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....

Evolution of Homeschool

Life just seems to somehow get ahead of us here at the Zerangue house. There are always pitfalls and challenges that need to be faced navigated, waded through and overcome. Here in Mississippi we recently went through a rather brutal rainstorm that was really damaging for some parts of out state. We live on highground, and even though we came through it okay there was still a bit of challenges around us. The ended up being minor compared to some, but there were lessons in them all the same.



I posted these pictures because the kids overcame a fear of the unknown that day. We have lived here about ten years. This amount of water has never happened before and the kids wanted to know how much water covered the road...I told them to find out. They asked how, and I said the only way to do it is to walk in. They were hesitant, but eventually they did it, and then it was quite fun to run and splash through the water. Overcoming the fear of the unknown is one of the most difficult lessons in life and I want my kids to know that most times you have to wade out into something to find out if it is were you want to go. The path ahead in not always going to be clear and the clear path is not always a safe or sure bet in life. Sometimes it takes faith and trust and wading out into the muddy water to discover something amazing.

Between the schooling, and the activities, and the part-time jobs, it seems like we can never really catch up to our life and something always falls behind. Right now that is mostly our social post and our side businesses.

Last year was rough and we no longer have farm animals and our bees...they were picked off by the predators that live around our woods. No matter where we patched and protected, something always managed to get through to our chickens and rabbits. It is a difficult fight and a hard lesson.

We are on the fence at this point on whether to try again. The kids are all gettin older and not as interested, time is not our friend at this point.

I miss spending time in the yard, having garden space, but it seems like it is only me that is interested I am re-evaluating our life to see what is important and what needs to be let go.

Part of the focus of homeschool was to help the kids to find their way and as a parent I need to move with them in that direction. One of the things we are considering is looking at animal rehabilitation. It is something that would fall on me, but it is something that one of my children is interested in and it seems like it may be beneficial to have the opportunity for them to watch and learn and see if it is truly a direction they want to take.

This week we rescued two baby squirrels that fell out of a tree in our yard. The person we brought them to has confidence in their survival.

The evolution of a homeschool life...

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?

Eclipse 2017

Our Epic Trip to the zone of totality I would say ranged up there with one of our best spur of the moment trips ever. In July we found out about the eclipse happening...a little late to the game I guess because some people have been planning for years. Our first thought was to just stay local and view it because even in Oxford Mississippi the totality range was somewhere in the 90% range and most of me was thinking that that was close enough. Then there was this little nagging inner voice that was screaming from the nerd in me, "NO!!! It must be viewed in totality. It is so very close we have to make it closer. So we tentatively planned to go to Nashville, but all the hype and media coverage of it seemed to be causing the possibility of huge traffic congestion and many millions of people converging on the cities that were being claimed as the best viewing spots. We started looking and after a while, decided that maybe Wickliffe, Kentucky would be a great place to go because it was close but a smaller town that wasn't participating in all the craziness, but at the last minute(like halfway there) I found out that even there was only 99.9% totality clearly if we were to make this trip 99.9% is just not good enough so Benton, Kentucky it became.

We left Oxford at noon after Mass on Sunday and drove to Middle Tennessee where we camped at Nathan Bedford Forrest State Park. It was a nice campground and not overly crowded or crazy. We got unpacked, and the kids began setting up the tents and hammocks while we checked in at the office. After we got back and finished setting up sleeping arrangements we went for a walk on a trail to cover our Sunday walk for the training that Matt is doing with the boys. The trail was beautiful, but very steep and rocky. Matt and I enjoyed it, the kids...not so much they were not prepared for so much uphill walking but they lived.

 When we returned to the campsite the kids gathered small sticks and Matt, Benjamin and I went to find some larger wood to burn for supper...Hot dogs and s'mores. We made a salad to take with us, but forgot salad dressing and forks to eat it with so we made do. Nathan, Noah, and Jacob set up hammocks in the trees and planned on sleeping out. Jacob made it about 10 minutes before deciding to sleep in a tent with Evelyn. Nathan and Noah made it the whole night. I was very nervous and worried(too many episodes of Criminal Minds I guess) about someone grabbing the boys in the night...I didn't get much sleep.

We woke up at about 5am(to beat all the expected traffic) and packed everything up to leave in what I would say was record time for us...just over an hour.
Our first stop on the road was Paris, Tennessee. Where we had the opportunity to see the splendor of the Eifel Tower and then headed to Walmart to stock up for our day with food, snacks, and more water just in case there was lots of crazy.

We were on our way. Several places along the way had highway signs warning of traffic and no stopping off on the highway to view the eclipse. We eventually arrived in Benton and settled on a state park area on the Kentucky Lake. We got to a Marina that looked promising and set up camp. There were lots of people coming and going with boats, but the area wasn't at all crowded.

 

We found a shady spot and set up some blankets(because we had so much stuff and so little space the camp chairs just didn't fit into the car...we were "roughing it".) We got out the lunch stuff, snacks, and drinks. We set up our pinhole camera and our white board to view the shadows. The kids took out their eclipse adventure papers for while we were waiting(we got there at 9am) and we just hung out along to water's edge.

Eventually another family showed up and they had an amazing telescope. All the kids played together and kept each other company while waiting for totality to arrive. As the kids were talking and playing we realized that everything was beginning to take on an eerie hue and it was getting close.

Things quickly started getting dark, and the temperature began to be noticeably different. As the moon closed on the sun the streetlights began to come on in the distance and a beautiful sunset fell over the sky around us and distant cheers and hollers erupted in the distance as it fell dark.  We were able to take off our glasses and see the stars(and Venus I think) had come out and everyone was able to look directly at the eclipse aura. I took a couple of quick pictures before it was over, and as if a light switch was flipped on everything began to return to normal.

We had an amazing time, and even though I was grateful that it wasn't crowded like all of the claims made, I think that it was so much more fun to enjoy the time with someone else, and when it was all done the kids left with new memories and friendships. 

We decided to head out before the actual ending of the moon's journey across the sun to continue our journey. Matt and I decided to take the kids to Sikeston, Missouri to go to Lambert's Café...Home of the "throwed" rolls. We set off to Paducha and then headed to Wickliffe and crossed the Ohio River and the Mississippi River because that is the point that the two converge. That was the first time that any of us saw this and it was an amazing site to see. At that point we crossed over from Kentucky to Illinois to Missouri in the span of just a few minutes.

When we arrived there were quite a lot of people there...quite a lot. The line was out the door and around the side of the building in the parking lot. We got there at about 4:30pm and were seated at about 6:10pm. Yes, it was worth the time spent waiting. The kids made friends with all of the other kids running around, climbed trees and played on the wooden train in the front. Lots of the adults were sharing pictures and stories of their eclipse stories. It was actually pretty amazing to see everyone standing around and sharing. The kids had a great time at Lambert's Café. Some of them were able to catch rolls. They looked like gophers when they heard "hot rolls" yelled out. We left there at about 8pm and headed home. We made it back home at about midnight.

So in the span of two days we went from Mississippi, to Tennessee, to Kentucky, to Illinois, to Missouri, to Arkansas, to Tennessee and Back home. I don't think we have covered so many states in one trip.

Eclipse Shirts

 Just a couple of days before the Eclipse, one of my Sister-in Laws posted a tutorial on how to make t-shirts that had the image of the eclipse on them. They looked really nice so I decided that we should make some for our epic trip to the range of totality. They were really easy to make, we had lots of fun, and everyone loved how their shirts came out. 

 First thing we did was protect our work space and gather all of our supplies.

We needed: 
Acrylic Paint(purple, red, orange, yellow and white.)
Sponge Brushes
A tooth brush or stiff bristled paint brush for making "stars"
small paper dessert plates
double-sided tape
cardboard for inside shirts

Everyone taped their plate down on their shirts. I used the brush to make stars on everyone's shirts since flinging of paint was involved and I really didn't want paint all over the house.

All the kids began to paint their shirts using each of the colors of the paint to make it look like space. First using purple(we mixed red and blue) was painted in the widest ring how ever far out they wanted to go(some chose not to use purple).

 Then red was used. We chose to paint most of the colors before each dried so that their was quite a bit of blending of colors. Some chose to wait between colors to see more contrast between colors.

Orange was next in a smaller ring and then yellow was used barely on the outside.

We let the shirts dry a bit and some of the kids added more color. After the shirts dried for about an hour, we removed the paper plate and I edged each of the shirts with a white ring. 

Because there was not enough space at the table I waited to do Matt's shirt and my shirt...Of course, I got distracted and forgot to tape the plate down before I made the "stars" and our shirts had a bit of star matter in the center of our eclipse. I mostly fixed it with black paint, but it still showed through. So remembering the plate before the "stars" is a huge step.