My Nature Journaling Club Page: 6/23/23
Category: Adventures In Unschooling
Hiking A Dry Stream Bed!
Today, we hiked the dried stream bed at Moss Wright Park in Goodlettsville, Tennessee! There were so many cool and interesting things to see! I’m so curious about the holes in these stones!
Wintertime Forest Finds
We decided to explore an entirely unknown part of our home forest today! We’ve been talking a bit of a break from traditional homeschooling and are leaning a bit on our unschooling/relaxed schooling at the moment. Little Maxwell was just getting so frustrated, overwhelmed, and downtrodden by it all and since we don’t usually do a summer vacation or many of the usual “off days” that the public school does, we figured it couldn’t hurt to give her some time. A day out in the forest was just what we needed and what luck! It was warm as could be: in the high sixties!
In January!
Not wholly unusual in our great state of Tennessee. The weather here is bonkers, yo.
Identifying Corals With NASA!!
One Month Old Now!
This Has Been My TED Talk: Children’s Bodily Autonomy
Alright so I wrote this back in October and it’s taken me this long to pay it. Why? Honestly, I was afraid of the shit talking backlash I’d get from people. Let’s all just go into this with mutual respect and understanding that we all have our own opinions and plans for childrearing, okay? Sweet. Let’s do this.
There’s this bizarre idea in our culture that children don’t have the right to be considered real people. That they shouldn’t get a say in what happens to them and that they don’t have rights over their bodies. I don’t know where that came from but it is so bizarre to me.
Like… No, my kid does not get a say in what time she goes to bed because for her age and developmental stage that is what is appropriate and what has proven for her to be best for her general well-being during the course of the day. However, even in things where she doesn’t get much of a choice, I still give her as much say in it as possible. I take her feelings and thoughts into consideration.
I let her make decisions where I’m able to because if kids aren’t given the chance to learn how to make good decisions then they never figure out how to, and then they start adulthood out with the expectation that they should be able to do these things because they are adults when nobody ever bothered to teach them how.
For example, my daughter had to change occupational therapists a few months ago from the one that she’d been seeing for many many months. Her new OT is good but my daughter just didn’t take to the change and has been very resistant to the therapies since. So much so that not much therapy gets done. After her last appointment she told me that she didn’t want to do OT anymore and I thought about it and was like, “you know, maybe you’re right. Maybe it is time to take a little bit of a break.”
Taking her thoughts, opinions, and considerations into mind instead of just saying, “no this is what’s good for you you’re going to do it whether you like it or not” allowed me to see the situation from her perspective. And from the perspective of her desperately frustrated OT.
Bless you, Autumn.
Our kids are people. We are not raising children, we are raising adults, right? We don’t want them to still be children when they go out into the world, we want them to be healthy in mind, emotion, and body as adults. But if we don’t give them those opportunities, then we fail as parents in our ultimate goal: to raise them to be established adults.
I know this has been a bit of a ramble so thanks for sitting through it with me.
This has been my TED talk.
Moss Garden Mystique
So if you’ve been following my blog for a long time you may have noticed something.
I L O V E moss. It is my favorite plant, hands down. I would rather have a pretty moss than flowers any day. 2 weeks ago I noticed that my Moss garden container had rusted through the bottom and had started to fall in so that the soil was actually falling through it onto the ground.
Rather than risk it damaging the moss garden itself, I decided to relocate it into a different container but also into my backyard instead of in the front of the house. Mostly because the only container I had for it that would be big enough was my daughter’s old kiddie pool. So I took an afternoon and moved it. It’s new container doesn’t look the nicest and because there’s actually more room now then there was before, the Moss is going to have to grow back together to cover any bare spots.
Nevertheless, it is another step on our journey. 🙂 I have several different mosses in my garden that I collected from our home forest. Several of them came from our forest school spot that we don’t get to visit much anymore since Daddy Maxwell and I got Lyme disease. The ticks out here in Tennessee are outrageous and keeping them off of you 100% is a pretty impossible feet. I’ve been too nervous to go back into the forest sadly but at least I still have my little moss garden to look at and to remind me of the beauty that can be found there.
These are some of my photos my little garden that I wanted to share with you today! Maybe it will brighten your day as well. Most of my photos are taken using a camera app called Foodie that my sister introduced me to for photographing cookies that I sell. It takes the best pictures I’ve ever taken and even has the ability to edit those pictures in the app.
Moss isn’t just pretty though, it’s pretty fascinating! Did you know that even though moss is a plant, it doesn’t have roots? That’s why you often see it attached to rocks and the sides of old stone stairs, etc. It gets its moisture and nutrients from the air and from the water that falls above it. That’s why moss is always so bright and green and lush after it rains. It’s color often tells you how much moisture it’s had. Even though it might be brown, it may not be dead, just dehydrated! Kind of like a rows of Jericho but to a much lesser degree of extreme.
This time of the year, the home school method we use for our nature school has a whole week dedicated to mosses, mushrooms, lichen, and fungi. It’s one of my favorite units!
Already my garden is filling in really nicely and the moss is settling. I also collect abandoned birds nests after their particular species has finished with them (if they don’t come back the following year) so I added two of them to the garden just for something extra.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this up close view into one of my favorite things! Maybe next time you see a little moss patch, you might stop thinking ‘bleh’ and start thinking ‘awwww’! You never know what you might come to think is adorable when you stop and take a closer look!
With peace and passion for the natural world,
Ta!
A Field Trip To The Nashville Zoo!
I know, I know! It’s taken a year and a day to get this post out! Honestly, it’s taken me this long just because this post is a long one (I took a lot of pictures!) and I just didn’t have the spoons in me to dedicate to it.
But here we are! Finally!
We visited the Nashville Zoo at grassmere at the beginning of this month had a wonderful time! If you’re planning on visiting Nashville Zoo yourself, see you the end of this post for some of my tips to help you have the best trip you can have!
I found this really interesting fungus scattered underneath a bush by one of the enclosures! It was fun getting to show it to the kids and explain what it was and how it worked! 
Run away!! 
Meerkat Rumble! 
You can actually walk through the kangaroo enclosure and even pet them if they’re on the walking path! There were several babies that we got to see! 
This ostrich is looking like it has murder in its eyes. 
I see some tiger stripes! 
This smol bean it’s called a Pudu! You can probably tell based on the number of pictures that I took of the enclosure, that it was one of my favorites! 
Guinea pigs! 
There are not words for the insane amount of bamboo in this place. 
This thing haunts my nightmares. 
This bizarre looking thing is actually the base of a cut down piece of bamboo! How wild looking is that?! 
I wanted a nap by the time we hit the flamingos too. 
I seeeeeeee you! 
The giraffes are going to be getting a new male addition to their herd! Once he finishes maturing in a year and a half or so, they’ll be able to start breeding giraffes! 
Along the walking path in the zoo, there are different animal footprints to spot! 
Here’s the elephant footprints! 
This is the rhino enclosure but unfortunately the rhinos just weren’t feeling it today. 
Snack time! 
We rode the carousel three times! 🙂 
Over by the skylift, there’s a large field where the zoo hosts events like the Boo At The Zoo during Halloween. During the off season though, it’s a great place to let the kids unwind and run amok for a little while or even have a nice picnic! 
Just watch out for the free range peacocks! XD 
Also did you know the trashcans are made from milk bottles?!
Do you see why it took me so long now?
But, as promised, here are some of my tips that I have picked up from the few trips I’ve made to the zoo at this point!
- Don’t forget the sunscreen, especially if you have little ones.
- The Nashville Zoo does allow you to bring snacks and such in so definitely don’t forget to bring some treats for your walk and maybe even think about a picnic! Zoo food can get expensive, especially if you have more than one child! 💲💲💸💸
- If you have one, take a wagon. They’re invaluable for curtailing tired and whiny small children and carrying bags.
- Take extra money for the carousel or special treats!
- Consider a season pass if you’re a person who likes to visit the zoo more than a time or two. It also gives you special perks for things like ticket costs and the carousel. 🙂
I hope you enjoyed this gigantic post on our field trip to the Nashville Zoo! Please like and consider following for more posts to come!
With Peace and Passion,
Ta!
The Heartlake Herald: A Doggy Dog Sanctuary Comes To Town!
Today, readers, here in our bustling Heartlake City, it is an especially auspicious day! Today, we welcome the Snuggly Barker Shack to our Fair City!
The Snuggly Barker Shack is a non-profit organization that gives dogs who are deemed unadoptable based on medical conditions a sanctuary where they can live out their best years in a place where they are given appropriate medical treatment as well as all of the love and care that they can handle!
Today is a very special day here at the Shack! Today is one of our pups rescue-vrsery! Only the finest snacks and treats will do and they have top of the line Pup Chef Camilla on the job!
Our very own Shack was inspired by the Old Friends Senior Dog Sanctuary, place that provides a forever home sanctuary and fosters for old and sick dogs who would otherwise be euthanized. It’s only through the contributions of kind donors like you that Old Friends can cover the costs of every day expenses and veterinary care for so many senior pups!
Please consider donating or buying merch at their website https://ofsds.org/ or:
- Checking out their upcoming DOGumentary
- Reading their book, Homecoming Tails available here
- Following them on Facebook here
- Subscribing to their YouTube channel here
- Live Cams here
- Or play the mobile app game to support the shelter and devs! Play and set up your own senior sanctuary and care for the actual Old Friends pups to learn about their stories! Here
We here at the Heartlake Lego City Herald hope that you will help to support the Old Friends Senior Dog Sanctuary in any one (or more!) of the many ways we’ve listed above.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this second edition of the Heartlake City Herald! Please join us again next week to see what’s the brick deal in our Lego city here at home! Here to give you the big connect, this has been your hostess with the mostest, signing off!
Little Witchling Waiting By The Window
Little Journeys Everywhere 