wide open spaces...

"...there is a great deal to be done and a great deal to be prevented during these long hours in the open air. And long hours they should be; not two, but four, five, or six hours they should have on every tolerably fine day, from April till October.


Impossible; says an overwrought mother who sees her way to no more for her children than a daily hour or so on the pavements of the neighboring London squares. Let me repeat, that I venture to suggest, not what is practicable in any household, but what seems to me absolutely best for the children; and that, in the faith that mothers work wonders once they are convinced that wonders are demanded of them. A journey of twenty minutes by rail or omnibus, and a luncheon basket, will make a day in the country possible to most town dwellers; and if one day, why not many, even every suitable day?"

CM vol.1 pg44

I might have to agree with the overwrought mother, because I think that CM would have been referring to mothers of young children who were not yet in school and so those same mothers wouldn't have had also to be concerned with the training of their older children at home as well.  However,  I've been reading Charlotte Mason's Homeschooling Series, vol. 1 again over the last weeks, especially the last couple of days, and the benefit of outdoor time cannot be overlooked.  We should be outdoors as much as is feasibly possible.  On that point, I absolutely agree.

We like to keep our house open, the doors and windows at least as much as we can bear it with the heat, we all go in and out and through the backyard many times a day.  The younger kids particularly also have obligatory times outside in the backyard every day.  But, our weekly nature walks are WONDERFUL times outside.  I'm going to try harder at making them happen more than once a week.

the family nature walk

...it does a body good.  :)

the irrigation canal is dry except for a slimy moss at the bottom

the coconuts grow attached to this part... way up in the palm tree.

every now and again there was a broken spot where water gathered,

here was a TON of little red larvae... dragonfly? 

See those coconut shells? that's what we used to carry a little fish

we found in a little puddle back home... 

we figured he'd die if we left him there, so we'd watch him for a few days 

and then take him back when there was water again.  

But he jumped out and burnt his head.

"Mama called the doctor, the doctor said, NO more fishies jumping on their heads!"

here's an up close of the larvae, worm thing...

...and the almost dead fish.  

as I was saying, he'd been showing suicidal tendencies from the start, 

as he leaped from the coconut shell I was carrying him home in.  

He seemed to survive the first attempt with little ill effect, 

it was the second attempt that proved fatal. :(

a bat we found hanging from the backdoor frame... 

kinda cute.

I think his tiny little feet are kind of endearing, don't you?

one of the nights last week, we decided to go on a frog hunt... 

actually, somebody went out 

and spotted them, and then we sat and watched them for awhile.  

They were as still as statues with the lights on.

these guys are like my best friends. they eat cockroaches...
need I say more?