On a recent walk with my hubby – alone (do you know how precious a nature walk alone with my husband is?? ) – we came across some beautiful, blooming milkweed.

I’ve known for quite some time that monarch butterflies and caterpillars can be found on milkweed, so I took a peek.  Instead of finding monarchs, I found these.

Actually, I found hundreds of them!  Talk about a munching crew of caterpillars – they had at least half the leaves from the entire cluster of plants eaten away.

From the looks of the caterpillar, I was just sure it would turn into a magnificently colored butterfly.  After doing some online research, it was hard to believe the Milkweed Tussock caterpillar would turn into such a dull moth.

Activity Idea: The following day, I sent my children out with a treasure map of sorts to locate and photograph the milkweed plant and the caterpillars.  Once they came back with photos to prove they found the treasure, I gave them some chocolate treasure as a treat.

Later in the week, I came across this caterpillar on the leaf of a tomato plant.

My husband grew up calling these tobacco worms because they could always be found in the tobacco fields.  After some research, I found them to be called Tomato Hornworms – because of the innocent stinger-like horn found on the back end.  Tomatoes and tobacco are both in the nightshade family, which is why these caterpillars can often be found on both plants.

At first, I assumed the white objects on the caterpillar’s back must be its eggs.  Boy was I wrong – these are parasites!  More specifically, cocoons of braconid wasps.  From the perspective of a gardener, the parasites are a GOOD thing because they destroy the hornworm.  Wow, the things you learn when you take a little time to research nature finds!

Now is the perfect time to take advantage of the Butterflies Flutter By NaturExplorers study!

Thanks to everyone who entered the Incredible Creeks giveaway! Becky Lee is our lucky winner.  Congratulations, Becky!  We wish you many wonderful moments with your family at the creek!

If you thought our other NaturExplorers studies were chock-full, just wait until you see this one! Incredible Creeks is our biggest unit to date with so many ideas and activities that you might just decide to camp beside the creek and keep studying for weeks!

Of course, we can’t possibly release a new unit without a giveaway!  You have until this Friday (July 23) at midnight to leave a comment here for a chance to win your own e-book copy of Incredible Creeks. We’ll announce the winner on Saturday morning.  Good luck!

And just a little reminder:

Our spring and summer sale will only go through the end of August, and then the prices go back to normal.  (Yes, you CAN get Incredible Creeks for the $9.00 sale price!)  In September, we hope to begin offering volume discounting, so keep your eyes open!

Thanks for being awesome encouragers!

We’d love to hear how your summer nature studies are going. We always get inspired to hear stories of how you are getting outside with your children and enjoying God’s creation!

I’ll be teaching a workshop about Charlotte Mason & Nature Study and would love for you to attend.  You’ll come away with oodles of practical ideas and be ready to hit the trails this summer with your children!

Your entire family can join CHEK for $25.00 and get into the conference for FREE!!  Andrew Pudewa, Mark Hamby, Amanda Bennett, Cindy Wiggers and others will be speaking, too!

Also, be sure to stop by the Mom-to-Mom room for encouragement and advice from several seasoned homeschool moms.  I’ll be helping out for an hour or two each day and would love to meet you!

Those of you who read my personal blog, Our Journey Westward, may remember my post about killdeer eggs found in our vegetable garden last year.  Well, this is another year with another nest of killdeer eggs.  It’s amazing to compare the pictures and how similarly the nest is made and the eggs are placed!

Never fear, another giveaway is just around the corner because…

Melissa and I are busy writing the newest NaturExplorers unit Incredible Creeks which has put me in the mood for plenty of creek-side nature walks.  (Like I really had to be put in the mood!)

This walk was taken about two weeks after a very serious flood on our farm.  Much of the creek bed is still muddy, but dry again as it’s only full during bouts of heavy rain.  You’ll notice some photos of water.  These are small spring-fed pools that stay wet year-round.

It's very typical to find moss on the rocks since the bank is dark and damp, but the dark slime mold was caused by the flood.

These are obviously eggs of some sort, but I'm hoping Melissa will pop in here to help me identify the critter they belong to.

Popping in here to say that I’m taking a good guess that they are some type of salamander eggs!  BUT, it could also be mudpuppy eggs.  Frogs lay in masses, toads lay in strings, many species of salamanders and mudpuppies lay individually on rocks. ~ Melissa

Tadpoles!

"Come here, little guys, I won't hurt you." (The tadpoles didn't trust his chubby three-year-old hands either.)

Wild multi-flora roses were blooming everywhere.

Wild strawberries even survived the flood. We measured the water line on the trees at about 10 feet! Remains of mud were everywhere, even after several cleansing rains.

Erect Skullcap grew all along the creek bank.

Rough-fruited Cinquefoil was a new find for us!

Those of you who live in Kentucky and surrounding states will find KY Wildflowers to be a tremendous help in identifying wildflowers.  I hope others will comment about their favorite regional wildflower identification websites, too!

We’ll let you know as soon as the Incredible Creeks study is released.  Until then, enjoy one of our other units such as Wonderful Wildflowers or Peaceful Ponds. Happy nature hunting!

While spring seems to be the rainiest season for many people in the United States, rain is ever-constant throughout the year all over the world – and a perfect choice for nature study!  Click on the graphic above to learn more about Remarkable Rain.

In other news, we’re planning the re-release of the final three original NaturExplorers units – Hard as a Rock, Flying Creatures of the Night, and Spectacular Spiders – throughout the month of June.  Several of you have asked about these units which recently disappeared, so we wanted to keep you posted that they will be back and better than ever very soon!

Also, keep your eyes open in July (or maybe August) for another brand spankin’ new unit called Incredible Creeks!  We are very excited about this one since creeks are near and dear to both our hearts.

Giveaway…

Now, you know we can’t release a new unit without some sort of giveaway, right?  We’re going to make this one a little harder on you because we’d like to get it in your hands asap.  You only have through the Memorial Day weekend (until midnight on Monday, May 31st) to post a comment here.  We’ll choose one person to win a copy of Remarkable Rain bright and early Tuesday morning.

We’re so excited about the beautiful spring weather and all the nature study opportunities surrounding us, we’ve decided to host a HUGE sale in hopes to encourage you to get outside with your children!  Get any of our NaturExplorers units for only $9.00 each – that’s a $3.00 savings per unit!

And since some of you are neighbors in the southern hemisphere, we’re offering the sale price on ALL NaturExplorers units, including the winter studies!

Click on the graphic above to see all the available products.

The companies are chosen based on your votes!  If you’ve found Shining Dawn Books to be worthy in any of the many categories, we would certainly appreciate your vote.

Click on the graphic or any of the links to vote for your favorite homeschooling businesses.

Thank you to everyone who entered!  We’ve been excited to meet some new friends through the contest and hope each one of you have a blessed nature study this spring.