Who’s been spitting in the field? Stick your fingers into the frothy mass to find out!
You’ll likely discover a tiny moist creature with dark red eyes. This is the nymph (or immature form) of a spittlebug.
Spittlebugs begin their lives in fall, as their mothers lay eggs in hollow plant stems. When the temperature rises in the spring, those eggs hatch into nymphs and create their characteristic spittle, also known as cuckoo spit. Spittlebugs use their syringe-like mouthpart to tap the plant’s sap. It takes a lot of this ever-so-slightly-sweet water to satisfy a growing spittlebug’s appetite. They pump around 150-280 times their own weight every day!
Despite what their name suggests, all of the excess water is excreted not through their mouth, but through their bottom. The nymphs move their abdomens up and down, forcing air into their watery excretions and creating bubbles. The bitter-tasting foam provides a moist haven from predators and from temperature extremes. After continually renewing their frothy home for a few months, the nymphs form one large bubble and metamorphose into adult froghoppers, now able to jump 100 times their body length in a single bound!
Adult meadow spittlebug, the most common species in New England 1bumer, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Read more neat functions of insect bottoms in the book Bug Butts by Dawn Cusick.
“You could smell ripe strawberries before you saw them, the fragrance mingling with the smell of sun on damp ground. It was the smell of June, the last day of school, when we were set free, and the Strawberry Moon, ode’mini-giizis. I’d lie on my stomach in my favorite patches, watching the berries grow sweeter and bigger under the leaves. Each tiny wild berry was scarcely bigger than a raindrop, dimpled with seeds under the cap of leaves. From that vantage point I could pick only the reddest of the red, leaving the pink ones for tomorrow.” – Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
We are entering strawberry season! Here are some ideas to celebrate:
🍓Watch the full Strawberry Moon rise on the evening of Saturday, June 3.
🍓Search for tiny treasures of wild strawberries and telltale signs of rabbits, chipmunks, mice, deer, ruffed grouse and others munching on them.
“In Potawatomi, the strawberry is ode min, the heart berry. We recognize them as the leaders of the berries, the first to bear fruit. Strawberries first shaped my view of a world full of gifts simply scattered at your feet. A gift comes to you through no action of your own, free, having moved toward you without your beckoning. It is not a reward; you cannot earn it, or call it to you, or even deserve it. And yet it appears. Your only role is to be open-eyed and present.”- Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
At Killington Elementary School, the Four Winds Nature Program fits right in amongst a culture of exploring the outdoors. When speaking with volunteers Katy Forgues and Beth Sarandrea, they exchanged grins when asked about their favorite ways to spend time outside. “We laugh because we do a lot of these things together,” said Katy, “Killington is a very active community. A lot of the kids and parents get out biking and hiking…” Beth added, “Skiing and snowboarding!” Katy shared the joy of being in the woods in the early morning, hearing the ruffed grouse drumming, and feeling part of something really special. For Beth and Katy, sharing this love and appreciation for the natural world with their own children and peers is pretty much second nature.
“I love science and being involved in the classroom,” Beth shared, “and my dad was a science teacher. It’s fun to share the wonder.”
Said Katy, “I’m a scientist and former teacher. I can’t not do it!”
Both volunteers started participating with Four Winds when their kids were in kindergarten, and they’ve been able to see the progression of learning as they entered the third and fifth grades. Katy shared about teaching the Galls Galore unit in her daughter’s third grade class. “I love the perception of the younger kids, how they get into their imagination and run with it.” And the learning sticks. Katy received a text from a fellow parent and friend saying that her son had come home with “something” [a gall]. He told her there might be a wasp inside and that he wanted to keep it until it hatched out!
“Kids are really interested in these secret worlds, small things – like galls, or digging in the dirt, getting nitty gritty,” Katy said. That fascination extends outside of the school day when children share what they’ve learned in Four Winds with their parents at home, helping them learn about topics they’ve never heard of before.
Beth and Katy really see the benefit of Four Winds, especially in getting kids outside. “Kids love having parents in the classroom,” Beth said, “They’re excited to go outside and learn because otherwise they’re not doing it too much.” Katy noted that at the beginning of the pandemic, many classrooms moved outdoors, which was great, but now they’re back inside. “It’s sad to witness kids not getting outside as much anymore. Parents notice too. I’m glad Four Winds is getting them outside more.”
“Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of Magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden—in all the places.” -Frances Hodgson Burnett (The Secret Garden)
Here is the perspective of Heather Durkel, Four Winds social media coordinator:
You can create your own magical secret garden for the little ones in your life. Children. Grandchildren. Daycare or summer camp kiddos. Ours is growing and evolving this very moment, even as I write. I hope this post inspires you to create your own!
Truly, there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ approach to creating a sunflower house- it will be special no matter what! That said, I am going to share with you one approach just to get you started.
You will be creating a rectangle or square out of sunflowers and climbing flowers. The sunflowers provide the structure for the climbers to vine onto, but we like to add some additional support in the form of stakes or branches.
Here’s what you will need:
Some fertile ground. As little as 4’x4’ or as big as you have room to spare!
Posts, tall strong branches, bamboo stakes
Sunflower seeds or starts
Morning glory seeds or starts
Scarlet runner bean seeds or starts
All the plants above (sunflowers, morning glories and scarlet runner beans) are fast growers! This means that you will have a happy sunflower house by the end of summer, surely. BUT if you want to hurry the process along, support a local farmer and purchase some seedlings from them to get a head start on things.
Here’s what’s next:
Begin by making sure the site of the sunflower house is weeded, the topsoil loosened slightly (you could use a tiller, broad fork, shovel, etc..) and amended (we use composted manure.)
Pound the stakes or branches into the ground, forming a rectangle or square. This will be the perimeter of your sunflower house.
Plant the sunflowers around the perimeter of the rectangle or square, following the outline of the stakes. These sunnies will become the wall. Make sure to leave a small opening for the door!
Plant the morning glories and / or scarlet runner beans between every second or third sunflower.
Water well and continue to water well throughout the summer.
Weed and water on repeat
We like to take the mulch from our lawn mower and put it on the ‘floor’ of our sunflower house. This makes a nice, soft spot to sit throughout the summer.
If you want to make the house super special, you can tie twine between the posts to create a roof. When the climbing flowers reach your roof, they will climb length-wise and create a colorful ceiling.
Enjoy the process!!
Throughout the summer, my boys and I care for our sunflower house together. We add grass clippings. Water it. Watch the sunflowers emerge and then observe them as they grow taller and taller and taller.
We notice everything. The color of the leaves, texture of the sunflower stalks, the first buds and blossoms of the morning glories. We bring snacks and lemonade, books and blankets out to our house throughout the season. We sit and watch and feel the embrace of the tall sunflowers and colorful flowers. We love when the sunflowers start to bloom, and when the petals fade and the seeds appear, we watch bird after bird after bird land on the open faces and feast on the seeds. When the whole sunflower begins to die and the leaves turn brown, we feel the dry leaves and crumble them between our hands.
We experience the whole cycle of this little magical place. Creating it. Nurturing it. Celebrating its growth. Enjoying it in its full summer beauty. Then watching it fade, change colors, shift purpose and shape and eventually become compost and soil.
May dazzles us with innumerable tones of green. How many different greens can you find this May? Here’s a bingo board with a sampling of green shades to be on the lookout for!
As shadbush blooms, their namesake shad (and their close relatives, the river herring) are running!
These anadromous (from ana “up, upward” and dromos “a running”) fish run up the river to spawn. They are born in freshwater and migrate to the ocean when they are 6-8 months old. After three to five years of maturing, the river herring return to their natal stream to lay tens of thousands of eggs themselves. They then head back to the ocean to continue the cycle.
The herring run is often best viewed from fish ladders (a series of step-like pools to help the fish around an obstacle in the river) where the herring (and their predators!) are concentrated for a close look.
John Hay describes this fish ladder viewing in The Run: A Chronicle of Migration and Survival in the Waters of Cape Cod, “A continuous long line of fish kept swimming through to the bottom of the ladder, where they would vainly skip and twist and strain through the water’s force. Then they swung back in a semi-circular arc across the basin and re-formed at its edge. There was a wide shiver on the water. They wheeled as in a dance, or like the planets in pursuit of light, where they ran up again into the flood. It happened time after time, in this futile but concurrent motion, a beauty to watch–its tension, effort, and relief were exactly coordinated with the water. These fish were the water.”
Here is the perspective of Janet Pelletier, a Nature Program volunteer in Shrewsbury, VT:
I don’t have children, though I know kids in the community. Our Nature Program coordinator invited me to volunteer because she knew I’d love the training workshops. She was right, I do. I love the model of being together observing and experiencing. I purposely don’t read the material ahead because it’s so joyful to go to the training workshop and learn like the kids do. Then my questions emerge naturally just like the kids’, and I experience the discovery just as the kids experience it. Even listening to the puppet show for the first time. I love it because I get to watch kids have those moments. And the kids all love it. It fits every child’s needs. They are so curious and creative. They like being outside looking at things, drawing, the activities, and the quiet observation time.
Since I’m not a parent, when the kids see me in the hall they KNOW it’s a Four Winds day. I’m a volunteer with the kindergarten/first grade this year. And they’re really excited, like a buzz of anticipation in the hallway. Each time I’m blown away by how into it they get.
Like when we did the Seed Dispersal unit this fall. I’d sprouted some scarlet runner beans. We started by giving kids bean pods, and they found the pods and the seeds inside really fascinating, the colors and the textures. When they opened the seeds and saw the cotyledons inside they were even more excited. And then, when I brought out the sprouted beans, they actually squealed with delight! A whole plant is inside!
Or when we studied winter twigs. Who would have thought these young kids would be excited by them? But we started with the kids blindfolded and passed around the twigs for them to feel and smell, like the fuzzy sumac twig, the stinky cherry twig, and the wintergreen yellow birch. I think they liked the icky smell best, and they wanted to smell the cherry over and over. It’s so easy to be a volunteer because it’s all set up for you, and the kids love to learn this way.
When we introduced the opposite, alternate and whorled branching pattern, I had the kids hold their arms straight out, or in a V, or do a full twirl to act out the patterns. Then for each tree we visited outside, they’d act out the matching pattern sort of as a greeting to the tree.
They don’t seem concerned about what other kids think. When we do drawing, they don’t have any self consciousness. I love that they are all such good learners. And because I’ve volunteered over the years at different grade levels, I’ve gotten to see how kids figure things out and learn in so many different ways.
Squishing, oozing, splashing, gushing! Transforming into pies, paint, and magic soup, mud has limitless opportunities for play. Playing in mud promotes creativity, stimulates the senses, and cultivates joy.
How do you and the children in your life engage in mud play? Send us your favorite muddy photos and be entered in a drawing for one of three kid-sized Muddy Buddies! Email photos to editor@fwni.org by April 30th. Four Winds Nature Institute assumes the right to use any submitted photograph or image on our website, on our social media, and in our other print or electronic materials. This contest is open to everyone. We’re super excited to see your pics!
“PEENT!” The nasally exclamation sounds from the field at dusk. “PEENT!” booms into the twilight again and again from the same spot. Then comes a high-pitched weedling higher and higher into the sky. The twittering transforms to emphatic chirps as the sound returns to the ground. Finally, the familiar “PEENT!” rings out close to the original spot and the concert repeats.
This is the soundtrack of the American Woodcock male’s flight display – keep your ears open and explore becoming Woodcocks this spring!
-Try out different tools (clothes pins, tongs, tweezers, chopsticks, ect) as your long woodcock bill to probe for food (mostly earthworms) in soft dirt
Who left all this scat on and around this log? The scat is around an inch long and tan with a whitewash of uric acid (the concentrated form of nitrogenous waste birds deposit).
Yellowstone National Park from Yellowstone NP, USA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
A drumming male ruffed grouse! In spring (and less often summer and fall) male ruffed grouse use their drumming stage to attract females and defend their 6-10 acre territory from other males. The stage is often a 10-12 inch high log or rock surrounded by dense cover. The drumming, which sounds like an engine starting, is made by fanning their wings. The drumming starts slowly and eventually accelerates to the speed of the wing-fanning sound waves – causing the sound waves to stack up into a penetrating shock wave, or miniature sonic boom!
