Hive and Swarm

We have been watching a beehive for months. It is a classic storybook hole-in-a-tree type, and we have often stayed to watch the bees coming and going. Some days they are frantic and some days they are lazy.

Today we were lucky enough to see our favorite hive on the move, as the colony divided and a large number swarmed off to form a new hive.

Someone told me that there was an average of over one feral bee hive for every city block in Los Angeles. Can that possibly be true? (Granted, that someone was only nine years old, but it is not every day that you meet a nine-year-old with his own beekeeper suit and such a wealth of interesting facts about urban bees!)

Here is our gorgeous swarm (you can click on the picture to enlarge it):

We wonder where they will move to next!

Toy Tree House

You can build a magnificent little toy tree house like this with just a few small logs, glue, and a saw:

A few years ago, I found some good, dry fruit wood, and after borrowing a mitre saw, I cut it into lots of little medallions that were 3/4" thick and about 3-6" in diameter. After an hour of cutting, I had buckets of these little wooden rounds. I did not wax or polish them, just set them out for play and they made lovely free toys.

We still have many of these loose pieces around our house that are played with in all sorts of ways (as cookies, coins, cutting boards), but I was inspired to make a toy tree house after seeing some beautiful examples online (especially here and here).

I carefully cut some branches to make the vertical supports, trying to keep the two cut ends parallel to each other, and then started building stairs from the ground up, using the small wooden rounds and a hot glue gun. (I highly recommend hot glue for this project; it dries quickly, and is very forgiving of uneven and not completely parallel surfaces.) I started with one spiral staircase around a column, and then kept adding more parts to go with the set.

On one tower, I added a railing made from a pine cone and some beach stones, as well as a rope ladder tied to two small holes that are drilled in the floor of the turret:

We have added new elements to this play set again and again, including a magnolia branch in plaster found at a yard sale (perfect for the basket lift), some cool old wooden finials from a broken headboard, ramps and ladders made from popsicle sticks, little wire chairs and a tipi.

Parts or all of this set move from table to floor all around and outside of our house, and I have needed to repair it a few times, but it has always been easy to mend with hot glue. It has seen many hours of play, and is frequently inhabited by kings, pirates, evil-doers and acorns.

(Click on the pictures to enlarge)

If you are inspired to make one of your own, please put a link in the comments or send me some pictures!

Not Far from the Tree

This is what I found in Julio's pocket the other day when I was doing laundry:

Why does this little collection make me so happy?

Praying Mantis

I could imagine a farm life with cats and dogs and chickens and a goat.  Maybe rabbits, and horses too.  I know that living with animals is good for all people, and the responsibility of daily maintenance and witnessing the life cycle especially abound with deep lessons for kids. 

But, this is no farm life, so we do what we can.  Just a few days after releasing Ruben's caterpillar-turned-butterfly, we took our second tentative step into the world of pets with this graceful praying mantis that Diego found on our front lawn:

She is an elegant insect, don't you think?

Quesadilla of the Woods

After the first rains of October, these enormous brilliant yellow Laetiporus fungi popped up here and there around Los Angeles.  I remember seeing one growing on this same tree last fall, and there were dozens of them on a block near our house last year.

Apparently, they are edible, and according to this, they taste like chicken.  (Note to my mother: I am NOT going to eat this.)  It may be delicious, but in addition to "Chicken Fungus" and "Sulfur Shelf," another of its thoroughly unappetizing common names is "Quesadilla of the Woods." 

A Rabbit, A Lion, A Man with a Beard...

The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History

It was magical to take my kids to this place that I remember so vividly from my own childhood.  It is now better than ever, with many living and interactive exhibits.

You may click on any of the pictures to see them larger.

A Red-tailed Hawk:

An enclosed garden full of butterflies (some of them sharing a picnic):

A creek to play in:

My childhood favorite, a tiny hummingbird nest:

A Peregrine Falcon:

These birds were rescued and are being cared for by the Audubon Society.  

Weeds and Seeds (part 2)

After school today, I asked the kids if they knew how those prickers stuck to their socks yesterday.  They had a couple of ideas, like "they're sharp, like a needle" and "maybe they are sticky."

So, when we got home, I put out the prickers, stickers and burrs that I had collected yesterday.  I set them on white paper, with a couple of magnifying loupes, a microscope, a flashlight and a pair of socks.  I invited the boys to examine.

They were amazed by what they saw.  Ruben's first comment was, "Diego's socks are made out of strings!"  But then, they noticed the hooks:

And the barbs:

And they got lost in this tiny world.

And then, there was the answer.  Look at how they grab onto our socks!

 

(click on photos to view larger)

Weeds and Seeds

I thought it would be fun to stop in an overgrown vacant lot to look at grass seeds.

Our whole city is blooming and making seeds these days, in response to an unusual abundance of winter rain.

I brought along some egg cartons, thinking that the kids would like to collect and sort the seeds.

Instead, they gamboled off like little billy goats.

When they stopped to pull prickers from their socks, I mentioned that this was how grasses spread.  I decided to gather some seeds myself, in case they wanted to look at them when we got home.

There was a beautiful variety, even some wheat!

I think I'll put the seeds out after school with some magnifying glasses and pairs of socks.  Maybe the kids can figure out how they stick!

Mobile

I made this mobile last weekend for one of my little friends for her first birthday:

It was more fun and challenging than I expected, but I am so happy with how it turned out.  It was not easy to make each piece spin freely without ever crashing into the others, so it took a lot of careful adjusting.

I added some nature treasures that I had gathered and enjoyed over the years, and it was so gratifying to see them in this new way.  I spent a lot of time thinking about the textures and weights and how to make them balance both physically and aesthetically.  This is one of my favorite parts:

The crow feather is so light that it catches every small puff of wind, and it spins more easily than the other elements.  I put a small metal weight on the tip in order to make it hang horizontally.  Here's a closer look:

I've had the abalone shell for many years, and have always loved how rough and dark it is on one side and pearly iridescent on the other.

I wanted some other shiny elements to catch her little eye, so I wrapped some sections of the apple branches with pieces of wire that used to belong to my grandmother.

The smooth, dark branches were gleaned from our favorite apple ranch, and the others are fallen sycamore branches from trees in our neighborhood.

Now I want to make another.

Grasshopper Eggs

Please come back tomorrow if you don't enjoy close-ups of insect life!

Okay, if you're still here, check out this amazing thing that we saw on our front lawn this afternoon:

Her abdomen was stuck into the ground because she was right in the middle of laying her eggs!  We watched her doing it for a couple of minutes, and when she left, this tiny pile of pink foam was all that we could see:

The foam is the plug to an egg case that she buried about an inch under ground.

I can't believe that we got to see this today, having just finished  On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder, in which there are incredible descriptions of grasshoppers and their eggs.  After that dramatic story, I had to reassure the boys that there will not be a grasshopper plague in Los Angeles when this egg case hatches!

Phony Trees

I kept seeing a strange tree as I zipped past in my minivan, but it was hard to get a good look in traffic.

I tried to get a little closer, but it proved difficult.

Do you think it's related to this conifer around the corner?

Or this one without its foliage?

Brrr!

I'm not one of those gloating-about-the-weather Californians.  I know you're cold out there!  I've spent many a bundled winter hiking over icy plow mounds and stepping into slush-covered puddles, and I still don't think you should move here just for the weather.  Snowy winters can be so beautiful, and sometimes (but not always) I miss them.

I was thinking about you out there in the blizzards when I noticed this tangerine peel on my breakfast table, the perfect symbol for the Californian daydreaming about winter: