Nature: The Original Seek and Find

I miss our fun summer afternoons! Each day, my four-year-old pulled me out the door to go check on the frogs in the nearby pond and the run-off creek from the pond. We're lucky to have the community pond just in front of our house and the little creek on the border of our place. This has opened up so much to our outdoor time--you can basically find us at the creek most afternoons! Here are a few of the many things we found:

• Frogs! Lots and lots of frogs! We typically find green frogs and bull frogs, though we have seen a Pickerel frog and a few others. So exciting and motivating to keep working to develop skills to actually be able to catch a frog!

Bonneyville Mill

We ventured out to Bonneyville Mill twice this last week. The unseasonably cool weather has been great for getting outdoors! The Mill is open from May-October Wednesday through Sunday. I always forget and end up there on Tuesdays, which is one reason why we made a return trip. Still, we had a nice trip on Tuesday, even though the Mill was closed. As a child, we lived down the road on CR 8 in Bristol, so we frequented the park. When I lived out of the area, we also usually made a trip when we came back for a visit.

Heading over to the Mill from the parking lot is a beautiful Dahlia Garden. I've met members of the Elkhart Dahlia Society who care for this. They are dedicated to this beautiful and complicated plant. 

This is a BEAUTIFUL spot for pictures! 

There are several gardens in this area. The younger crowd liked peeking behind the flowers. There is also an herb garden nearby.

The view is gorgeous, with the reflection on the pond.

While some areas are manicured, there are also very natural areas nearby. 

You can see the water flowing under the mill. Inside, you can see historical artifacts relating to the operation of the mill. It's kind of mind boggling to see how the energy of moving water could be harnessed to power the grist mill and other operations within the mill--all dating back to the 1830s.

Here, the mill worker is demonstrating the various products when grinding corn. There is corn meal, grits, the chaff, and all of it mixed together. The machines can separate the different products.

 

There were also several different types of grains--I knew most of them! We have a Nutrimill Grain Mill and grind our own grains at home for the most part. They sell the freshly ground grains at reasonable prices. I know of several families that buy their flours here. A lady bought cornmeal while we were there--she said it makes delicious breading for chicken! We had a great conversation with the miller!

There is also a quilt mural on one of the nearby buildings. 

We chose to go toward Briar Patch Shelter and stopped at a small wetland area nearby. We quickly found small frogs and noticed tadpoles swimming in the area. 

We tried catching tadpoles, but weren't very successful. My husband joined the "hunt" and caught one!

The others all came back to investigate our discoveries. We could see the small back legs on most of the tadpoles. We spent a good half hour at this spot looking for frogs and tadpoles. We'd visited this area for an amphibian presentation in the past--good place for frogs! Earlier in the spring, I put together this post with links to local frog calls. We left the amphibians in their habitat, but it was fun to see them up close for a bit!

To think, it's just a platform; however, it took us into a world of amphibians!

Later we trekked over to Briar Patch, hoping for the nearby playground. The meadow is also near the area used for sledding in the winter nearby. The shelter was rented out for a family reunion--we often have family reunions there, too. The park was fairly active on Saturday, with a wedding with the waterfall behind (which is why we didn't head in that direction), another couple getting wedding pictures, and many more families out and about. There are several pavilions to rent in the park.

The kids were disappointed to see there was no playground here anymore. We weren't aware that it was gone! 

A favorite tree was still nearby. I call it the "family" tree, as there are branches for a whole family to take pictures! We were glad to have several cousins along with us! They also had fun finding toads (and releasing them)! 

Handbook of Nature Study: Amphibian Grid

I've really enjoyed The Outdoor Hour nature study challenges that correlate with the Handbook of Nature Study. I'm sure there is ALWAYS more we could learn about the topic, but even getting in a little is more than  nothing, right? The April topic was Amphibians and Reptiles, but we definitely focused on the Amphibians. Frogs, mostly. We've had a few great frog experiences this weekend, including a presentation about frogs from our local county parks system. We also spent some time with a toad at the Arbor Day festival as well. This afternoon, we decided to do more parts of the formal grid study . . .

Earlier today I asked the following:

Me: What is an amphibian?

Son: A slimy, wet creature

Me: Where does it live?

Son: In water  

Me: OR 

Son: . . . land

We opened the laptop for resources, pulled out a book about amphibians, and went to work! As we talked about different aspects of amphibians, I was surprised at how much they remembered from the Frogs presentation earlier this week as they seemed to be playing around instead of listening.

My husband actually questioned whether they should be reading this book as it talked about the birds and the bees, or should I say frogs and toads? We were looking at one of the older versions of the
DK Eyewitness Books: Amphibian book.

Observe a tadpole. Draw the life cycle in your nature journal. 
We found a couple resources while we worked on this .  .  .
Indiana DNR Frogs and Toads Page
Maryland DNRd

Sit quietly away from a pond's edge to observe a frog. 

We did this at our Frogs! presentation earlier in the week. 

Copy a poem about a frog into your nature journal. 

We found our poem for the April Grid at Activity Village. They also have a video of the Five Speckled frog song, jokes, and more. 

The Frog

I saw a little frog, 

He was cuter than can be,

He was sitting on a log

And I'm sure he croaked at me!

Listen to a frog or toad in real life or online.  Do your best imitation. 

I told my husband I should have recorded our imitations. :-) I recently looked through all the frogs and toads that live in our area and linked to all of their calls. So, it was easy to go through their sounds after listening to what they sound like here. 

Another great journey--looking forward to next month!

Frogs!

We've been to a couple of Amphibian/Reptile shows through Elkhart County Parks, but I still always have more to learn! As we are studying amphibians through the Outdoor Hour Handbook of Nature Study Challenge, I knew we had to go!

We arrived a little late, but caught the life cycle of an amphibian and all the frogs and toads being passed around. The area around the Briar Patch shelter at Bonneyville Mill is a nice area. We often have family reunions there, so even when we didn't live in the area, we came to this spot! It is easily accessible to trails, a playground, and a water feature.

We saw lots of species, like an American Toad, spring peeper, bull frog and more! I usually go to the Indiana DNR site to find more information about the specifics of amphibians. I put together this frog and toad call list from there earlier about a month ago to put all the calls of the frogs from our area in one place. Some are rare or of special concern in the area.

This is a Spring Peeper--it's a tiny little thing.

As Courtney talked about the characteristics and calls, he shared many of his "jokes" we've heard several times. When he talked about the calls, he said the frogs were looking for girlfriends and boyfriends. All the children from Boys and Girls club started going, "Ewww!".

Cute to see such interest!

Later, we headed to the pond to release the frogs. Most of the children had the opportunity to touch and/or release at least one frog.

There was a whole bucket of them! Courtney had been collecting for a few days, trying to have a different example of all the frogs in the area.

What a face! He seemed more excited in person, just not keen on the picture!

While it was noisy and most of the frogs quickly hopped away, we were still close enough to see the frogs in their natural habitats. Sometimes,  a guided experience like this can help transition to our own explorations later.

Courtney had tried to find a wood frog for several days. One of his children caught one right before we left. This time is great to ask questions, seek clarification of the different amphibians, and discuss the frogs and toads in more depth. I learn so much from these more informal sessions, such as knowing the choral frog is done calling for the season.

This is why we came--the hands on, guided exploration time. Love seeing these guys together!