I haven't posted since school started. I admit I've been a little overwhelmed. This is the first year the girls have done history and science separately, so that is double work for me. But each of them is happier and they are working on topics that interest them. Liana's rock study kind of fizzled out. We read several books from the library, but I never could find a good beginner's book for rock identification. We haven't given up, just put it on hold, because Liana really wants to study rocks. But we went back to where we left off in Land Animals of the Sixth Day to the chapter on arachnids. I thought we'd better work on this before all the creatures outdoors are gone for the winter.
We read about spiders from the book and then took a walk in the yard. It was alive with activity! We'd learned about orb webs, funnel webs, tangle webs, and sheet webs and found many different types of webs right outside the door. It was very exciting! We even found the spider who made this beautiful orb web in the top picture. You will probably have to click on it to enlarge it and see the web.
We've had a lot of rain in our area lately and found another visitor to our yard, this lovely toad. I've never seen one in the garden before. He was very large! In our exploration, we also found a long snake slithering across the front porch before hiding in our vinca vine. I'm glad to know he's there. I wouldn't want to come across him unawares, and I'm sure he wouldn't want to be surprised by me either.
