside". I've missed snapping photos, being creative. So, I thought I would devote some time every week (or so) to reigniting my hobby, and share my captures with you! (Let me know what you think!) This week I focused on backyard nature!

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A New Pumpkin Flower

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Opening Pumpkin Flower

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Stick Bug

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Fungi on a Dead Tree

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Something in the Woods 

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Mushroom 

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Goldenrod

 



(Photos taken with a Canon Rebel XTI using a 70-200mm lens on manual.)

 

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A Slice of Wonderful

The Atlantic is never far away when you live on a Maine island, but sometimes you can find a simply perfect secluded spot that is just WONDEFUL for exploring...or relaxing to the sound of gently crashing waves upon the shore. My sister is fortunate to have this "slice of Heaven" walking distance from her house. We, with Nannie Lobster, gathered up beach supplies and 5 exuberant kids and spent a glorious afternoon cove-side.

There was diving into the cool, briny water, tossing of brown and bumpy seaweed, gathering of sand, rocks and a lone white jellyfish.

Nugget didn't know what to think of her first feel of sand between her toes while sitting with her sister Sole. Noodle danced amongst the waves with her purple floaties.

Talk about a fun place to explore! My kids couldn't wait to do some "boulder jumping" and see what they could find on this line of granite covered with seaweed.

When the wind picked up, Noodle made a "rock bed" with her towels and warmed herself in the sun. It wasn't long before she was up again, dancing with Sole. Sam kicked around a beach ball.

There were lots of giggles and smiles at the end of the afternoon. Until our next visit...

 



Weekly Wrap-up: One Step at a Time

Cabin Fever. :sigh:

With winter lingering on, I couldn't wait to get outside anymore. I downloaded this awesome app for my Smartphone called Runkeeper. It uses GPS to map where and distance, and includes pace and an estimation of how many calories burned. I logged in 6.08 miles of walking the last 1 1/2 weeks. Considering I had to deal with an achy leg due to neurological testing, icy roads, and messy weather, I'm happy with that. I even dragged the kids and dogs along! Seeing those miles add up is a great incentive!

Have you read The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin? Awesome!

School Snippets

• Jake is building a steam-powered 'power plant' that will run a Lego train, gave a presentation in Social Studies, and is studying Mars for another oral and computer presentation
• Cati and Sam studied Quinten Massys and Raphael in Art Fraud Detectives: Spot the Differences, Solve the Crime!
• Both went swimming (in a heated pool)
• Cati played clarinet in a band concert
• Cati read The Fellowship of the Ring, and Sam read The Magic Finger and started Flat Stanley (again)
• Cati wrote terse verses for poetry and worked on her collection of inspirational sayings 
• Sam spend HOURS building and redesigning a Lego boat, then added a Technics motor and made it RC, and tested it in the bathtub for speed and maneuverability 
• Sam worked on time (minutes), fact families, place value, and word problems  

Cati and I finished our 2nd knitted scarves. What do you think?

She started another scarf, peach and cream striped this time, and I'm going to make some dishclothes. I'm using this You Tube video tutorial for the dishclothes. Again, for beginners.

I've joined a decluttering challenge called "40 Bags in 40 Days" here. She has some useful printables if you're up for some simplifying. I'm not sure I'll get to 40 bags as I've been doing this for a year, but there's always stuff that can go, right? TBC (Total Bag Count): 3

Instead of buying pre-packaged bars for my oldest son's school snacks, I made Jordan Marsh Muffins this week. You can find the recipe here at Cooks.com. I made blueberry, raspberry and strawberry muffins from berries we or my Mom picked last season and froze, and omitted the sprinkle of sugar on top. Perfect for snacking!

Photo Credit

As always, special thanks to these weekly wrap-ups:

 

A Peek at Our Week: A Not-So-Off Week

In My Life This Week

Every Columbus Day weekend a friend of mine, R__, has a Women's Weekend, and for the first time I joined in. We ate meals at restaurants, window shopped for hours, people watched and chatted, played board games, and had lots of giggles. Over the years, I think I have forgotten how fun it can be to get out with girlfriends! How grateful I am that R__ treated me to every thing we did AND her husband graciously watched my kids so I could get out!

Things I Worked On

❦ Roasted and Pureed One Gallon of Pumpkin ❦ Raked Leaves ❦ Began Winterizing Coop/Run ❦ Cleaned and Vacuumed Van ❦

What We're Cooking

Pumpkin! We harvested 8 pumpkins from our garden this year and a friend gave us a few more. After each of the kids chose one to carve or paint, I baked and pureed the rest, roasting the seeds.

High School Happenings
So, I asked Jake what he did this week and this is what he replied, "Same stuff." There you go! This week's summary from a teenager! LOL

Homeschool Happenings

We had an off week. No school on Monday. For ease, I follow Jake's charter school schedule. When he's not in school, we're not in homeschool. We took yesterday off (for the most part) to kayak. The mild fall weather continues and we're taking advantage of it! (Last year the kayaks were stored the 3rd week of September because it was too cold to go out...)  But some school DID happen!

I was beginning to wonder if Cati and Sam were going to move ahead again in Spelling Power. After WEEKS of playing the Spelling Game, struggling through the same 10-15 words, I'm happy to report that we are once again moving forward. Phew!

Accomplishments
The Serpent's Shadow (C) & The Knight Before Dawn (S)
Easy Grammar - Preposition Test, Verb/Verb Phrases (C)
Daily Grams - Days 21-22 (C) & Days 26-31 (S)
Spelling Power - List 20 (C) & List 9 (S)
Poetry Unit - Diamante (C)
Greek Word Roots - pyro, photos, para, phone, graph
Saxon - Review 38/39, Test 8 (C) &  Math-U-See - 11C-F (S)
Life Science - Earth Changes, Bacteria and Viruses (C) & Plants, Reptiles and Amphibians (S)
Phys. Ed. - Bike Riding, Walking, Kayaking

People and Places

❦ Mom's Weekend Out (Mom) ❦ Library (C/S) ❦ Boy Scouts (J) ❦ Concert Band (C) ❦ Boy Scouts Camping (J) ❦ Kayaking ❦ 

Something to Share

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A Peak at Our Week: A Job Well Done

In My Life This Week

::sniffle:: ::sneeze:: Cold? Seasonal allergies? Not so sure, but I AM sure that I'm going through an awful lot of tissues. It's not slowing down this Mama though!

This week I focused on WORK ETHICS with the kids. I'll admit that I'm not the most consistent with discipline, but there are some things that need to be learned and learned well. Oftentimes I find myself redoing chores that the kids are responsible for because they're poorly done. Do you find sometimes that it's just easier to do it yourself? It doesn't instill GOOD WORK ETHICS in kids though. We had some LONG, LONG days of redoing chores to completion - *I'm* exhausted! - but I think they get it. I hope!

Things I Worked On

✶ Cleaned Baby Pine Trees Out of the Rain Gutter ✶ Replaced Broken Light Bulbs ✶ Dug up Potatoes ✶ Tried to Fix the Motion Sensor Lights ✶ Words with Friends ✶

We're Cooking

MORE apple crisp? I tweaked totally changed up the Barefoot Contessa recipe found here because it seemed like way too much work for apple crisp. All those ingredients! Lemon AND orange zest? And way too much sugar! Our recipe only has 2/3 c and we didn't miss the other 1 1/3 c!

Apple Crisp

Slice, core and peel apples to fill a non-stick sprayed 13x9 baking dish

Combine (with hands):

1 c flour

1/3 c white sugar

1/3 c packed brown sugar

1 1/2 c quick oats

1 softened stick of butter

dash or two of cinnamon

another dash of nutmeg

Sprinkle on top of the apples and gently pat down. Cook at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes or until apples are soft and bubbly. Serve warm or cold.

Oops! I forgot to take a photo.

High School Happenings
What went on at the STEM school? Measured acceleration of an object due to gravity using formulas. Learned to chart information in different ways. Spoke and wrote Chinese. (I'm thinking he should JUST write Chinese characters because it's MUCH neater than his English penmanship.) Pendulums. Designed an on-line portfolio blog logo. Worked on a photojournalism project. Played Tic Tac Ten. Worked on interviewing someone important in the community (which he recorded on his cell phone).

Homechool Happenings
Cati learned about Punnett Squares in Life Science this week, and dominant and recessive alleles, and phenotypes and genotypes.  Do you remember those squares with upper- and lowercase letter combinations to explain why someone has brown or blue eyes? (If the rolling of her eyes are any indication, Genetics and Heredity aren't her favorite parts of Life Science.) Using blue and white dice, she completed a multi-step Skill Lab over the course of the week to learn about allele combinations, creating her own Punnett Squares.

Sam didn't complete this lab with her. His focus was on Biomes, particularly the tundra and desert. Some concepts he just isn't ready for.

But he did create a castle on Minecraft. I finished reading aloud the Knights and Castles research guide that goes with The Knight at Dawn Magic Tree House book. (It's amazing how much reading gets accomplished sitting in the van during Cati's band practices.) He finds the Middle Ages interesting, and that interest makes for some meaningful learning. 

Next week he's working on a VIDEO PROJECT over Knights and Castles that I hope to share with you. Cross your fingers that I can figure out how to record it with Cati's camera!

I'm not sure if I will continue the NROC U.S. History with the kids. There's nothing specifically wrong with it, but I don't feel Cati and Sam are gaining enough knowledge from the lessons. Perhaps we'll switch to "America: The Story of Us" and "How the States Got Their Shapes" for a while. We need some "life" in our history!

Highlights

✶ The Throne of Fire (Riordan) (C) & The Knight at Dawn (Pope Osborne) (S)

✶ Daily Grammar - Prepositions (C)

✶ Easy Grammar - Days 13-16 (C) & Days 13-18 (S)

✶ Poetry Unit Study - Haiku & Tanka (C)

✶ Spelling Power - List 19 (C) & List 9 (S)

✶ Saxon - Lessons 27-29 (C) & Math-U-See - Test 9, Lesson 10A-D  (S)

✶ Life Science - Chapter 3: Genetics/Heredity (C) & Chapter 7: Tundra and Deserts (S)

✶ NROC U.S. History: Lesson 16-17

✶ Extras: Biking, Hiking, Kayaking, Cooking Meals, Animal Care

People and Places

✶ Drive-in Movies (C/S) ✶ Boy Scout Camping & Kayaking (J) ✶ Girl Scout Bake Sale (C/Mom) ✶ Cub Scout Popcorn Sale (S/Mom) ✶ Jazz & Concert Band (C) ✶ Cub/Boy Scouts (J/S) ✶ Open House (J/Mom) ✶ T__ Lake ✶

Our Favorite Thing

Wonderful warm weather! So, we loaded up the kayaks, packed up a lunch and headed to the lake for some paddling. It won't be long before paddles are replaced with shovels!

We saw a pair of Great Blue Herons up-close. The herons kept flying over our heads as we paddled through the shallow inlets. I didn't have my dSLR with me. As the family member voted most likely to flip a kayak, the camera is safer on-shore. :wink: But this photo I snagged on-line.

Please note copywrite. Photo by Coleta Air & Space Museum

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