Has It Been A Year Already?

A year. One I never could've imagined. In May 2010 we were celebrating my son's high school graduation and then off to college. He's coming home today and words cannot express how thankful I am to have our family back together if only for a short time.

When he's here I will be happy to show him around the gardens and update him on all fo the activity from the bees to the rabbits and all else in between. He enjoys all of it too as does all of our family. It's what we like to do. We've been nature study fanatics since the kids were toddlers. Always a field guide handy to answer a question we may have.

That reminds me....those field guides come home today also. Who would've thought that would be something important enough to take to college? It was too. In his spare time he went hiking through the woods with field guides in tow, just like home.

I give a lot of the credit for the love of the outdoors to our nature study curriculum. We used an amazing book called,  Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Comstock. It's a classic. We've studied nearly everything around us from weeds, wildflowers to spiders with this book.

In addition, all of our field guides have been dog-eared and highlighted all over the place. Each time we see something new, we mark it in our book, sketch it out or if its a plant we take a cutting to press it out. Great memories have been made and a lifelong love of the beautiful world around us has been passed to the next generation. Its great fun to try and can be done nearly anywhere. I wish we had gotten the chance to blog about it so many years ago when we started.

Here is a blog beautifully done by a family who would have been similar to ours if you want to see for yourself. --- Handbook of Nature Study