I've been busy with life lately so I've not been doing a lot of writing on any of my sites! As soon as things settle, we'll be back to our nature hiking and nature studies. But I did come up with a Skywatch Friday post!

Last week, we made our annual visit to Walt Disney World where a beautiful shot was just handed to me, so to speak. We were entering into Fantasyland from Liberty Square. I happened to look up as we were passing Cinderella's Castle. That is where I found my shot.

Saturday we attended the annual Chili Cook-off in Deland, Florida.  We have attended this event every year for about 5 years now. It's a wonderful event with live music, beer, a kids' activity section and, of course, lots of chili!

Today we visited the nation's oldest city, St. Augustine, FL. I know we were just there in March but if I were to go there a million times, I would never see all there is to see or learn all there is to learn. I have loved that city since I first visited in 1994! We have finally been seeing a peek into Florida Fall and the breezes were beckoning me to St. Augustine. 

A few days ago, I mentioned on the White Ibis study that something else had caught our attention that day. We had gone out for a bird study but been distracted by another creature.

While we were attracting the ducks (and Ibis) to us that day, many turtles came up to shore. I saw this odd looking creature but when about my business for the moment. Alexis then noticed it and we tried and tried to get a good shot of it so that we could figure out what it was. In the end, we determined it was some sort of turtle that we had never seen.

 Today's nature study was at a farm owned by my friend, Robin. My girls have, of course, been to this farm many times and have ridden these horses. Still, they're kids and the farm is always an exciting trip for them.

The girls spent much time viewing, petting and feeding the horses. With our studies this season, we are comparing and contrasting. So we discussed ways the dog and horse are the same and different. Later, we'll fill out Venn Diagrams with this information. Lorelai did start on her notebooking page but then they quickly headed for the beach with their sister. They will also be completing a coloring page as well as their notebooking page on the horse.

 Our nature study for yesterday was planned a study of Geese. Unfortunately, there were no geese at the duck pond yesterday. We quickly opted for studying the Duck but that's changed now too. Also, Alexis and I found ourselves distracted by a completely different creature. That other creature will be a topic for another post. Our attention was absorbed, somewhat, by trying to figure out what that other critter was.. but this post is about birds.

Originally, this post was to be written about our wonderful trail hike through Bulow Creek State Park and the beautiful live oaks. But since the trip was neither wonderful, nor did we complete the hike, it is now about bugs. Why? Because our entire day was spent fighting off Lone Star Ticks. 

I have never, in 42 years of living, seen so many ticks in one day!

Every few seconds, I had to pull a crawling tick off of my pants or off of a child's legs. Yes..summer has arrived in Florida.  I posted a note about this on Facebook which led to a conversation about Florida bugs..and here I am.

Yesterday, I told you about the history aspect of our nature hike. Today I share with you the nature study aspect of our hike. This park afforded us the opportunity to see butterflies, a wide variety of trees, animal tracks, sea life and more. Here is a sampling of the photos we took.

Today, we visited Tomoka State Park. This turned out to be such an interesting place! On our lunch break, I noted that we probably couldn't see all there was to see in a single day. It simply isn't possible. I do believe we'll make repeated trips in order to really explore all we can (whatever that means!).

While today would have been a perfect day for canoeing, our goal was an any-weather hike, discovering nature and history. The hike is a half-mile trail which winds its way through the oak hammocks that were once inhabited by Timucuan (TI-moo-kwan) Indians.  (For those who are unaware, a  hardwood hammock is a "dense stand of broad-leafed trees that grow on a natural rise of only a few inches in elevation". They occur on patches of limestone, sand, and shell at elevations that usually do not flood.)

This weekend, we traveled from Florida's east coast to the west coast. On Saturday we attended the Florida Strawberry Festival in Plant City, FL. While it does have it's educational aspects, I'll admit the focus is mostly on the midway. Who doesn't like a fair?  But on to the forest...

I've let this blog sit idle for quite a while. I've been so busy with other things in my life that I've given little thought to updating it.  However, I am in the process of making some changes to our homeschool and one of those changes is our nature studies.