Green Hour Assignment #1

Our first intended Nature Walk, Danny is on the left, Devin is in the middle and Camille is on the right. Devin is a neighbor that the children have recently made friends with. We were glad he chose to join us! We walked around our 3 acre yard today.

I need a new camera. This ant pile has black ash intertwined in it, it looked black in person. The kids thought it was neat how the ants would use ash from the burn pile to build their home.

A squirrel's nest.

This is a hole left by an old tree stump, you can't see the deep dimensions. I was afraid to go near it because of snakes or whatever else I didn't want to observe today.

This is one of the many tree stumps in our yard. A few years ago, a storm made 5 tall pine trees fall. This one is rotted out but I showed the kids the rings on top and explained a little about how a tree ages. We then took a piece off and saw termites or ants crawling inside, they ran for cover quickly.

Moss

Banana shaped dried leaves on what looked to be a vine. Hmmm.

The creek at the end of our property, it is a run-off ditch and I don't allow the kids to play here.

Algae in the ditch.

Tomorrow Camille will pick two things she saw today to learn more about. She did find a leaf curled up and asked me why it does that. The picture didn't turn out. I need a better camera. I'll update this post with what we learned. Hopefully our copy of The Handbook of Nature Study will get here to help us out.

TWO focuses for this week as dictated by Camille:

1. "I want to learn all about pinecones. I want to know about why they close/open and what type of moisture is inside."

Answers found in Eyewitness Books: Tree by David Burnie, pg. 44-45

2. "How does a pecan tree work? Why does the pecan tree in our yard have wooden flowers on it?"

Once a pecan tree is mature, it will go through different stages throughout the year. The growth stages are:

• The Dormant Stage: Pecan trees are dormant during the winter months. This is kind of like a rest period for the tree. During dormancy, the tree doesn't appear to be growing, but many important things are happening. In order for pecan trees to produce pecans during the next year they need at least 200 chill hours during this period. (A chill hour is an hour where the temperature is between 32F and 45F.)
• Bud-break/Pollination: During late April and early May, pecan trees pollinate. Pecan trees are monoecious, which means they have separate male structures (catkins,) and female flowers (pistillates). The catkins are long, golden tassels and produce pollen. The female flowers receive the pollen and nut growth begins.
  
• Nutlet Stage: The young pecans continue to grow in June and July and are called nutlets.

• Nut-Fill Stage: Pecans mature during the nut-fill stage in September and early October. Some varieties of pecan trees produce many small clusters of pecans, and others produce fewer large clusters.
• Shuck-Split Stage: After a 200-day growing period, the pecan shuck opens, allowing the nut to drop.

The wooden flowers Camille saw on the pecan tree were the empty pecan shucks. How cool is that?

Join us in the Green Hour Challenge hosted by Barb of Harmony Fine Arts!