A Visit with the Naturalist--Part One

or What's this bone?

This winter while doing Second Looks, I found several bones in the lower part of my yard. They held a great fascination for me as I tried to guess what animal they came from. Recently I visited with Lynn, a naturalist at a local park, to see if she could give me any clues about what I was finding. While much of what she told me may be old hat to the biologists and naturalists out there, I found it all very interesting.

Since I've been finding mostly jaw bones (mandibles), she focused on teeth. Apparently herbivores have a space between their front incisors and their back grinding teeth, and omnivores and carnivores have a continuous set of teeth from front to back. There are variatons on this theme, but it holds true in most all cases. Next, she looked at size and shape, and then considered where the bone was found. With all of these considerations, Lynn then gave me her best guess as to what I had.

Below I've tried to represent what I learned about my collection. The information is not absolute, so kids, don't use this a reference for your school report. :)

 

We were all sure that this belonged to a deer.

The striations on this bone probably came from mice chewing on it to get calcium.

Notice the eye sockets are large and to the side. This is typical of a prey animal that must always be on the lookout.

This is the same skull as above turned over.

The large front gnawing teeth are missing.

Note the relative sizes of the deer, raccoon, young groundhog, and squirrel bones.

There, wasn't that interesting? (if you're into this kind of thing.)

Thankful Sunday--March 3, 2013

I am thankful for taxes.

Actually, I am thankful that Ward and I are both employed so that we need to pay taxes. 

(Ward may have a few more words to add about how complicated the tax system is and maybe a flat tax is the way to go, but we'll save that for another day.)

Food Waste Friday and True Food Confessions--Mar. 1, 2013

It's time for Food Waste Friday, when the Frugalgirl encourages us to post pictures from the previous week of wasted food from our household. This accountability hopefully will help us to be more careful with our food and maybe save some money. Also, I am using this public forum to encourage us to eat out less which includes better meal planning. You can follow how we are doing in this endeavor by reading True Food Confessions.

This Week's Food Waste

I had lettuce that got limp and slimy before I got to it this week. I looked at it for a couple of days and thought that I should make a salad because the lettuce might be getting old. And guess what? While I was watching it, some of it did get old. So out it went. 

 

This Week's True Food Confessions

We had take out pizza again this week and thoroughly enjoyed it. Otherwise, we cooked at home as I tried to use up ingredients we had on hand. We had soups, casseroles, and some baked chicken and sweet potatoes. Even though we've been doing this for a while, Ward continues to be amazed when we don't ask him to pick up something on his way home from work. Mostly, everyone is happy with the new way of doing things, but they do wish that we ate out more often.

The new recipe this week was inspired by Lili at Creative Savv. She posted a recipe for "meat" balls made from beans. She then used her "meat" balls in a meat ball sandwich. That seemed like a good idea to me. However, when I say a new recipe this week, what I really mean is a new inspiration because I didn't follow her recipe at all. I decided that we weren't ready to have no meat in our meat balls, so I mixed a can of mashed black beans with a pound of extra lean ground beef. I also added some spinach to sneak in a vegetable along with the standards of bread crumbs and eggs. I seasoned with a little of this and that that needed to be used up from the fridge. We then made meatball subs from them with pasta sauce and cheese. 

The results? Everyone definitely enjoyed their meatball sub. However, the meatballs by themselves took a little getting used to. Even though there was an equal amount of meat to the beans, the texture caused problems for a couple of us. I think it may take a couple of more times making them for us to get used to the beany meatballs. 


What's in store for next week? I have no idea, but it's time to start thinking about it.
 
Until next time...


 

A Second Look--February 27, 2013

Right now it's 36° F, with a strong wind driving rain into the windows. I'm glad that I did my exploring earlier in the week because I really don't want to go outside right now. As I did my Second Look, I found that I am focusing more on animals than plants, which I guess is no surprise since most of the plants are still dormant. However, I did find another clump of snowdrops I didn't know about. A pleasant surprise. 

Also, I found more bones this week. Ward and I visited a local park last weekend and talked to the naturalist about some of the bones we've been finding. She gave us some good information to help narrow down what animals we may be dealing with. I found it all very interesting and will share some of her wisdom with you in another post. 


Here's What I Found This Week During a Second Look.

Carolina wren

Acorn caps

Deer hoof prints

Snowdrops

Leaves we didn't get raked last fall.

Red-bellied woodpecker

Mammal jaw bone

Crow vertebrae

Park where Ward and I met with the naturalist.

Boys vs. Girls--The Stuffed Animals

Before I had kids, I thought that each child was an individual, and didn't believe much in gender stereotypes in children. Little boys ran and jumped a lot because that's the kind of games they were taught. Little girls played with dolls because that was the kind of toys they were given. I thought that if all kids, regardless of gender, were exposed to the same things, they would have the same tendencies. Then I spent some time in the real world of kids and figured out that I was wrong. Possibly there were some differences between boys and girls. From time to time, I'm going to share some of my experiences that led me to this conclusion. However, so as to not bias you, I'm going to let you guess, who are the boys in the stories and who are the girls.  Today's Story I was working with a new person at work and he invited us over for dinner. He wanted me to meet his wife and little girl, Lily, who was the same age as Wally at the time. They were both just under two years old. Wally and Lily hit it off, and we parents had a good time watching as they toddled around with each other. Coincidentally, both Wally and Lilly were attached to a stuffed animal at the time that they carried everywhere. However, the way they carried them was quite different. One of them, carried it by the arm, swung it around, and drug it on the ground. The other one cuddled it in their arms and cooed quietly to it. You choose. Which was the boy and which was the girl?Disclaimer: Of course, we all know that each person is a unique individual with a special set of traits that makes them who they are. No one is “all boy” just as no one is “all girl.”