W. M. Browning Historic Park Revisit

Today we went back to the W. M. Browning Cretaceous Fossil Park site. It is a creek bed that has deposits of prehistoric items that periodically get washed out from the surrounding banks. If you are lucky, or know where to look you are able to find some prehistoric treasures...so we went on a treasure hunt. 


The first time we went, two summers ago, we didn’t have any instructions on what we were looking for or how to successfully find what we were looking for. We just decided we needed an adventure. It wasn't very successful, but we had fun. 

This year, we were able to go on a field day scheduled by the Rock and Mineral Group with a geologist who was out there helping to direct and advise people and we were given basic instructions on how to approach our treasure hunt.

So instead of spending lots of time guessing, we ventured into the stream with a plan. Everyone was successful this time in finding a few treasures to bring home and enjoy. 

The most surprising thing we found was a little flat rock that I found interesting...I found several and only kept one, well it turned out that it was a type of prehistoric animal tooth plate. 

An interesting thing about hunting is that many times you find things that you throw out because it doesn’t look like anything and then you find out you threw away fossils.

 It takes time and patience to sit and sift through the rocks and sand, but we had fun. Some of our treasures included several types of shark teeth, some petrified wood pieces, and the fish tooth plate. 

Even though we went to find fossils, we also found and examined nature while we were there. Evelyn and I found several dragonfly larvae, a small snake peeking at us while we were sifting around in the sandy bottom of the creek, and many little fish swimming about. 

Noah found blood worms, which are larvae for a type of fly. We found those the last time we went out and immediately went home to look them up to make sure they weren't harmful, because they were a bit creepy. Noah also scooped up a baby crawfish...no, we didn't eat it, it was way too small. 

It is a rather peaceful site. The Creek is called Twenty Mile Creek. I really enjoy just being out there and spending time walking up and down the creek, taking pictures, and enjoying the nature that is surrounding us. It is a very slow moving current and although there are some spots that are deep, for the most part it is an easy shallow place to walk around in. I would caution you to wear shoes and be sure to keep an eye on your younger children because of the deeper areas and the nature. There are snakes in the area. The park itself is not really large so you also have to be aware that if you wander too far you may be trespassing. 

Some of our finds. These were shark teeth, petrified wood, and the flat round one is a type of tooth from a prehistoric fish, and like I said earlier, we through out some things that were likely to be fossils if you know what you are looking for. There is always time for another trip out....

Spring is in the Air

It is already April, and somehow, life has just sailed by and I haven't updated in what feels like an eon. Spring is in full swing again, it's warming up and flowers are popping up everywhere.

Noah and I have flown across the world and seen some of the most amazing places on Earth. We had an unbelievable experience and I hope to post an review of the week we spent in Israel. I hope that this is the first of many adventures in Noah's life. I hope that the reality of how truly small our little corner of life is and how amazing, and huge, and wonderful the possibilities of seeing more of our wonderful world can be has been fully engrained in his young life.

We got home just after Christmas and as usual life has been moving along at full speed with little time to stop and take a breath.

Nathan is now 18 and on his last few months of high school. In February he was awarded the honor of Eagle Scout and we are truly proud of his accomplishments in that regard. We look forward to see what he will do moving forward.

Benjamin turned 5 in January, and is growing like a bad weed. He is starting his Pre-School/Kindergarten work and learning his letters and numbers and how to tie his shoes and using his ninja skills.

We still have the chickens and a goat. We are also trying to raise rabbits for meat, and the kids have decided that they want to learn tanning and use the rabbit pelts. I am assuming that the process will be long and arduous and probably will become another project for Matt and I, but I really like the idea of using all of the rabbit, being respectful of it's life and not wasting any part of it.

So the reason for this post was mostly to update on that process and progress. It has been a rough start, and our first experience lead to quite a few fall and winter births and a lot of deaths because of cold, wet baby bunnies and inexperienced moms and inexperienced "farmers"; we lost most of the young rabbits before they got to an age that they could be used for meat.

This past year we had several times that neighborhood dogs attacked and killed most of our population of rabbits and there again we never were able to grow any out to an age of harvesting meat.

Just a couple of weeks ago, we(Matt, because I was busy making cakes for Cub Scouts) harvested 5 of our youngest rabbits that survived from last year. There were just to many young males and they were terrorizing the females that we had left. So now we have three females and two males.

Today we discovered that our little grey female gave birth to five beautiful healthy, active little bundles of joy, and over the next couple of weeks we will have two more bunny nursery boxes to set up, so we should be up to our ears with bunnies again soon.

We also have two dozen eggs incubating that will be hatching on the 18th of April. We will have baby farm animals coming out of our ears before too long...

We have also collected a turtle that was buried in the nest in our back yard that it was hatching from, and today while walking the new puppy(yes, we have a new puppy also...her name is Sadie and she is such a cutie) Noah found a new turtle trying to cross the street. It is about the size of a quarter and is so very tiny compared to the one we found last month. So now we have two red-eared sliders to entertain us. They are very entertaining they have such great personalities.

So...Spring is definitely in the air...



How is your Spring shaping up?

Copperhead Falls

Today's adventure took us to Copperhead Falls in Abbeville Mississippi. Much like the trip to the creek for the fossil hunt except this lovely little outing took us down a back road to an area near a bridge where we parked along the roadside and walked down a steep rocky slope. At the edge before we got to the creek, the kids discovered the remains of something and had to investigate. After a short time, they came to the conclusion that it was definitely not human and it was okay to continue on with our adventure.

I of course had to take a moment to photograph the two beautiful butterflies resting on part of the spine of the dearly departed stinky critter. Moving on, we worked our way down a rather steep, rocky bank that went down. There we noticed several pairs of shoes on the edge of the bank that lead to a pretty little shallow creek that was ankle deep. The stream meandered left and right around several sandy and clay banks with rocks of various sizes intermingled.

As we walked upstream over and around the rocks along the creek bed that was winding left and right  and around corners, the stream wove its way through the wooded landscape going over rocks, under fallen trees and around the sand and clay banks.  Eventually we heard the rushing water of the waterfalls.

Now, I don't want to deceive you  into believing that as we rounded the corner we came across these fabulous rolling falls that you may be imagining. It is Mississippi after all and the landscape is still relatively flat, these are small low falls that were rambling over the rocks in the middle of the creek that created small pools that poured into other pools.

I have to say, that there weren't any areas that I would call particularly deep and I wouldn't say that there was anything at any point that was particularly treacherous, but because of the clay and algae covered rocks, I would warn anyone who might be unsteady or carrying any kind of special electronics like phones or cameras to be a little cautious. There were a couple of times that I lost my footing and almost drowned my camera. But, I digress...

It is a rather beautiful and unique site and I was very happy to experience it. We came across other people enjoying the day and hanging out. We explored the area and kept walking around a few more corners to see just what lay around the next bend. Eventually the creek became too overgrown to continue and we turned around.

We came across lots of different types of native plant species and some invasives growing along the bank also. A huge beautiful Green Dragon(Arisaema dracontium)-a relative of Jack-in-the-Pulpit-was standing tall right at the entrance with a beautiful group of berries still green at this point.

The intoxicating smell of kudzu flowers was amazing. It was probably my favorite smell along the way...a whole lot better than the decayed critter near the roadside entrance that the kids took an interest in and had to examine to figure out what it was. There was also beautiful orange spotted jewelweed(Impatiens capensis) lining the banks with their little spotted orange flowers dancing on the breeze.

One of the kids noticed a tree that had either berries or some type of seed pod that looked like they could have been mulberries, but I wasn't sure because our mulberry tree at home has already fruited sometime in May and it seemed late to me.

There were quite a few critters to see also, snakes, dragonflies, damsel flies, butterflies, minnows, frogs, and algae in different colors. The snakes were harmless water snakes, but it is always important to maintain a safe distance and give them their space. The small snake in the water had just caught a snack and was on it's way to find a safe place to eat it.

The kids played at the falls for a while longer and eventually we headed back toward the car. It was a great day and a great place to explore. We will definitely be back occasionally to enjoy this space hopefully seasonally so that we can see it at different times of the year to watch the changes of the season within the space.

W. M. Browning Cretaceous Fossil Park

   Today's adventure took us to Twenty Mile Creek in Frankstown, Mississippi. It is known for prehistoric shark teeth and other fossils. This fossil park is a day use area just off of Highway 45 Near Boonville, Mississippi, about an hour from where we live. We have been planning to make this trip for several years after some of the boys were given one of the best birthday presents...a bag of sand and a sieve. Eventually realized that it was dug from this area and even though the bag of sand was lots of fun to search through and find stuff we just figured it would have to be loads of fun to go out there and dig for "hidden treasures".

This morning we decided we should just go, so we packed up the kids and headed out...we stopped off at Walmart to look for kids sand toys or something that we could use as a sieve. There weren't any more, so we decided on cat litter scoops and some sink sieves. When we go back for a second try I think I'd like to be prepared with a bigger sieve box.

 We arrived and headed down to the creek and I quickly realized that even though pictures would have been fun, the camera would have most likely gone for a swim. I made the right choice it would have definitely drowned a couple of times from either falling or sinking into deep spots. The entrance to the creek was very steep and very slippery with no where to go but straight into the water. So I took a few pictures before we explored and searched for prehistoric shark teeth and other possible fossils.

We spent several hours sifting through the creek bed sand and gravel. It seems to be a relatively safe area. The current wasn't overly strong, and the deepest point was probably at the top of my legs so even Benjamin(4) was able to stay above water at all times. Everyone found something interesting to take home; several shark teeth, shells a few fossil pieces. Benjamin found "peanut rock" it was bigger than him so we couldn't bring that one home, but we know where to visit it. Some of the other interesting finds were the critters in the water.

There were bunches of minnows to chase through the water, tadpoles to watch, dragonfly nymphs, some small blue dragonflies...but the most interesting that was weird, interesting and a bit creepy were the tiny bright blood red worms that I was really worried were some kind of leech. It was actually the larval form of a type of midge fly and thankfully harmless but definitely very interesting to come across.

One warning that I did read was that May was the best time to go because at this time of year there is a heavy accumulation of algae. They were definitely right about that and it did affect the ability to sift through the sands and it was a bit icky to rub against in the water. The water was mostly clear, but I would definitely recommend wearing some type of shoe in the water. No one got hurt, but while sifting through I found several pieces of glass a nail and some old pieces of barbed wire.

This would be a great field trip to do with some experienced people that could explain some of the formations and types of rock and soil that are found in the creek bed. 

I really loved the rock formations in the creek, they are called concretions. If you look closely on them many have fossil shells on the surface.  The article below explains how they are formed. 

This was a very interesting history of the area that I enjoyed reading. http://magsfieldguide.blogspot.com/2007/07/upper-cretaceous-fossils-of-frankstown.html