buggyhunters's Journal

Baby Buggy has been really intent on collecting Leaves for mommy while she walks with daddy. They put them in little baggies, and then Mommy takes them to work and hangs them up to keep them forever and ever.

BB has expressed some anxiety that the leaves, which were reds and yellows and greens when she picked them up, have changed to brown, and thought that maybe mommy switched them out. Her attention has not stayed on the topic long enough to explain how leaves change colors as they dry out.

Daddy and Buggy have been looking for things on their walks to the park. BB has found some very cool flora! She has really enjoyed finding seed pods from different trees and plants!

When Dropping Buggy off at BK's house for her BK days, we were ponted toward a few super cool things.

First, is Buggie's favorite- the Worm bin. The bin is filled with earthworms, pillbugs (potato bugs, rollypolly?) and fruit flys. If you are quiet, you can hear the munch munching sound of hundreds or thousands of worms decimating newspaper and kitchen scraps. A turn of the compost revels hundreds of happy pink-brown little bodies! buggy loves helping MK bring food scraps to the worms.

There were also some super cool mushrooms to be seen- What I believe to be the Red-juice tooth and the Sulfer tuft. The sulfur tuft (?) patch was huge- probably a foot around. As novice in the mushroom hunting world, I was pretty impressed. Next time we go by, I'll bring some gloves, and get the underside of the mushroom- and possibly a print, as was suggested to me. Maybe then I can verify what type it is!

We are incredibly lucky to have such amazing things so close by!

Yesterday, after I (Mb) got off of work, I rushed home. packed up BB and DB, and headed to Swamp monster trail, off of I-90 exit 20.

This was a perfect 3 year old hike- only about a mile (though we parked outside of the gates, as we didn't want to get locked in, so we added another 2/3 mile to our walk along the gravel road)

Both I and BB biffed it (fell) on the trail, but other than some time kissing dirt, we had a great walk. Because we didn't get there until 5, the light was really not good for taking photos, so I have a bunch that I didn't upload- and one or two that I uploaded regardless. I had a tripod with me, but BB was being a bit impatient, so we just left it with what we got.

Other than the listed, We saw a bunch more lichens, and talked about them a lot- about how the trees looked furry- but was it really a furry tree, or was some other plant making it furry? BB was pretty convinced that the trees had hair that daddy needed to braid- but we then pointed out moss in other places, and talked about how the moss attaches to other plants and objects.

We saw some ravines, and talked about how water goes to the lowest point, and how it washes away dirt and rocks and debris and carves paths. I don't think buggy was particularly interested, so I may have been talking to myself.

BB got out her very very horrible toddler camera, and practiced taking photos, and also driving MB and DB crazy with her inability to listen when we tried to help her turn it on come out with a few successful photos. the conversation generally went as follows:

"BB, hold down the button until it beeps. hold it down. press on the button for a long time until it beeps. no, you don't need to sit down, push the red button. You can't take pictures until the camera is on. The red button with a circle. That button has an "x" on it. press the one with the circle on it. hold it down. No, don't just push it quickly, hold it down. keep your finger pushing the button down until it beeps. Like this. see how mommy is holding down the pretend button. You can't take pictures until the camera is on, love. Here, let me press a pretend button in your hand. see, instead of pressing the button so it feels like this, press it so it feels like this. No, baby, you are still pressing the button quickly. Hold it down. You can't take pictures until the camera is on, kiddo. BB, you don't need to sit down. we are talking about how you press the button. You can't take pictures until the camera is on. Ok, put your finger on the red button with the circle and I will help you. finger. on the button. The one with the circle.That one has an "X" on it. can you find the red button with the circle on it? no baby, you can't take pictures until the camera is on ... ... ... "

and once we got it turned on, it would turn itself off after 2 minutes and we would start over. Oh well

Mommy and Daddy went through the alphabet playing the can you find 5 words that begin with "" game while we were walking back in the semi-dark, as buggy was "too tired" (code for "I don't want to) to talk about her letters. Hopefully hearing "OK, 5 words that begin with cuh cuh "C". Cuh cuh car. cuh cuh carrot...." will start to stick in her brain, as she is just starting to understand that the alphabet song we sing means something, and you can use those letters to *do things.

We ultimately had a lovely time and got some cool photos of the fungus among us- and hopefully we will be able to get some classifications for them, as buggy really likes finding them!

Baby buggy (BB, or Buggy), DB (Daddy buggy) , and I (MB/Mommy buggy) hiked the 2.3 mile round trip to the top of Guemez mountain, making sure we stopped and talked about what we saw. Buggy pointed out Every Tree root we passed (as we have been talking about how plants and trees use roots to get nourishment, and how tree roots push the cement out of the way when we go on walks at home. BB walked all but a few minutes of the walk, even though it was approaching nap time, and did a fantastic job. Mb and DB were both a bit sick still, but we all had a good time! We got rained on a bit, and MB accidentally deleted all of the photos except for the few uploaded here. Whoops!

We also saw:

• A Raven! Have not seen a raven in quite some time. He (or she) was quite busily croaking about some injustice and flying around, chasing some sparrows!

• Lots of bird massacre feathers. We talked about what makes things alive (taking in nutrients, procreating, growing, getting rid of waste), and talked about what are alive and not (trees, rocks, plants, Baby buggy,). Then we talked about how things stop being alive when they die. We talked a bit about what things might have eaten the birds- but buggy was loosing interest at this point
  *We collected lots of leaves, including Big, color changing Maple leaves (I tried to talk about how the leaves change color in the fall, but buggy was uninterested), buggy collected and counted 6 elm leaves of the same size, and we talked about why they have holes in them (being eaten- and then we looked at the Caterpillar eating the leaf, and making new little holes) Some heart shaped (alder?) Leaves.

• Daddy talked about deciduious vs evergreen trees, but buggy was distracted

• we found a dead squashed moth, and again talked about dead things
  we found a squished Caterpillar, and again, the dead things.
  *buggy pointed out lots of mushrooms which I didn't get specific photos of. We decided to do this Inat thing about half way through the walk.
  *we saw lots of woodpecker holes, and talked about how a woodpecker looks for bugs in trees, and we pretended to be woodpeckers
  *we listened to the wind making branches rub together
  *DB and MB talked about how we can help BB think more critically, and Help her become more curious about the world around her. We talked about how to use the scientific method with a *just turned 3 year old, which is a bit difficult, since she still does not grasp tense (before/after, etc), and cause and effect is still not a clear concept to her. Practice, practice, practice!