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By Mom Unplugged, August 2, 2007 1:04 pm

We just came back from a wonderful day at the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, NY. If you are in the area with (or even without) children, you MUST see this museum! This is our fourth time there. We make it an annual trip each summer when we come to my hometown in Upstate New York.

The kids had a choice: the lovely sandy beach at Sodus Point or what we call simply: “The Museum.” No question, “The Museum” was the unanimous choice. Even the baby had fun. All downstairs exhibits are “hands on” and really entertaining and educational for even the littlest visitors. Upstairs contains a fascinating display of thousands of toys arranged by vintage. Grownups will also enjoy finding the toys from their childhood, and the popular ones are all there!

This year we were able to visit the new Dancing Wings Butterfly Garden that had just opened in a new wing last summer and was too mobbed to get into then. It is the largest indoor butterfly garden in New York and was truly was amazing! Tickets are limited in number and are for a specific reserved time so as to insure that only a small number of visitors are in there at once. There were probably about ten or so in our group.

Visitors wander around the tall glass atrium-like structure through pathways carved out between the lush flowers and vegetation. Soothing music plays in the background and mist emanates from vents placed high up (to maintain the proper level of humidity). A huge variety of butterflies, large and small flit happily to and fro. Many pause to sip nectar from flowers or bird baths filled with fruit. Some also enjoy hanging off loofah-sponges that have been soaked in a divine (to a butterfly) mixture of Gatorade, honey and sugar water. They even seemed to enjoy landing for a little rest on our heads. If you are a butterfly, this is the place to be!!

There is also a window that looks into “the nursery” in which hundreds of different lucky cocoons hang suspended from rows of rods. Some cocoons are small and green, others large and brown and look exactly like curled up dry leaves. There were even shiny gilt cocoons that seemed to have been made of pure gold! If you are fortunate, you might see a beautiful creature emerge from one of these odd-looking chrysalises.

Apparently the museum purchases most of its cocoons (or perhaps larvae?) from suppliers worldwide. However, at least one species reproduces happily within the environment as evidenced by the giant green caterpillar in the last photo below.

This fascinating experience reminds me of an amazing unplugged activity for children: a Butterfly Garden kit. This kit comes with all you need to raise butterflies in your home. There is a mail-away certificate for five larvae that come in a jar complete with all the food they will need.

We did this last summer and it is truly incredible to see how quickly these little thread-sized creatures grow into long, fat caterpillars! We would check them at night before bedtime and then by the morning, they would already have visibly grown. When ready, the caterpillars cocoon hanging upside down off the lid of the cup. After a few days of seeming inactivity (I think maybe 5?), the cocoons start moving and breaking open to reveal their miraculous contents. We were fortunate enough to have all five of our larvae emerge as healthy butterflies.

Summer is the time to do this so that you can release your newly hatched butterflies into your garden. Being an animal (and insect, and any living creature) freak, I checked beforehand that the variety of butterfly that comes with the kit (The Painted Lady, vanessa cardui) was in fact native to, and could survive in my area. The Painted Lady is a tough butterfly that is common over the whole US and is even found on every continent except for Antarctica!

I must be in some sort of butterfly mode at the moment, because the other day I also picked up a wonderful book at Tuesday Morning called Garden Butterflies of North America: A Gallery of Garden Butterflies & How to Attract Them. I have to boast: I bought it for $5.99 and at Amazon the same edition is $15.56!

If you get REALLY into this butterfly thing as we did, then please see my April post entitled The Children’s Garden for more information on how to create your own backyard butterfly garden.

The “Nursery”

A very large, fat and happy caterpillar on a plant!

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By Mom Unplugged, July 20, 2007 12:33 pm

I just discovered another Backyard Wildlife Habitat slideshow made by Tiffany and her family over at Nature Mom’s Blog!

Several weeks ago, I wrote a post describing how to certify your yard as a Backyard Wildlife Habitat with the National Wildlife Federation. This can be a fun family project that can teach kids a lot about nature and make them look at their own backyard in a whole new way.

One of my readers, meeyauw made a slideshow of her property showing the different habitat elements. Meeyauw’s slideshow inspired Tiffany to create one of her yard too.

This slideshow idea seems like a lot of fun! Go visit meeyauw’s and Tiffany’s slideshows and then make one of your own. Be sure to tell me about it and I will link to it here.

Thank you both for taking this idea one very creative step farther!

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By Mom Unplugged, July 14, 2007 4:05 pm

One of my readers, Meeyauw, apparently enjoyed my post on creating a National Wildlife Federation backyard wildlife habitat enough to actually do this project with her grandson, Wingnut. (Wow, somebody was really interested in what I had to say! What a nice feeling!).

She and Wingnut created a totally wonderful slideshow (complete with great music that makes me want to dance) of their nature hike around Meeyauw’s property with cat Buddy. They photographed various habitat elements that they came across, and also took many photos of Buddy enjoying himself tremendously.

Meeyauw’s gorgeous Barton, Vermont property appears to need no adjustments for certification, and that cool sign should be on her barn in no time. Caves, natural springs, glacial boulders, trees, ferns…suffice it to say that when I die I want to be reincarnated as any form of “wildlife” whatsoever and live happily ever after on her property!

Thank you to Meeyauw and Wingnut for your great slideshow. I hope that anyone reading this will stop by Meeyauw’s blog and watch the slideshow. Maybe you’ll be inspired to try this yourself! If you do, please let me know.

By the way, check out the National Wildlife Federation’s site called Green Hour for some information and ideas for getting kids outside and into nature.

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By Mom Unplugged, July 5, 2007 11:10 am

A really neat project to get kids involved with nature (and help wildlife) is to certify your yard as a Wildlife Habitat. The National Wildlife Federation has a certification program that is fun to do with kids. So far there are over 70,000 certified backyard habitats.

You do not need a big, fancy yard to get certified. What you do need however, are four basic habitat elements: food, water, cover, and places to raise young. Click on the links to each element for examples, as well as projects for incorporating these elements into your yard.

Sit down with your kids and evaluate your yard. Decide together what you can do to make sure that the four elements are present. Create a plan and carry it out. When you are done, complete the online certification questionnaire.

If you are still lacking in any area, the website will tell you what you need to improve. If you have the basic elements, then you will get a certification number. You will also get a one-year membership to the National Wildlife Federation which includes a subscription to National Wildlife magazine. They will send you a certificate and a press-release for your local paper to help spread the word about this program. Plus, you can order ($25) a cool, weather-proof sign like mine in the photo to really let the world know about the importance of gardening for wildlife.

Here are some examples of each element from our yard:

Bird feeders are an obvious choice for FOOD. Include many different varieties of seeds (sunflower is the favorite here, but we also have millet, thistle, and cracked corn), suets, and a hummingbird feeder of sugar water. We put peanuts out for the squirrels and chipmunks too (although quite a few birds enjoy the peanuts as well). Also, diversify your feeder types. Some birds like perches, some prefer to cling, some like platform feeders like the one on the left. We also have a birdseed block on the ground for ground feeders.

Other, less obvious FOOD sources are native plants, bushes with berries, and flowers that produce dried seed heads such as these Purple Coneflowers:

If you aren’t fortunate enough to have a pond or other natural water source on your property, birdbaths are essential for providing WATER. This is one of our three bird baths. One of them is heated so water is available in the winter also. Even the squirrels drink out of them! This photo also shows a FOOD source: the Cosmos flowers around the birdbath produce nice seeds.

This birdbath is near a tree so drinking birds have an easy escape if necessary. Our birdseed block is in the foreground.

Examples of COVER in our yard:

PLACES TO RAISE YOUNG can be man made such as nest boxes or bird houses, or natural: trees, shrubs, dead trees. Even a woodpile, like our messy one above, provides great nesting opportunities for chipmunks and other small rodents.

We are fortunate enough to have this lightning damaged, partially dead tree (a “snag“) behind the house which, as you can see from the photo below, has become a bird condo! In fact there is a very noisy family of Lewis’ Woodpeckers currently nesting in one of those holes.

We hung some roosting pockets under the eaves (near a window so we could watch the action), but there have been no interested birds so far.

Here are some book suggestions to help you too. The Backyard Naturalistis a wonderful book and has helped me a lot, but you will only find it used.

This one is a great guide to native plant species in my region. Obviously, if you don’t have a high elevation western garden it won’t do for you. But check your library, bookstore, or Amazon for similar regional guides to get native plant ideas.

I don’t have this one, but I think I will order it. It looks like a really good one too, with lots of ideas for projects.

The National Wildlife Federation also has an online gardening bookstore that you might want to look at as well.

This post is part of The Sunday Garden Tour at A Wrung Sponge. Head over there to find more participants, or to add your own garden-related post. Happy Sunday!

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By Mom Unplugged, June 18, 2007 8:09 am

On International Sea Monkey Day (May 16th - mark your calender for next year) I revealed my secret fascination with the sea monkey concept. So, during one of my as-infrequent-as-possible trips to Walmart, how could I pass up the $6.00 Sea Monkey kit that I happened to see!

Despite my warnings that the “Sea Monkeys” (aka. brine shrimp) would definitely not be as cute and cuddly as the picture on the package, my kids were thrilled with this experiment.

It was really quite simple. First we had to fill the tank with tap water. Then we put in the powdery contents of packet Number 1, a water purifier, and let it sit 24 hours.

The next evening was the fun time. After insuring that the water was the recommended temperature, my daughter poured in Packet #2, the eggs! My son stirred, and voila!

The results? Well, not much that we could see. Perhaps our water was a little colder than recommended (means a longer hatching period).

By the next morning however, three almost microscopic little squiggles were visible (sort of). The children christened them Squiggles, Squirmy, and Wiggles. By that evening we had such a colony that naming them was impossible (how about Squiggles 1, Squiggles 2, Squiggles 3… Squiggles 142, etc.). Such excitement! You’d think we were hatching chickens or elephants or something.

On day 5 we gave them a bit of food from Packet #3. They seem pretty happy. I guess I don’t see why brine shrimp can’t be happy.

We have had them a week now and I must say they are growing rapidly. You can now make them out easily, and if you look closely, you can even see their little waving legs (arms? fins? cilia?). Still too small for a photo though, so I will post this dramatic closeup from Wikipedia:

Try this project with your kids. I would say that we have definitely had our $6.00 worth of fun already!

Plus, maybe they are not so cute, maybe they are not so cuddly but - they don’t yack up furballs on your new sisal rug, need a walk in the middle of the night or shed fur all over your favorite little black dress.