Storm Watching & Video

We had storm warnings all along the east coast of the island today with winds reaching upwards of 90 km/hour at its peak, ferries between us and the mainland were cancelled and poor Hubby and the kids spent the whole day without power. Lucky me I was further down island where the power was still on *grin*.

On the way home I stopped to catch some of the action after the wind had slowed down a bit but the waves still towered way above me as they crashed over the sea wall in Qualicum this evening. I managed to stay dry but at there were a couple of times where I thought I was going to be soaked for sure as the water rushed upwards in front of me :)

I took a little bit of video on my camera while I was there to share to :) It's only about 10 seconds long but really cool to see how the water just rockets along the wall as it hits. If you are reading this via email or google reader you might have to jump over to my blog to see it :)

Hugs,
Rosina

Frog Spawn ~ Outdoor Challenge Day 5

We finally had a chance to get down to the pond again today and after a brief search along the banks of the pond we spotted an egg sack or frog spawn (fertilized eggs) within reach! During the breeding period a single frog can lay thousands of eggs. One frog spawn alone can contain hundreds and hundreds of eggs. The freshly laid eggs have many predators. A few of them are newts, fish, snakes, aquatic insects and birds.

Did you know that roughly only 1 in 5 eggs matures into a frog? No wonder they need to lay so many eggs! I don't think that they'll miss a couple if we take a few to observe :)

K had some trouble picking put the eggs as they were so slippery but they couldn't escape being sucked into the large jar. We didn't end up keeping them all we just couldn't avoid sucking them all in en mass when they started to float in *grin*.

The following link is to an interesting 2 minute video of frogs mating in a backyard pond. It has some neat underwater shots and close ups of the frogs and frog spawn. You can view it at: http://www.vimeo.com/745654

Make sure you turn up your speakers and watch it on full screen for the best view. Another neat site is this one which helps you identify different frog eggs by telling you the different breeding times, egg sizes, color, hatch time and more!

We can't wait to see if we can raise our frog spawn to maturity!!

Visit The Great Outdoors Challenge to join in the fun and you can also visit other participants and see what sort of nature fun they have been having by clicking on the names below :)

~ Rosina

Fellow Nature Players:lisa, sanders, angelina, phyllis, sarah, christie, jennifer, debbie, dong dong, denise, luisa, joy, stephanie, cori, alex, dawn, kristen, catherine, tricia, becky, christy, ruth, kari, courtney, branflakes, jessica, renee, haiku, brynn, amy, clemencia, sherry, leslie, lise, renee, anet, jenn, marina, amy, ella, marcia, karen, beth, julie, kyndale, kelly, lizzie, eileen, ag, mari-ann, cindy, robin, nicole, debbie, julia, anita, lisa, jenn, montessori, marita, jeannie, hallie, mandy, kangaroo, andrea, joey, carmen, teena, stephinie, gidget, elizabeth, emma, rosina, saminda, melissa, katie, becca, atouria, barbara, ariella, missy, elizabeth, sarah, eileen, lisa, stacy, jennifer, tulsileaf, lisa C, morticia, angela, rana, jamie, lisa c, luz, charley, heather, valerie, kirsten, rachel, annie, kendra, beth s, lindsey, michelle, megan, renee

Granny Square Baby Blanket & Crocheted Flower Tutorial

All this talk about crocheting 'granny squares' got my mom digging out her old crocheted blankets *grin*. This one she made for my sister and I when we were babies.

Here is a close up of one of the squares with its cute little flower. She stitched each of the leaves around the little flowers after she assembled all of the squares and don't you just love the edging?! It's called the 'popcorn' stitch :)

It's a little yellow with age as it is er, ahem... well let's just say older *grin*, but still in fabulous condition otherwise. It actually has a crocheted backing fashioned into a pocket because it used to have a mini down duvet inside of it and was used for our crib blanket :) I just love treasures like this!

I've had a couple of people ask me how I made my little flower centers in the granny squares from my previous entry and I found a great video tutorial on how to make one that is very similar :) She does a really great job of explaining all of the steps very clearly so I hope that you enjoy watching it and creating some crocheted flowers of your own :)

~ Rosina

The Seed

This is the neatest video. If you've got 2 minutes you should check it out! It's a fun take on the life cycle of an apple seed using really cool stop motion paper animation along with drawn animation. I would love to learn how to do this :)
~ Rosina

The Seed from Johnny Kelly on Vimeo.