Green Hour 9 (cont.) and 10

So I managed to get the kids out of the house today. We were out ALL morning at a local park for our nature club outing :) That was a very pleasant day, and the wellie boots I insisted the kids took, came in very handy!
We ate a picnic sitting in a gazebo at the top of a hill, overlooking an area of buttercups and dandelions. I wish I had thought to stop stuffing my gob and actually take a picture of the kids perched on the walls or down in the flowers! But I didn't. I did take a picture of the inside of a tree and some pictures of flowers, but I spent most of the time chasing after the kids :D We identified a number of flowers which we added to our list, to much excitement from the kids!

This afternoon, Rebel did his square. I decided to let him take charge of the situation, and I placed the camera in his hand. So the pictures you see below are his :)

First he chose a spot down our hill. It's swampy there after the recent rains, so he chose to wear his wellies... and stomp in the mud ;)

There was a lot of moss in the square:

and some of the Japanese knotweed we have been desperately trying to get rid of, as well as some of the grass we have been seeding for the last few weeks ;)

The Indian Strawberry is a common weed here, but entirely inedible!

Which is a shame because the berries look nice! You can see another one below with a dandelion.

Rebel picked up a fallen catkin from some nearby tree (probably one of the pines in the front garden), and desperately (but unsuccessfully) tried to get some photos of an orange bug and some small ants.

He admired the white clovers, which I suggest everyone take a smell of, since they are quite fragrant!

And he looked at this baby tree. We think it might be a birch tree as there are several around.

Notice also the maple seeds? The kids have great fun throwing these 'helicopter' seeds into the air to watch them whirl! Rebel found a very large one, which went into his nature box.
If you take a look above the square, you will see this:

Which Rebel correctly identified as a Tulip Poplar... this just so happens to be what is left of 'Scenery Mr. Climby' . He did not keep his attention on the square ALL the time. He photographed this Tiger Beetle next to his 'mine'. It's really just a hole where he is allowed to dig LOL.


While Rebel was studying his plot (he tells me he is not finished BTW), M'Lady was picking caterpillars. From ALL over!

She amassed quite a collection, I think there were 7 in the jar at this point. They were tent caterpillars, so not really a favourite of mine!

But the day was lovely and I took it in and drew some things ;)
Today I plan on a picnic lunch outside (not really a treat since we do this quite often LOL) so I can take some pictures to put up on Green Hour 10!

N.B. I wrote this yesterday just before the scheduled power outage at Blogger, and so did not get it up until this morning!