Raising Painted Ladies

 Early in April I received an email letting me know that one of the resource companies that I purchase homeschool material from occasionally was doing a big butterfly larvae order and since it had been a few years since we had raised any butterflies and they were willing to ship them to me I was all over it :)

 Two months nearly passed and one day there was a surprise package that needed to be picked up at the post office. Of course silly me had completely forgotten all about the butterflies by the time we reached June and it wasn't until I saw the red 'live specimen' tags on the outside of the box that I finally remembered that we were waiting for them *grin*.

Our caterpillars were well on their way when we placed their container on the mantle in the living room so they could happily munch away. Only a few days later it seemed they started to hang from the fabric top and spin their cocoons....

and the beautiful metamorphosis from wiggly caterpillar to butterfly began resulting in six pretty orange and black painted ladies. We were all captivated by them as they slowly stretched their wings, pumping blood into them and learning how to make them work. 

 We got this little pop up mesh enclosure the first time we got butterfly larvae a number of years back and it has been fantastic for housing other little creatures besides butterflies that the kids bring home to visit... like frogs, salamanders and so on :)

 It was tempting to keep our little visitors longer so that we could enjoy their beauty but today the sun was shining and it was time to let them take their first big flight.

Each of the children took turns helping one of the butterflies out of their temporary home and enjoying the tickle of its feet on their palms before it flew away.

Butterfly and Flower

See the flower open
Its petals one by one -
Butterfly wings upon a stem
Waving in the sun.
See the flitting butterfly
In shimmering colours bright -
A flower free and flying
In the warm summer’s light.

~ Paul King

Hugs,

Rosina

Summer Solstice 2012

As we celebrated Summer Solstice it was a perfect sunny day, kissed by a light breeze as it swayed through the fields of tall grass surrounding our home. The wildflowers were all bursting heavenward in multitude and beauty as their new life that had sprouted in early spring is finally coming into its fullest :)

And just in time to!

We picked clover, buttercups and daisies to decorate our sun shaped solstice cake with.

The children enjoyed cooking hotdogs over hot embers as the fire burned low...

and warming toes chilled by running through damp grass that wasn't quite dry from the wet days before.

No one really wanted to wreck our cake by cutting into it but you know that didn't last long *grin*. I think a few even had seconds and perhaps thirds LOL.

But all the extra energy was quickly burned off by having a snowball fight in June. Oh how I love the fluffy ball shaped clusters of flowers that my snowball tree provides and they really do make for a fun summer snowball fight :)

 

As the sun finally dipped below the mountain range, streaking the sky with pinks and purples, we waited for the darkness to come so we could stoke up our fire and sit in its glow...

keeping warm, roasting marshmallows and setting our sticks aglow :)

Hugs,

Rosina

Dust If You Must & Is Your Sunscreen Safe?

I originally saw this poem shared over at A Magical Childhood but I just had to share it here on my blog as well for those of you who may not have seen it :) I have no problem admitting that I don't do a whole lot of dusting and that's because we've got a whole lot of living to do instead *grin*.

How about you?

DUST IF YOU MUST
(Author unknown)

Dust if you must but wouldn't it be better
To paint a picture or write a letter,
Bake a cake or plant a seed.
Ponder the difference between want and need.

Dust if you must but there's not much time,
With rivers to swim and mountains to climb!
Music to hear and books to read,
Friends to cherish and life to lead.

Dust if you must but the world's out there
With the sun in your eyes, the wind in your hair,
A flutter of snow, a shower of rain.
This day will not come around again.

Dust if you must but bear in mind,
Old age will come and it's not kind.
And when you go and go you must,
You, yourself, will make more dust.

******

Remember, a house becomes a home when
you can write "I love you" on the furniture....

With all of the fun in the sun going on right now it's that time of year when we all pull out our sunscreen and start coating our children in it, but do you know if your sunscreen is safe or not? Many of the popular brands seen on shelves are loaded with harmful carcinogens and I came across the handiest little widget over at Non-Toxic Kids that lets you put in what sunscreen brand you are currently using and find out how it scores from 0 ~ the safest all the way up to 10 ~ which you'll want to avoid like the plague *grin*.

Another blog has also shared a review on 3 sunscreens that are available here on the island and some tips on what you should be looking for when you gazing at the endless choices in sun protection :)

The sunscreen that we have in the cupboard turned out to be rated a 5 so it was smack dab in the middle of not bad & run shreeking in horror *grin* but I think we'll be looking for a new one the next time we head into the city :)

~ Rosina

Heat Wave

Oh my word... we are in the middle of our first heat wave of the summer season. It was a blistering 31 degrees today which is a total body shock when you've rocketed there from something like 15 degrees the day before *grin*. I know some of you are thinking wimpy, wimpy, wimpy but I'm a cold weather girl and must say I just melt when it gets this hot :)

We spent most of the day indoors trying to keep cool and the forecast is for a couple more days of this until we might get a little bit of cooler weather again. It will give me some time to work on some of my sewing projects *grin*. I've actually been thinking of digging out all of my christmas fabrics that I want to turn into fabric bags for the holiday season. Last year I started making things to stock the shop with in October and it just wasn't early enough so perhaps starting in July will do the trick this year!

I've got my eye on a few vintage hand crank sewing machines on eBay to right now :) My mom has an older treddle singer sewing machine that is in a large cabinet and we've been playing around with it a bit but I thought it would be a lot of fun to just have a table top model that I could pack with when we go camping and L and I could do little quilting projects together without the need for electricity. There always seems to be a lull in the days while camping when she has run out of bugs to follow or trails to explore and I know she would just love to sew with me :)

Ahh, I think I can finally feel the heat subsiding a bit as the sun has completely slipped away now and the darkness is enveloping our home. Hope you all aren't getting to roasted by the sun to :)

~ Rosina