10 Days at the Pond

Tabbi had swimming lessons for two weeks.  That meant two weeks of going to town every day.  10 miles each way.  I sign her up every year and then dread the "going to town every single day".  But this year, we decided that since we were going to town anyway, we could do some nature study that we otherwise wouldn't be able to do.  The Outdoor Hour Challenge for this month was on fish, so we went to the mill pond in town after swimming lessons every day.  We found lots of fun and interesting things to look at and study. Even though we never actually saw any fish!

 Snails!  We took two snails home and watched them come out of their shells and stick to the inside of a glass jar.  We took them back the next day.

Crawfish.  This one is small compared to some of the claws Tabbi found on the shore.  Something must like to eat them and leave the claws behind.

Plants.  These are some of the plants we found in and around the water.

Arrowhead

 Lily Pads

 Milkweed

Forget-me-nots

Cattails
We saw many insects along the way, including damselflies, ebony jewelwings, deerflies, water boatmen, and lots of dragonflies .

One day we did some dragonfly pastels, and another we sketched ducks.

The second week we even took our bikes along and made use of the bike path that goes all the way around the pond and along part of the creek. We also made a raft out of sticks that we set sail on the pond.

 We checked on the raft every day, but it pretty much sailed across the pond and got stuck in some lily pads.  This picture shows the raft where it stuck, and my van on the other side.

On the last day we took my granddaughter, Becca with us.

 Crossing one of the five bridges, and examining the raft, still stuck on the lily pads.

 We had so much fun learning about life at the pond.  We even made a booklet that we named "10 Days at the Pond" with lots of pictures, information and a daily log.  Maybe next time we'll see some fish!

OH!  And Tabbi even got her picture in the newspaper!