Delicate Looking Fossil Impressions

We walk Boomer around Grams and Gramps' neighborhood several times a day. Now that we know there are fossils around we keep our eye out for new discoveries. This morning, ED wanted to jump off a big, flat boulder. I leaned down to have a closer look and noticed these delicate fossil impressions. The rock face was a different consistency than rocks in which the crinoids (see the posts below) are embedded. This rock face was relatively smooth and flaked/chipped away easily. Anyway, I found these impressions amazing too and had to share more fossil pictures here.

By the way, we also did some fossil hunting south of Alice Springs where we used to live. We found a lot of brachiopods and gastropods (I think that's what the ones that look like snail shells are called): http://thehomeschoolden.blogspot.com/2009/10/fossils-that-we-found-back-in-june.html 

A Day at the Lake

We have had a wonderful time with Grams and Gramps. One afternoon we went to the lake for the day. The water was beautiful and we all enjoyed our swim.  Afterward we had a lovely time at the edge of the lake feeding the birds, turtles and fish and playing at the shady playground.

We've also thoroughly enjoyed the local attractions near Grams and Gramps.  We've been to a number of shows in the past couple weeks. We saw a magic show, a stunt dog show, a ventriloquist and more. Plus, the kids have loved the local amusement park and have had lots of fun on the rides and visiting the attractions at the park. ED especially loved petting the goats, but was scared by the guinea fowl and ran away from them saying, "Don't hurt me birdie, don't hurt me!" I guess we gave too many warnings about the Canadian geese below.

In other news, we are settling on a new house in about 10 days and will be leaving Grams and Gramps tomorrow for the long drive east.  Plus, we had an offer on the house we're selling in Colorado and things are looking promising in that regard as well.  

LD Finds a Fossil

Grams uses rocks from the area to decorate her garden. As LD was exploring and looking around he noticed a brachiopod fossil embedded in one of the rocks. The more we looked around, the more amazing fossils we found in the rocks around their house!

Well Preserved Brachiopod Fossil

We all walked up the hill from Grams and Gramps' house and looked around at the rocks in the field there. LD found an amazingly well preserved, complete brachiopod fossil! It's about two inches across. From what I can tell, this fossil and the others we found are well over 300 million years old.  I find that simply astounding.

Fossil Hunting

A few days later while we were walking around Grams and Gramps' neighborhood we saw an outcropping of rocks. Upon closer inspection, we saw that the ENTIRE rock section was covered with fossils. Most of the fossils and fossil bits are crinoids (ancient sea lilies). Many of them were loose on the ground, thousands are embedded in the rocks and they vary in size from just barely visible to as big around as our thumb and 5 inches long! We only found a few other fossils in that outcropping: a tiny little starfish and a couple brachiopods.

You can find out more about crinoid fossils by viewing this power point presentation.

And more fossil hunting!

Above you can see a brachiopod embedded in the rock along with lots of crinoid pieces.

Look how long this crinoid stem is!



















We brought a fossil book out with us and LD spent along time reading through the book and comparing our finds to the illustrations and photos in the book. That's learning at its best, right?!

Ancient Sea Life

When we were at the La Brea Tar Pits in California last month, I took this photo of a painting depicting ancient sea life. In the painting you can see crinoids (sea lilies) in the background, trilobites (towards the bottom of the painting), ammonites (which look like snail shells) and more.

Free Montessori Downloads

I was browsing through Montessori Spanish's blog this morning and she shared a wonderful resource:
Goldmark Montessori. This Montessori teacher has shared some of the cards and activities that she has made for her classroom.

I checked it out and was impressed by her 3-part nocturnal animal cards.

I can't wait to move to a new home and resume the regular routine of homeschooling.  We're still in limbo (we're staying with Grams and Gramps), but have an offer on a house and have our stuff arriving from Australia in a few weeks.  Gulp!  Hopefully all the pieces fall into place and we settle into a new home by August!

Wildflowers: Chickory

More or less as long as I can remember, I've loved being outdoors and exploring nature. As a youngster, I used to take my miniature poodle and go for long walks along the trails of the local park (there was a pond, a stream and rumors that an "electric eel" lived in the water hole!!). Later I became a camp counselor, hiked sections of the Appalachian trail with friends, did wilderness training courses and was an outdoor ed instructor for teenagers. Of course that love of nature never left me as you can see scrolling through the "Where we Live" (now past tense!) pictures of central Australia.

But now... now we're home. Back to the familiar plants and animals of America. I'm loving it and am thrilled to be introducing all this to the kids more or less for the first time! I mentioned before that this week we've seen squirrels, skunks, a fox,a ground hog and lots of deer. These are all "exotic" animals to my kids at the moment. How neat! I've also really loved being around the summer wildflowers again and pointing them out to the kids. And just because flowers are so beautiful, I'll share some of them here starting with the chickory.

Wildflowers: Yellow Coneflower and Black-Eyed Susan

I'm not a flower expert, but I think the yellow wildflowers that we've seen abundantly all around at the sides of the roads (the top two pictures below) are not Black-Eyed Susans, but Yellow Coneflowers. I think the third picture below is a Black-Eyed Susan (it's growing in Grams' garden). If you know a lot about wildflowers, I'd love to hear what you think!!

Wildflowers: Blue Vervain

Wildflowers: Daisy Fleabane

Wildflowers: Queen Anne's Lace

Wildflowers: Tall Thistle

A Butterfly on Grams' Butterfly Bush

Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs

We enjoyed a visit with Auntie W, Uncle J and Cousin R to the beautiful Garden of the Gods. Auntie W. got a kick out of LD, who did hand stands continually along the path (middle picture).

Always Helpful!

This box held the doll house my Grandfather made for my Mom when she was a little girl.  Once we removed the doll house (to pack into the trailer we'll be bringing east), the kids jumped right in and played!

Farm Visit

As I mentioned before, we had a lovely time with our cousins. One of the things we did while we were with them in California was to go to a working farm. The kids got to feed animals and pick their own strawberries. The farm also had a mine set up and LD and Cousin B thoroughly enjoyed panning through a bag of rocks for gems. Hours later, LD could barely be torn away from the mining station to go!

La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles

We spent time at the LaBrea Tar Pits in California. We saw fossils of some of the ancient American mammals, got to look into the fish-bowl science lab and watch scientists clean and sort small fossil pieces.

On the Road...

We've now been on the road for more than a month. I have a few minutes on my own and thought I'd take the opportunity to write a brief update.  Not much to report on the homeschooling front, but life in general has been full to overflowing!!

Our first stop after leaving Alice Springs/Sydney was California.  We spent two weeks there and enjoyed time at Legoland, the La Brea Tar Pits and Disneyland.  The kids loved absolutely loved spending time with their cousins B and Z, who are sandwiched in age between our three.  Auntie G and Uncle S have a beautiful new home and they have these amazing hiking trails that take them up into the mountains about a block from their house! 

Next, we were off to Colorado.  We flew in, tucked up our shirt sleeves and got to work on the house here. Recently Auntie W, Uncle J and little Cousin R bought a new house about a mile from here (they were living in our house while we were overseas), so we're getting ready to put our house on the market.  Grams and Gramps did an amazing job painting the house here, cleaning windows, appliances and all that before we arrived. [Thank you! Thank you!!] 

Pretty much as soon as we arrived in CO, we researched and bought a truck/crossover so we'd have a means of getting around.  I started to tackle the stuff I've had in storage in the basement here for over a decade!!  Lots of things went to Goodwill, the used bookstore and the dump. But still, there's a lot we'll haul across the country as both my Mom and my Grandpa (my Mom's Dad) died while we were overseas, so I have heirloom things to bring with us in addition to everything else.

Meanwhile, hubby spent tons of time setting up appointments for handmen to come to do things like fix the concrete, replace boards on the deck,  sand down the deck, stretch the carpeting, fix the garage door, put in new linoleum, etc.  All things that we need to get done while we're here in Colorado.

Five days after arriving in Colorado, hubby and I took ED with us to fly across the country and house hunt.  We left LD and DD with Grams and Gramps and Auntie W and Uncle J.  Hubby, ED and I spent very full days looking at houses. We came up with four that we'd be happy in. We placed a bid on a nice place, but the owners seem to have a lot of drama going on behind the scenes and are coming back with weird counter offers (like suddenly insisting on all the window treatments (blinds, curtains), all appliances and the three chandeliers).  That doesn't sound particularly out of line when I write it, but it was more the way it was done. Even their Realtor said she would lower her commission if the owners took our offer!!  We took that as a bad sign!  We're hesitant to go with that house so we're now looking at another option.   We have a bid in now (on this other house) and are in constant contact with our wonderful Realtor.  Keep your fingers crossed for us!

After six days on the east coast, we returned to Colorado and bought a 6X14 trailer to haul behind the crossover. We used it to move some heavy furniture that Auntie W and Uncle J hadn't had a chance to move to their new place.  Then, we loaded my furniture, boxes of books, etc. etc. into the trailer to take with us.  We will spend the next few days finishing up the work that needs to be done around here (cleaning windows, counter tops, bathrooms and things like that).

I should mention that the day after we returned from house hunting we went to a post-wedding party of hubby's second cousins.  It was a wonderful opportunity to catch up with Grams'/hubby's extended family!  Everyone admired the kids and LD was THRILLED because in the alley behind the house he found lots of obsidian rocks in the dirt.  He and the girls spent over an hour looking for obsidian.  (Much better than having to hang out with the ole fuddy-duddies, right?!!)

We're hoping to have everything set so we can start our 1,800 mile trek across the country with the three kids, dog and full trailer early next week.  That feels like the easy part (compared to buying a car, buying a house, packing/sorting, and putting a house on the market these past two and a half weeks)!!

We're hopeful we'll be able to start settling into a new place in about 6 or 8 weeks.  But, that might be a bit ambitious.  We'll see!!  What an adventure - this overseas move!!

Thanks for reading!