Science FUNdaMENTALS

Sunday morning was a frosty memory that required the mind to wonder over past camping trips with warm coffee and early morning fires that mingle with the relaxing atmosphere that is the outdoors. Once the morning chill was removed by the late spring sun we were packed and head north for a hike. Lisa had a race, but the kids and I spent the early morning working on comparative anatomy in the forearms of animals as seemingly diverse as porpoises, bats, horses and humans. Sophia has a great deal of fun reading through my various biology books and both kids got into the ideas of feeling their bones and tendons in their arms. Merrick petered out after starting his day cheerfully but at the ridiculously early hour of 5 am, and missed out on our early morning science experiment on the kitchen floor. Sophia was wondering about the sun spot on the kitchen floor, so with a piece of tape stuck to the kitchen floor we tracked the sun/shadow movement as a function of time--she was really impressed at how fast the sun spot was moving and we had some time to pose some initial hypothesis.
With the kids dressed in their woodland gear and the peanut butter sandwiches in the backpack we headed to the Oconto forest for a hike. We hiked a new trail and found a series of small ponds, none of which held any tadpoles, and multiple areas of blossoming strawberries. The wintergreen was still conspicuous enough for Sophia to find and chew, although when offered to Merrick he just replied "No, I have gum." I was unsure if this was irony or the situation or a juxtaposition of antiquity vs. modernity at any rate, it was cute. We had a nice lunch break in a sunny area with a breeze that was enough to keep the early mosquito hatch away from our granola bars. Merrick ate his granola bars while walking often wandering off the trail to fall, each time hollering to me, "I fall down, I know stay on trail" only to be followed by him running past me on the narrow blackberry lined trails say "Here I am , I am coming, being polite." Sophia, to her credit, continued to talk about the quiteness of the woods. It was a really good trip in the woods with the kids, they had fun and we even found a new plant (the kids are knealing next to the new plant). We even found some mushrooms that I was 98% sure were morels--the 2% was enough reason to leave them in the woods rather than saute them for supper. A little botany, a little mycology.