Horseshoe Crabs, and A Baby Turtle Egg

Today, we headed off to Cedar Key, with our Earth Kids group, to hunt for seashells. We got there just as high tide was beginning so finding seashells was a bit tricky. However, we did get to dig for some and found some. Cedar Key is not one of my favorite places to swim on the Gulf, the water is not clear and I can not see what is in there. Caitlin didn't mind though. The Horseshoe Crabs were mating and nesting. This means while they are mating the male is fertilizing the eggs that the the female was dropping into the sand below her. What I did not realize is that they do this right along the shoreline. They lay up to 120,00 eggs at a time, really! Unfortunately birds eat most of the eggs before they mature. Well duh why don't they bury them in further? I don't know either. Anyway according to the sign posted, they do this until July 1st so they don't all do it at the same time like Sea Turtles do. We saw like 15 Horseshoe Crabs, but they were not all mating. When I got home I just had to look up when the eggs will hatch, so hopefully we can catch it. Of course it has to do with moon and tide cycles, but in about two weeks they will be ready. Of course that doesn't mean anything, they can actually wait months to hatch. Ugh how am I supposed to witness a miraculous event on such a weird schedule? Then we found what appears to be a turtle egg that someone stepped on or something stepped on it. It was open and obviously not viable anymore. At first we thought it was a baby bird, but when I cleaned it off in the water it actually appeared to be a baby turtle. I brought it home so we can look at it under the microscope. Neat huh? Anyway back to the Horseshoe Crabs, which btw are not really crabs. Their eggs are so tiny that one picture I looked at showed like 15 eggs on the end of someone's finger. They are teeny tiny. I hope to get to witness the event of them hatching, but I am not optimistic. Cedar Key is about an hour from my house and well you know what that means.  Oh and that barb thing they have it is not dangerous.  We didn't know that either.  It looks dangerous.  The kids had a ball and we ended up learning about stuff we didn't even mean to. Love it! To learn more about Horseshoe Crabs and see their eggs visit the two links shown.  Oh and speaking of moons this weekend, with Sunday the optimal day, is the Super Moon.  I hope it stays clear so I can get some awesome shots.  Don't miss it if you are geek like me.
http://www.ceoe.udel.edu/horseshoecrab/History/lifestages.html
http://horseshoe-crabs.com/are-horseshoe-crabs-dangerous/

Nature Scavenger Hunt #3

This is our third Earth Kids Scavenger Hunt. We have one more in three weeks, then we will be moving on to other projects. The bugs will be good and ready to bite by then. Since the springs are still flooded, I am sure the mosquitoes are having a field day lying eggs. We didn't see any, but then again I don't know what they look like. It was a beautiful, warm sunny afternoon. We had a good turnout for this meeting, and the kids had a blast. They had quite a long list of items to find. They found most of them, and a few we didn't expect to find. No Pileated Woodpeckers or White Tail Deer. Unlike Manatee Springs, where the deer come right up to the springs basically, Fanning Springs they stay in the more wooded area and trails. I have never actually seen any there the times I have been there. As you can see in the photos the water is dark and murky, so we could not see any manatee either. We did see a lot of baby fish, teeny weeny baby turtles, and a couple of medium sized turtles. The springs, when they are not flooded, are so beautiful and you can see right to the bottom of the water. Maybe for the next one they will be cleared up.  The kids had to get pictures of all the items on their list. 

Happy Wednesday!

OK, well Blogger has changed yet again the way in which I upload pictures, grrrrr!!!!!! Anyway now that I have that off my chest, on to the real good stuff. Yesterday, was our first painting class, with my mom, since before the holidays. Neither one of us had the time to do it. Even though Caitlin and I still paint, DJ doesn't do much, so it is nice when we all do it. He doesn't paint, he draws,and for some reason his fish he drew managed to not get in the pictures. He drew a pretty mandarin fish. Everyone got to do their own thing yesterday. My mom painted a huge pickle jar, that she will be putting homemade dog treats in to sell at the Farmer's Market. I have been cleaning and then upcycling old salsa jars into candles. First I clean them, paint them and then add the candle. They make cute gifts and reduce waste. I am hoping they will be popular in my Etsy store. I have done two Easter theme ones. One has a brown bunny, and the other this sable colored bunny. On the opposite side of the jar is a cross with a wreath of flowers. To see all the pictures be sure to visit Melissas Jewelry and Gems. Caitlin painted a picture of her very own bunny.

Then, later in the afternoon, we had our Earth Kids meeting. This was our second nature walk, and this time we went to Manatee Springs. They were supposed to be looking for specific leaves, but unfortunately there are not a ton of them out yet. However, we did see Manatees in the spring inlet, look you will see it. And a ton of deer, which are quite smaller than the deer I am used to in NY. They blend in so well with the drab surroundings, you could easily miss them if they were not moving around. Manatee Springs is one of the more dangerous springs to swim at. There are signs everywhere that say no swimming, and swim at your own risk. Yet, people still do it. There are a lot of snakes and even some gators at this particular spring. Last year, because there are diving caves under the springs, a diver got lost and died. We don't swim there.

All in all a good week so far. And tomorrow, which is Thursday, seems to be my day to relax from here on out. The only day we don't have something planned for the rest of the school year, or at least right now, lol! Kids of course continue with their book and course work, and the third semester ends in just a few weeks. Almost over, already!  Oh the first painting is my very first attempt at an abstract painting.  I kind of like it!

Earth Kids Nature Scavenger Hunt

Tuesday, for our Earth Kids meeting, we went on our first Nature Scavenger Hunt, along the bike trail in Chiefland. We did not find everything on our list, but the items not found will be added to the next hunt which will be at the next meeting. If you want to try this with your group, or kids, these are the items that they were supposed to find: squirrel tracks, pine cone, flying bird, feather, maple leaf, bird nest, tracks of a mammalian omnivore, twigs, three pieces of litter, cat track, a berry, cardinal, pine needle, oak leaf, and a dog track. The kids can take pictures of what they can and keep a photo journal, circle what they find, or collect what they can of what they find. Since we only have one camera the kids had to share. Everyone saw flying birds, but no one remembered to get a picture, lol. Each child is sharing their photos on our Earth Kids Facebook page. On the trail we did not find a pine cone, feather, maple leaf, cat track, cardinal,dog track or pine needles. Most of these things are in my yard though, lol. We did find human tracks, and squirrel tracks though the sand is so dry it is hard to make them out in the pictures, and we only knew they were squirrel tracks because we saw the squirrel run right across. The kids really loved this activity, I kind of figured they would. We had two new members come, and next time we will be going to Manatee Springs for our Nature Hunt. We might even see a manatee, that would be superb! We are supposed to have our run/walk club today, but rain is coming, so not sure if we are going to chance it. We had two new members join that as well. If you live in the Levy county area, and would like to join either of these, let me know. You do not have to homeschool to join Earth Kids, it is a public group. The run/walk is a homeschool group, but I am sure if you could get there at the 10 time we would be glad to have you.