Tree Hugging Tots/Moon

This last weeks theme at Tree Hugging Tots was the study of the Moon. We did not get to see the full moon, but Selena was able to make some interesting observations on her own.

A couple of nights she looked out the window and there was the moon. We went through a night that she could not see the moon. She came up with the conclusion that when she can see the moon it is going to be a cold night, and when she can’t see the moon it is going to be warmer or stormy.

We talked about how when we can see the moon the warmer air goes up and away from the earth making it colder, but when we don’t see the moon it means we have clouds which holds the warmer air next to the earth making it seem warmer. She tried to tell me what type of pajamas she wanted to wear according to rather she could see the moon or not. I thought that was a pretty good observation that she had made on her own.

Then one night we were sitting here and it was stormy out. All of a sudden our power went out, Selena ran to the window after I got my oil lamps lit, and discovered she couldn’t see the moon, so she exclaimed, “No moon means no lights!” We then discussed that no moon means that there are clouds, and clouds bring storms, so we lost our lights due to the storm and how the storm probably knocked out some power lines. She was puzzled over what power lines were for sure, so the next day we took a look at the power lines and how they lead to all the houses on our block. I explained to her that those lines carry the electricity needed to turn on our lights. I am not sure she fully understood this concept, but I tried.

One funny thing that she did though that just cracked me up. When the lights came back on that night, even though she could see the lights on in the house, she ran through the house flipping the light switches, and informing me that the lights were not broken anymore.

To see what others are learning about the moon visit Tree Hugging Tots at Mommies Wise Little Bookworms, while your their join in on our fun weekly studies.

Our Backyard

This week’s topic at Tree Hugging Tots is “Our Backyard”. With the rainy season upon us we don’t get out as much. I have shared with you about the beautiful trees, rain forest, and a little history of the lumber industry that was the main resource that brought people to this area.

However there is another industry that brought settlers here from all over, so I thought I would share this with you this week. Fishing, crabbing, clamming, whaling (which is no longer legal) are among the great history of our backyard.

Lewis and Clark met the Pacific Ocean for the first time about 100 miles South of us. Robert Gray, is the explorer who first discovered the beautiful beaches here in Grays Harbor in the 1800’s. Captain James Cook actually explored the area here even before Lewis and Clark. There were many others.

The Pacific Ocean is very cold but home to many body surfers for it’s rolling surf, and the advantages of an off shore wind current, which provides for a spectacular surf. We have events at the beaches throughout the year such as the annual kite flying, sand castle building, crab races, clamming, and you can always charter a fishing boat or whale watching cruise.

Grays Harbor is home to the tallest lighthouse in Washington State.

It is common at Westport, WA to find many fishing boats. (though this picture was taken in Olympia in the Puget Sound, this is good example of the fishing boats)

Grays Harbor is also the home port for the Lady Washington. The Lady Washington has quite a history behind her. You can read her history here.

Now for some pictures of our favorite beach outings!

To see what other’s are doing in their backyards visit Mommies Wise Little Bookworms. We would love to see you join in and tell us about your backyard!

Where Are The Leaves?

I entitled this Where are the Leaves for a very good reason! While many have commented on how beautiful it is here where we live, and truly it is, there is one down side that I must admit drives me a bit crazy. Autumn has always held a special place in my heart and was always my favorite time of year, but here it is just so different.

Yes, this is a picture a took last week! Our leaves are still in the tree! While this has been an unusually dry year over here, we still get enough moisture that the trees hold on to their leaves for a long time. It takes a big storm to blow in to shake the leaves out of the trees. Sure we get a few leaves that drop here and there but they are so crunchy and dry that there is no fun to be found in them other then to pick them up talk about them and well, that is about it. I have this year been able to squeeze a few projects with leaves in with Selena, but believe me they haven’t lasted as the leaves would fall apart upon doing much with them.

I was looking forward to this weeks post, and had hoped that the weather would stay as nice as it has been so we could venture out to the river to see if we might find some different leaves, but my hopes soon became disappointment since we had a storm blow in this morning. Yes, there are a lot of new leaves on the ground (not in our yard, as our little tree is too protected) but it is also cold, windy, wet, and rainy……so I guess you know we were not able to do what I had hoped to do.

I would love to share with Selena the Autumns I remember growing up where the leaves would fall and we would rake them up to jump in them, toss them in the air to have them fall down on our heads, do all sorts of art work with them, but mostly just enjoy Autumn! Oh, well she will have to learn to enjoy her world around her just the way it is, as I too am having to learn to do. I will share my stories with her, and maybe plan a trip to my home town next year to share what a true Autumn really looks like. For now though we are staring out the window at the full leaved trees, and the soggy wet leaves that did blow out of the trees in our storm today!

Please visit Mommies Wise Little Bookworms and see how others are enjoying their Autumn, and should you feel led please join in on the fun!

Trees Galore

This weeks topic at Growing and Learning by Leaps and Bounds is about trees. We live in a place that was built upon logging as it’s number 1 resource. Every direction we look are acres upon acres of trees. With the Chehalis River flowing to the Pacific Ocean this created a beautiful and very useful area not only for logging but importing and exporting lumber and tree products. Now though the mills are closing down and we no longer get to see the amazingly huge boats loading and unloading their cargo. We are home to some of the finest Cedar, Blue Spruce, and many more evergreen trees (though Cedar trees are not an evergreen tree). To have a Christmas tree from a box is almost unheard of here as we have Christmas tree farms everywhere you go.

Selena gets to experience this beauty on a daily basis, sometimes I think she is so use to seeing logging trucks, trains loaded with lumber, and just the trees themselves that it has just become the norm for her. I look forward to sharing the deep history of where we live as she gets older and able to understand more. Even my family played a big part in the history of logging over here, though their home is no longer standing, the knowledge that they made their living from the acres and acres of trees around here is a story in itself.

Selena does enjoy the wildlife though that these beautiful trees bring in, Deer, Raccoons, Bats, Birds of all types, and on occasion a Black Bear, and even Cougar.  The following pictures were taken just in our backyard. These are the trees she gets to enjoy on a daily basis. Though our town is full of trees all around, these trees are Selena’s trees!

This is the Tree that topped off the day Selena was born and came into out house! It is still so tall it is hard to get the whole thing in picture.

 

Come on over to Growing and Learning by Leaps and Bounds to see what others are sharing about the trees in their area!

Tree Hugging Tots: Our Autumn

Instead of Learning Centers we are now doing Tree Hugging Tots hosted by Growing and Learning by Leaps and bounds.

One thing I discovered here where we live now, so close to the Pacific Ocean, is that our seasons are not at all like the seasons that I am use to. This is the real actual Autumn we have had since we moved here 5 years ago. We had a odd long dry Spring and Summer, that we actually did have leaves fall from the trees! Selena and I took advantage of the nice weather and collected a lot of leaves, a few acorns, and horse chestnuts.  But it seems our Autumn days are quickly fading as the rainy season is now getting started. We will spend our days now watching it rain, rain, and rain….Oh we will get out if and when we have sun breaks should the temperature be warm enough to do so.

I miss the dry climate of my home, where I grew up and raised my children. We always had the most beautiful Autumns and I must admit that was always my favorite time of year. I loved going to the Orchards to pick fruit, and of course they always had pumpkins, squash, and other fresh vegetables. We always had our own garden from which I would make pickles, blanch and freeze vegetables then there was always the canning of the fruit. Since I always made my own home made bread, one was never sure what they might find in their bread since I would use some of the vegetables and or fruits for the liquid in my bread (YUMMY).

I wish I could share these things with Selena, but I do get to share with her the storms rolling in off the Pacific, the waves crashing up over the breaker walls and up onto the beaches. We also get to anticipate what type of flooding we might have, and making preparations for high winds, power outages, and we pray continuously that we do not get another tree in our house. Yes, for real the day Selena was born we had a tree top off and come through our garage and right on into my laundry room FUN!

One thing I have to say about over here it is always green, no matter what time of year it is, we always have the beauty of the green grass, green forests, and oh how I love to go to the rain forest which is truly beautiful and only an hour drive from us. Actually I should say we live in the rain forest ourselves, we are right at the bottom of the mountain, and actually we get more rain then the rain forest gets.

Come on over to Growing and Learning by Leaps and bounds and see how others are spending their Autumn days, and join in on the fun, we would love to have you!