Right after Justin's birth, we did a swap with a friend whom you may know--Lisa contributes to the Keeping Company link-ups and is a fellow Ambleside Online-user. Her family lives on acreage in Virginia, keeps chickens, roams the woods...but doesn't make it to the beach all that often. So they were a great candidate for receiving some of our recent coastal goodies!
She wrote about the darling "ocean museum" her children put together, and shared some of the lovely nature entries it inspired. And I'm so glad our box timed so perfectly with their reading of Pagoo.
But I can tell you that we absolutely got the sweeter end of the deal because she sent us some amazing specimens. My kids were awed that people find items like these right near their homes! And that is why swaps can be so much fun. Most of the things she sent us are things we never see here in Californian suburbia.
 |
| my kids squealed over the snakeskin! also: paper wasp nest, feathers from their hens, alum crystal, and much more... |
 |
| absolutely gorgeous! |
**And for my more sensitive readers: avert your eyes!
Lisa asked me in advance if I'd be fine with her sending these last two items, and I practically shouted "yes" because I knew how excited my kids would be!
This dear skull and jawbone they found in their woods. It was almost completely in tact! I just did some slight repairs with a bit of tacky glue on a couple of the teeth that had popped out in route. It's now sitting on our bookshelf.
And that fuzzy guy at the top left is their pet tarantula's molt!
 |
| I'd enlarge this but I'm afraid of scaring the arachnophobes! Click on it to get a better view. ;) |
(By the way, if you'd like to take part in a nature swap, Nature Pal Exchange coordinates regular swaps among homeschooling families. You can also check them out on Instagram to see the fun items swapped in the past.)
WOW!!! Those ARE amazing finds!!! :) You GLUED a deer skeleton together? :D *gives Celeste a knuckle bump* ;) The rat snake skin freaks me out WAY more than the spider and skeleton. This is such a fun thing you do with Lisa!!! :D
ReplyDeleteHa! I give the credit to Lisa, who found and cleaned it for us! :) She's amazing. But I will say that my kids were SO surprised to see me handling the tarantula molt! :)
DeleteSo glad that everything was a hit, Celeste! And I am relieved that all of it (save the deer teeth) was intact when it arrived...especially the butterflies. I was concerned about those beauties getting there in one piece. :)
ReplyDeleteThey arrived in wonderful condition. My son was just drawing some of them this weekend. They are so beautiful. Thank you again!
DeleteWhat a FANTASTIC package to receive! Signing us up right now! (Except for the tarantula molt....super cool, but it can stay far away...shudder)
ReplyDeleteHehe -- the molt is definitely...exciting, that's for sure! ;)
DeleteThat spider situation is….upsetting. But the rest looks cool! :)
ReplyDeleteHa! Yes, that thing is not for the faint of heart! ;)
DeleteI LOVE this!!! :) I would love to participate, too! Hmmm....trying to think of what I could send from WI this time of year... snow? ice? dead branches? ;o)
ReplyDeleteBut seriously. I'm checking into this for sure!
Also...at the risk of sounding braggy, ;) I held a tarantula once at a zoo! It was a HUGE step out of my comfort zone, though. I'm VERY afraid of spiders in general, but for some reason, seeing someone else hold one made me brave enough to hold it myself. :)
DeleteThe funny thing about *her* sending *me* a tarantula molt is that they're actually very common in the wild here -- not in our yard or anything, but in the hills of the county parks of the area. In fact, they have a tarantula festival not too far from here every fall. However, we have very little *personal* experience with them, so this was really neat.
DeleteI definitely think the swap is best for the spring/summer/fall months. Winter is tricky where you are!! :)
That's crazy! I always tell my girls, "Don't worry! There aren't any tarantulas around here." But what if I couldn't tell them that!? LOL
DeleteVery cool! What wonderful treasures. We have really tiny tarantulas here, but we've never seen a molt. Quite a few scorpion molts though... which we generally find in the backs of our kitchen drawers (let's not think too much about that, shall we?)
ReplyDeleteI've never found a deer skull before, that's quite a find. We had a skunk that we buried and then dug up a year or so later (homeschoolers are so weird, aren't they) and we have the skull of that on our nature shelf. A few years ago I did find a deer that I think was killed by a mountain lion and watched that decompose (again, so weird - good think I wasn't on Instagram then, dontcha think? *grin*) until one day it was just gone.
I'm looking forward to posting about our nature display - I wish I could get a good picture of it, but it sits under a south facing window so it seems rather hopeless. I think I'm just going to have to go with so-so pics!
Scorpion molt?! In your house? :/ LOL
DeleteApparently Lisa lives near a highway, and deer occasionally get him and wander into her woods to decompose. So they come upon deer carcasses now and again and have a few skulls of their own. I was thrilled she was willing to share -- yay for weird homeschoolers! :)
And I'm chuckling over your Instagram comment ... but hey, I would have like to see that! ;)
I can't tell you how often I'm delayed in putting up a post because I haven't yet got the accompanying photos. We get plenty of sunny days here, of course, but it seems like whenever I NEED to get some photos taken, it's cloudy all day. And my camera phone does terribly in low light. I do hope you'll share your collection, though! I can't wait to see it.
Wow! Those are some pretty neat things your kiddos were able to explore.
ReplyDeleteThey really were -- the kids were so surprised! :)
DeleteI haven't looked into Nature Pal Exchange, but our nature center does exchanges. You bring in items, earn points and can trade for really neat things that have different point values. We've gotten porcupine quills in one exchange. We found a butterfly outside Kroger one day, dead, but in perfect condition. We brought it home and it is now on our nature shelf. Thanks for sharing your items. The snake skin is terrific!
ReplyDeleteWow, I wish our nature center did that! How neat! We have never seen porcupine quills before. And yes, the snake skin was really fun. :)
Delete