Mimi's Summer Day Camp, Day Fifteen --- Butterflies

August 10, 2017

We're at the zoo! And it's VERY hot!  I'm glad we came early.  

 Our first stop was at the Butterfly house.  

 Lots of different butterflies and feeders.  You really have to watch where you walk in there, or you could walk on one! 

 Outside there are some HUGE bug statues - a butterfly and a caterpillar! We also found some grasshoppers down the lane.

 We went through the snake house and the aquarium, too!

 Time out for a slushie! Did I mention it was hot!?

Honestly, the zoo needs to relocate this metal hippo statue - that thing is so hot in this Texas sun, I'm sure plenty of little ones get burned hands climbing on it.  There's a sign on it, but how many little kids can read it?

 We found the carousel - this was Joss's favorite thing.  She loved it! She chose the hyena to ride, and KT was on a dragon.

 I had to ride with Joss since John's not big on going around and around, and I didn't want to see him throw up at the zoo! ha!

The girls spent some time in the petting zoo - the animals were too hot to even move.  I don't blame them! 

 KT is a ladybug!

It was just so hot, so we left at about 1pm to go get lunch at McDonalds.  The girls got to play in their playground for a bit while John and I relaxed.

Then it was home for our daily swim.

 We had a little time after swimming, so we did some chalk art on the pavilion!  These turned out so cute!  I love my little butterflies!

Next week we're studying weather. See you then!

Mimi's Summer Day Camp, Day Fourteen --- Butterflies

August 8, 2017

This week we're learning all about butterflies! The girls started camp today by working on a page that demonstrated the four different stages of the life of a butterfly. We talked about the eggs (we glued rice on a picture of a leaf) that are laid on a leaf, then the caterpillar (spiral noodles) that hatches and eats the leaves, and then the chrysalis (a shell noodle) bursting into a butterfly (a butterfly sticker)!

We watched a little video on YouTube of this process as they were working on their worksheets. 

Up next we created butterfly feeders for the yard.  I got two plastic round trays from the Dollar Store, and John and KT went out to drill three holes in each on on the edges.  Then we tied these and strung colorful wooden beads on the strings and tied them together at the top.  John got each of them a carabiner to hand from the trees.  

 Silly girls!

Then we cut up some fruit real thin and laid it on the trays.  The girls then mixed up a thin syrup of sugar and water, and colored it. Then we went outside to hang them up and they poured the syrup in once they were up.

We'll have the best fed butterflies around!
Then we were off for our weekly trip to the library.

After lunch we made hair wreaths with ribbon, silk flowers, paper butterflies and any other little baubles that we could find.  They turned out very pretty!

 Of course, Joss wanted all yellow!

 KT made hers all by herself, even the hot glue!

After our swim (I didn't take any pictures!) we did some face painting - one of KT's favorite things to do in the world!  She does her own painting with a mirror, but I did Joss's butterfly.

Pink bunny

Joss was so tired, she fell asleep in my chair before we left for home!

On Thursday we're going to the San Antonio Zoo to see the Butterfly House, and of course all the other animals!

Final Tally for Fruit Spring/Summer 2017

We had a pretty good year with the peaches, and have added several more varieties this spring.  The new trees and bushes are listed here along with the established plants.

Bad year for elderberries - we may have pruned them too severely last fall. Ditto for the blackberries. Just a poor year for them.

Still no apples. We planted these two trees in December of 2012, so they've been in the ground for 4 full years, so I'm pretty discouraged by them.  Thankfully they are pretty trees, so they'll stay for shade anyway. Sigh...

Fire Ant Ranch Fruit
Type	Variety	Pounds	Ounces
Peach	Rio Grande (4)	59	1	0.4
Peach	Loring
Peach	Red Skin
Peach	Sam Houston
Peach	LaFeliciana
Peach	TexStar (2)	0	1	0.7
Apple	Gala
Apple	Pink Lady
Nectarine	Suncoast (2)
Plum	Methley	1	6	0.6
Plum	Gulf Beauty (2)
Plum	Santa Rosa (2)
Elderberries	York/Adams	0	13	0.9
Blackberries	Chester Thornless (1)	0	6	0.3
Blackberries	Aztec Thornless (5)
Blackberries	Sweetie Pie Thornless (3)
Blackberries	Arapaho Thornless (2)
Raspberries	Black (3)
Raspberries	Glencoe Thornless (2)
Fig	Brown Turkey
Mulberry	Dwarf Everbearing (2)	1	1	0.8
Mulberry	Russian (2)
Pear	Orient
Pear	Warren
Pecans	Choctaw (2)
Pecans	Pawnee
Pecans	Kiowa
Grapes	Various
	Total Fruit	62	9	0.7

Final Tally for Vegetable Garden Spring/Summer 2017

Putting the Spring/Summer garden to bed and getting ready for the fall. I love a clean slate, although I'm going to try to extend the tomatoes and pepper plants into the fall.  We had a successful garden this year.  

Type	Name	Pounds	Ounces
Beans, Green	Jade	7	6	0.1
Beans, Green	Red Swan	2	11	0.1
Beans, Green	Calima	7	3	0.1
Beans, Green	Gold Crop	6	3	0.2
Beans, Green, Climb	Fortex (2)	1	9	0.3
Beans, Green, Climb	Purple Podded	0	14	0.8
Beans, Green, Climb	Red Noodle Yard Long	1	14	0.1
Beans, Green, Climb	Asparagus Yard Long	0	5	0.2
					Total Beans	28	1	0.9
Beets	Chioggia	3	14	0.9
Beets	Cylindra	4	12	0.0
Beets	Detroit Dark Red, Morse's	2	2	0.4
Beet Greens	Mixed	0	1	0.4
					Total Beets	10	8	0.7
Broccoli	Green Goliath	0	13	0.6
Cabbage	Cabbage Mix	4	15	0.9
Carrots	Dragon (purple)
Carrots	St. Valery	Combined Total
Carrots	Tendersweet
Carrots	Sugar Snax	11	2	0.5
					Total Carrots	11	2	0.5
Celery	Utah Tall	3	6	0.0
Cowpeas	Queen Anne	2	6	0.3
Cucumber	Burpless F1 Hybrid	46	11	0.7
Garden berries	Huckleberry	6	7	0.7
Garden berries	Aunt Molly's Gard. Cherry	3	12	0.8
Kale	Nero di'Toscana	1	4	0.3
Kale	Siber Frill	2	1	0.9
Kale	Blue Curled Scotch	0	1	0.5
Kale	Lacinato	0	7	0.8
					Total Kale	3	15	0.5
Lettuce	Valmaine	0	1	0.1
Lettuce	Winter Density	1	1	0.4
Lettuce	Baby Oakleaf	1	3	0.2
Lettuce	Crisphead	0	7	0.6
					Total Lettuce	2	12	1.3
Okra	Jambalaya	2	8	0.9
Okra	Hill Country Red	8	6	0.6
					Total Okra	10	15	0.5
Onion	Red	2	8	0.3
Onion	White Grano	7	8	0.0
Onion	Yellow	1	0	0.5
Pak Choy	Extra Dwarf (2)	0	3	0.5
Pepper, Hot	Jalapeno	1	15	0.3
Pepper, Hot	Aji Golden	2	3	0.6
Pepper, Hot	Aji Angelo	0	13	0.6
Pepper, Hot	Bishop's Hat	0	2	0.5	Total Hot Pep	5	0	0.2
Pepper, Sweet	Violet Sparkle	0	3	0.2
Pepper, Sweet	Surprise Green Bell	4	9	0.7
Pepper, Sweet	JR's Orange	0	1	0.2
Pepper, Sweet	King of the North	0	14	0.6
Pepper, Sweet	Yellow Bell	1	2	0.1
Pepper, Sweet	Gypsy Hybrid	11	14	0.9
Pepper, Sweet	Cubanelle	2	3	0.2
					Total Sweet Pep	21	0	0.9
Potato	Red, White and Blue	1	15	0.2
Pumpkin	Fortna White	3	15	0.5
Spinach	Regiment	6	13	0.8
Spinach	Red Kitten	5	7	0.5
					Total Spinach	12	3	0.3
Squash, Summer	Yellow Crookneck	0	14	0.4
Squash, Summer	Zephyr	1	15	0.2
Squash, Summer	Alexandria	17	6	0.4
Squash, Summer	Bennings Green Tint	13	12	0.1
					Total Summer SQ	33	9	0.1
Swiss Chard	Mixed Colors	2	0	0.0		Most of crop not weighed-fed to chickens
Swiss Chard	Sea Foam	4	6	0.8
Swiss Chard	Orange Fanstasia	0	9	0.9
					Total Chard	7	0	0.7
Tomatillo	Amarylla	5	7	0.2
Tomatillo	Purple De Milpa	1	13	0.3
					Total Tomatillo	7	4	0.5
Tomato	Speckled Roman	2	1	0.9
Tomato	Costoluto Genovese	1	2	0.1
Tomato	Blanche Du Soleil (2)	7	12	0.4
Tomato	Dagma's Perfection (2)	8	11	0.5
Tomato	Blueberries (2)	4	1	0.5
Tomato	Mikhalych	13	5	0.7
Tomato	Japanese Black Trifele (3)	17	7	0.2
Tomato	Volunteers	0	3	0.6
Tomato	Carbon	5	9	0.5
					Total Tomatoes	60	4	0.4
	Total Vegetables	301	1	0.2