A week and a half of Fantastic!

If it had been up to Mya our 6yo, we would be calling our new little Ellia, 'Fantastic'...
Because, obviously, she IS.

A couple of weeks ago during our family think tank putting all possible baby names on the table, her's was BY FAR the best suggestion.
Her other suggestion, Snowflake as a close second... :)

Fantastic. It's the perfect name really.

Imagine getting to introduce yourself, "Hello, I'm Fantastic!" That would be seriously awesome.
I do almost wish we could have done it.

Either way, we've had almost two full weeks now of regular stuff with a whole lot of fantastic on the side! :)

1) In the clinic. Yikes. I do NOT take much pleasure in having taken and now posting these pictures in the So Very Soon After Birth look I'm sporting, but hey... my kids all look REAL good. :) 

2) We have this really cool tradition of celebrating each child's birth day before leaving the birth center with a birthday party complete with cake. Micah brought *Black Jungle Cake*, an appropriately named and typically yummy Peruvian chocolate cake. He had it inscribed with, Feliz Dia de Nacimiento Fantastica! {Happy Birthday Fantastic!} The doctors and nurses were amused. We did LOTS of things that were new to them... fun.

3) Outside the clinic. Gotta love the security bars on the outside AND the dirt roads... :)

4) No carseats required. Though we would have gotten one if we could have bought one. No carseats even for sale in our city!! A friend from Trujillo is sending one soon! ;)

LOVED the moments spent relishing in the first couple of days...


Daddy's pretty proud.

Sisters are thrilled!

Littlest Brother is happy!

All the brothers are pleased!

Nature Study Monday: January 2014 {NSM! Link up}

The {Nature Study Monday} link up is for ANY nature study-ish blog post written at any time during the current month. Which means, when you submit your link, it will show up in every. single. {NSM} post. during the whole month! Oh, and be not confused, feel free to link up on any day, be it Monday or not! (scroll down for linky).

Well, HELLO 2014!!

Due to holidays and prego woes (think swollen, hot and sweaty), we didn't get out much last month. I'm really proud of my kids as they are getting into the habit of making weekly nature observations on their own whether we go on an official nature walk or not. Nothing can replace the sheer pleasure and amazingness of a real nature walk, but at least they're not going to become nature-deprived by a long-shot. ;)

Thankfully, rainy season is beginning to pick up, which means endless sticky mud, but also promises some periodic relief to the oven like conditions we've been experiencing. Some say, and I'm tempted to agree this year, that 'tis actually hotter during rainy season. Who would have thought?

Before Christmas, we did get to greet this happy little pig on our walk to get honey from a local seller in a nearby town. I say happy because he was probably glad to be just a wee one, for which reason he may still be alive today. Many Tarapotinos eat pork in their Pachamanca for Christmas. (youtube video - kinda long and we're more rustic, but it's similar.)

Lately, I've been working on our nature study schedule for this term. I'll plan to keep loosely following the Nature Study Rotation here. Since we just started reading Gregor Mendel: Planting the Seeds of Genetics (which gives signs of being very good - it's very well written and illustrated for a science book!!), and we have LOTS of legumes around here, I think we'll also have another and closer look at vines. Last term was trees/shrubs/vines, but we did a little more with stars/sky which was supposed to be this coming term (our science focus was astronomy). I think we'll just officially swap them.

Though we do a lot of nature study, we generally don't do a ton of formal study on a given subject, though we probably should. Occasionally, we do. Either way, I like to read up ahead of time on the scheduled subject so that I'm ready to point out interesting tidbits as the opportunities present themselves.

AO's Nature Study Rotation for 2013/14:
Summer/Fall: Trees/shrubs/vines
Winter: Stars/sky
Spring: Amphibians

Naturally, it's November... {NSM! linkup}

But can you honestly believe it?! November?! As in a month and a half 'til it's a new year?! My life is flying before my eyes. Speaking of flying and flitting, would you believe we landed in moth mecca? It was incredible. I've never seen so many moths in one place, let alone of such variety! Of course, I'll tell you about it! Just let's start at the beginning of the story...

At the end of last month, we took one of our rousing and rollicking road-trips across the entire country of Peru. Jungle, Andes, Pacific coast all in one really long day (though we usually split it into two pretty long days)! Oh, and there were 9 of us this time. My mom joined us almost directly off the plane, and there was Christine, who is cheerfulness in the flesh, plus the regular seven of the Tuttle Tribe. Yep, first it was 13 hours easterly, then 3 hours straight south on the Panamerican Highway and we were once again arrived in the coastal city of Trujillo. We were there for a record short amount of time (5 extremely busy days). Still, it was long enough for my brother recently arrived from the States, to surprise us all by ringing the doorbell of the house we were staying at, early on Siah's birthday! Then it was pack all back in the Jack (the name of our minivan); this time with 10. Boy, was that exciting! :)

We got to do a little more site-seeing this trip due to being blessed with guests, but I'd better leave most of those details to a different story since this one is supposed to get back around to moths (don't worry, we're getting there). After a long drive the first day, we stayed in a hotel, uh, hostal... well, no. It really was just a very rustic house way up in the mountains. I hope the pictures we took will do it justice. On the second night, we stayed at an honest to goodness hostal, which was also up in the mountains, only not so high up. It was slightly more modern, except they were far from honest, cold-heartedly cheating us out of the pledged, pre-paid and earnestly yearned for breakfast the next morning. After all these long days climbing mountains and such, and little sleep, the third night, we merited a stay at the White House (La Casa Blanca), a hotel built practically on the highway, traffic sounds and party-people noise included at no extra charge. It was a grand adventure to say the least.

That last day, we had a long drive ahead of us. We were all exhausted and quite ready to be on the homeward track. About an hour down the road (or up it, would probably be more accurate), we were surprised and super excited (...moths?! not yet... we're almost there, I promise.) We hit the jackpot! A gas station that offered GLP (autogas, LPG or liquified petroleum gas, to be exact)! This was very exciting, as it is the first station on the very long route across the mountains and this type of gas cuts our travel expense drastically. We pulled in, half expecting that the sign would be false and they would not have GLP as is so often the case. But, we not only found what we were looking for, we found what must otherwise be known in the Lepidoptera world as Moth Mecca. It was incredible. We were so tired we thought we were dreaming, but lo and behold, the pictures are on my camera to prove it!

There were thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of moths, everywhere. Not flitting and flapping in a way that might make one nervous. They were all just placidly sitting there sunning their wings. Or something. How would I know what they were thinking of doing? Apparently, in that place practically in the middle of nowhere, they have big lights on after dark, and though it was mid-morning by the time we pulled in, there were still a myriad of moths all over the pavement, building, garbage cans, everywhere. It was awesome.

So, aspiring to be a good nature study mama as I do, I got out of the car, made everyone else get out, and I gazed and I ooh'ed and ahh'ed and I took lots of pictures of moths. We ourselves were the marvel of the Peruvian gas station attendants. They couldn't believe how interested we were in those bugs. They even stopped sweeping up the mass of winged wonders while we were there so that we could get a really good look. :)

Well, after all, I don't know if the story was worth the wait, but I was really excited about it and the pictures. Below are some of them. See if you can see a pattern. Next, maybe you can find the one that is not like the others. Lastly, there is one who rebelliously refused to stay put in line like the clown he is colored after. And if any of you actually look and find these, you are truly worthy of my awe and gratitude for the interest you have taken in this here extremely lengthy blog post.


Super lovely, wouldn't you say?!

The yellow with black spotted ones were all about the same size, with approx. 2 1/2 inches wing-span, which may give context to the others you see them next to. it makes that one VERY pretty moth, my favorite, look very large.


::

The {Nature Study Monday} link up is for ANY nature study-ish blog post written at any time during the current month. Which means, when you submit your link, it will show up in every. single. {NSM} post. during the whole month! Oh, and be not confused, feel free to link up on any day, be it Monday or not! (scroll down for linky).

::

Jungle School! {from the archives}

I thought it'd be fun to have a look back at what we were doing this month five years ago... and it was fun!! I have such cute kids! ;) This is a look at Jungle School before we actually moved here. Now of course, we do Jungle School every single day. heheh.

Originally posted in 2008, from the archives:

Jungle School!

Here's what school looked like for us last week. We spent a total of 40+ hours in the car, 4 HOT nights in hostels and 2 1/2 days in the jungle! woohoo!

The boys had several free-reading books by Roald Dahl that they finished. We kept up on Bible reading and had several nature study opportunities. Fun.



We finished reading Squanto, by Feenie Ziner and Landing of the Pilgrims, by James Daugherty.
These two books coincide perfectly... definitely read these two together for SUPERB living books on pilgrims/mayflower/colonist history!











Jungle school is fun :)



{original post can be found here}

really cool nature: sloth. {nsm}

Our question for today is, are sloths, as their name implies, really slothful?
I'll let you decide for yourself. Let me know what you think in the comments, if you feel so inclined! :)


Sloths.

These little guys are absolutely fascinating. The way they move, the way they live, their seemingly bemused expression... I like them. We've run into a few on occasion, though surprisingly, we've never seen any in captivity here. Either they were 'what's for dinner' in one of the villages Micah visits (I know... sad), or we happened to see one in the low bushes or trees on the side of the road (or on the side of the boat, in the case of the video above). I think they're otherwise kinda hard to spot when we're out and about in the really tall trees, but honestly, I haven't actually purposefully tried to look.

The most interesting bits from personal experience are: 
They have a very strong grip. Once they grab onto a branch, it's difficult to deter them.
They can swim! Who'd a thought it?
They move more quickly than rumor would have it.
Their claws LOOK dangerous, but they are seldom aggressive.

Basic facts & myth debunkers:
While it has been rumored that sloths move so slow that moss grows on their hair, this is not at all true. Sloths do not always move slowly. But their movements certainly do look almost mechanical (see linked video below). While normally, their moves seem measured and certainly unhurried, they have been known to move very quickly if defending their territory (males) or their young (females). All the sloths we've seen personally have not been all that slow. Think ground to tall tree top in 2 minutes or less.

One thing's certain, these strange creatures are utterly un-slothful in their bathroom habits. Matter of fact, they make their way all the way down from their tree lodgings at least once a week to go number two. Not only that, but when they get to ground level, they actually dig a hole with their stumpy little tails and bury their excrement. Now, I know that's the kind of thing you've always wanted to know... You are so very welcome. :) It is interesting, though, isn't it??

The greenish hue that some sloths take on is actually from algae, NOT moss. But along with the algae, scientists have found all sorts of other yummies in hanging out in their hair, read the scientific paper to find out what those things are.

Sloths usually have a favorite tree (a modal tree), but may roam about between 10-40 trees. They are said to consume about 10% of the trees' leaf/bud/blossom output. But, thankfully they are good stewards, taking their ecological responsibility seriously and are efficient fertilizers (remember how they use the bathroom?). I found thhe author's viewpoint in one of my books, though not intended to be, almost humorous on this point:

"This scenario may be pure wishful thinking on our part; there may be a more parsimonious explanation for the hygienic ways of the sloth. But we like to believe that in the arduous, dangerous descent of the sloth there is a metaphor, a message urging humans to show a similar regard for conserving the fertility of the tropical rain forest."

Adrian Forsyth and Kenneth Miyata, in
Tropical Nature, Life and Death in the Rain Forests of Central and South America

Metaphor or no metaphor, as people who appreciate God's generous gift of Creation, home to innumerable incredible animals like the sloth, we ought to be conscious of our responsibility to be good stewards of it. The same goes for every other gift we're given, right? And, why not take the sloth as an example? For this reason, I resolve to take my compost pile more seriously from now on. :) I think I shall even christen it the sloth pile.

Helpful links:
Do you find sloths fascinating? You are not alone because, "Scientists are fascinated by sloths" and have been for good reason. Read the article full of randomly awesome slothful tidbits here.

Visit a sloth sanctuary! - VERY fun to read through the posts. :)

Watch a great video showing very un-slothful sloths' movements.

Read ARKive's data on the type of sloths we see most frequently near Tarapoto, Peru:

Kingdom	Animalia
Phylum	Chordata
Class	Mammalia
Order	Pilosa
Family	Bradypodidae
Genus	Bradypus (1)

Can you spot the sloth in the trees?!

...and the differences!! ;)

Color in your own sloth!! (right click and save image as)

For more really cool nature posts, see the linky below!

We're accumulating posts for sharing our nature studies in May... Won't you add yours to the list?
Please feel free to share the following image in your post inviting your readers to come on over and join us, too! The more the merrier!! :)

::

really cool nature: piranha. {nsm}

I've had precious little personal experience with the infamous piranha, thankfully.
Besides that one time I went swimming in a lake full of them. Yep. I'm brave like that sometimes. Not often, but in my younger years it definitely was a more common occurrence. Of course, I thought only of the alligators that only come out at night and the ten foot river otters. Oh, back to the story: How did we know that the lake was full of piranhas, you ask? Both because our friend told us it was so, AND because he showed us it was so by baiting his line with a chunk of fruit and tossing it overboard. A few seconds and sudden roiling fin-ful water later, we had caught one. Next, he tossed a piece of the hooked piranha over and it disappeared in a matter of milliseconds. Rewind, repeat that a couple times, and we were all fully convinced. This was AFTER the swimming episode. Right. I did not swim again; thank you very much. I'm not that brave.

Piranha.

Note the pronunciation and spelling of that, will you? In spanish we say pee-RON-yah. But in English we SAY, per-ON-ah, but I have to THINK per-on-HAH or pee-ron-HAH (in espanol). I point this out, because you, like me, might have the hardest time remembering how to spell it. The H is silent in Spanish AND English and seems to want to trick us into misspelling it. However, we will not be beat, and we all now know how to spell it! ;)

Basic facts & myth debunkers:

You may have heard the debate about just how dangerous piranhas are. Obviously, as rumor has it, they are extremely deadly. Everyone's heard that, right? Ever since Theodore Roosevelt reported a story of a man who fell off of his horse and was devoured before his companion's eyes*... What, didn't you know that some species of piranhas were actually named Rooseveltialla and Taddyella after him? Yep. I'm not even joking. :) But those names eventually wore off as they proved to identify the same genus of fish that already had been named.

But those who know what they're talking about report, which lines up with the reality as we've seen it for ourselves or as friends have attested to us, that NOT all piranhas are as aggressive as others. They eat both fruit and flesh, and they mainly go after smaller fish, or those that are trapped or wounded. They are attracted by frantic movements and by blood tainted water. But serious injury or death is not common even for regular bathers in these waters. Of course, those people know the rules. If one of you folks goes out and tries to catch one, you might just get bit... this is a more common occurrence, actually, even amongst those who know what they're doing (see video). But, as long as you don't go flailing your bloody body in piranha infested waters, you'll be fine... at least when it comes to piranhas that is. ;)

If you want to know more, The Piranha Book was interesting. If you buy the 1972 version, it contains a progression of articles as the authors, editors and publishers expounded on the original findings with updated information debunking previously published misguided information. Of course, there's much more now to be added, but it's an interesting place to start as it has a lot of history as well as historical and experiential information along with pictures and paintings.

Here's an interesting takeaway... Before today, did you know what an ichthyologist is? Well, ichthyologist is the branch of zoology that deals with fishes. You probably could have guessed that from the context, as I did. But you're on your own for figuring out how to pronounce and remember how to spell that one! Nah, it's not that hard, really, if you want to know. :)


Yes, in FACT my husband is holding his lips to a piranha. Of course, everything's all fun and games 'til someone gets their lips bitten off by a piranha, right? Geesh.

More links:
Alex with a piranha (micah took this video, too)
Cannibal piranhas (another of micah's vids. he's so cool, isn't he?)
This is a 'really cool nature' post. Wanna see what else I'll be posting about? See this post. :)


We're accumulating posts for sharing May's nature studies... Won't you add yours to the list?
Please feel free to share the following image in your post inviting your readers to come on over and join us, too! The more the merrier!! :)

::

really cool nature. {NSM}.

Keeping things lively, I'll be attempting to identify and post about some of the wild and crazy jungle finds pictured above over the next month. These aren't your average Handbook of Nature Study foci. This should be interesting! :)


'Kay, so we're accumulating posts for sharing May's nature studies... Won't you add yours to the list?
Please feel free to share the following image in your post inviting your readers to come on over and join us, too! The more the merrier!! :)

::

flood relief update.

Here's a little update on what's happening in our part of the world.



There's been major flooding along the river, as bad as they've seen it in many a long year... read:
Flood Relief

Even though the waters have now receded, many families have lost their entire crop with which they would normally sustain themselves as well as generate a tiny income. today, we sent a truckload... read:
To the Rescue!

32+ hours of Peru.

It took 32 hours(+) to cross Peru from east to west and then back again.
I've got the pictures to prove it.
:)



There's one picture per hour, plus some, but unfortunately they're not pictured here by order taken.

Nature Study Monday: Insect Pests

Tarapoto is in the Rupa-Rupa (never fear, I hadn't before heard that word either until I googled 'high jungle' which is what it means here in Peru). Here in the high jungle tropics we have lots and lots of bugs! We have pretty bugs and ugly bugs. There are harmless ones and scary ones. We have bugs that flitter, scurry, buzz, bite and burrow. There are bugs inside the house and out (thankfully, mostly out). Matter of fact, when it comes to bugs, you name it, we've probably got it. :)

We've had LOTS of fun discovering the wide variety of bugs in our area simply by looking around, you can't miss them. There are so many, that I often (weekly?) see a kind of bug I've never seen before! Seriously.

Most of the bugs that live inside our house I consider pests. Ants, centipedes, mosquitoes, flies, weevils, cockroaches and woodboring beetles are all particularly pesky pests. Non-scary looking spiders are the one exception... they have a job to do, you know. Scary spiders are those with bulky limbs or that are hairy or larger than I feel is reasonable; obviously, scary is a relative term.

Though I try to control these pests with natural products, we do have to fumigate semi-regularly to ward off complete infestation, like that we are experiencing currently since we have yet to fumigate our new house for the first time!

However, while we wait to get in touch with the bug busters, we've taken the opportunity to look and study some of our houseguests. The most annoying of which at the moment is the woodboring beetle. It eats wood. It destroys wood furniture and as I've just discovered, it will eat books too!

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!

This of course will not do.

The only thing we have in common is that of devouring books. However, as a responsible person, I like to leave the book in as close to the original state as possible, you know, thinking of he that reads after me. I found one cursed creature that had made it halfway through 'Science in a Supermarket' and I found the corpse of one who'd died after having eaten through 'Getting Started with Latin' twice! No wonder. Urgh.

Since we caught the one red handed, we made a study of him before we killed him. Yep. I killed him. I let him starve to death on the observation plate. He was stuck on his back and could not get up. I don't even feel bad about it. So there.





Some observations:
Looks like a baby termite.
He has a brown beak.
They have antennae-like mouth parts.
Cream colored.
Six legs.
3-4mm long.
Sometimes you can hear them chomping the wood inside the bookshelf. Yuck.
They tunnel through the wood leaving behind little round sawdust bits (poop?).
The tunnels don't appear on the outside, but you have only touch the wood to feel it cave in under your fingertips.





Now to sketch him. :)
Oh yeah.

Might you have insect pests around that you could study before you eliminate them?

Link up:
Feel free to link up your nature study posts here in the comments!
Please snag a button and include it and this link in your post if you don't mind... that way more people can find us and join us here. :)

Our Peru.

Yay!  It was SO much fun meeting many of you this last weekend at ChildlightUSA!  So much fun. Only this, I felt so much pressure from such a number of you who asked for pictures of what it is like in the jungle where we live!!

Well, that and after two months, I'm missing Peru.
If you click the picture link below you will be able to SEE a little bit of our Peru too.






Enjoy!

life in a small apartment

Living in small spaces certainly has advantages. I do find it necessary to remind myself of them regularly, however :) Here's a small attempt to do that...

 We set aside several hands-on project kits from Christmas that are particularly interesting to the kids, knowing that we'd have more 'inside' time than we normally had when we were in the jungle. Though having toys with myriad small parts is not necessarily conducive to small spaces (nor extremely messy ones that involve chipping away at finely packed dust particles that fly and attach themselves to every surface within a three room radius), because of these cool projects, they have grown in their interest and knowledge of several key skill areas!  A living education!  They've both been thrilled with their machine building & excavation kits.


 Living in small spaces necessitates that the kids play cooperatively.  There simply is not enough room in the apartment for each child to play independently.  I've enjoyed watching their creativity.  Even if there are disagreements regularly, I'd prefer that over siblings who will not play together!  :)

 'A place for everything and everything in its place', because if it's not, believe you me, we will certainly trip over it. Our kitchen, like our entire apartment, is very compact, but super serviceable. I give thanks every day thrice over for the blessing of this little space to live in. We get along quite well, and less space means less to keep clean.  Hooray!  And it makes me silly happy just to see the colors, but I'm funny like that. :)


  From the fourth floor, we have a really great view of the park in front of our house, which actually in itself provides lots of viewing entertainment.  We see sunsets longer than everyone else, we see the birds' business from the tops of the trees and we get a good breeze.  Are you getting jealous?! ;)



I've also concentrated on making it a beautiful place to live.  Not necessarily from another person's standpoint, but things that are beautiful to us, almost entirely composed of things we've found outside or in the fruit/vegetable market. well, that and books. nature and books, two of my most favoritest things in all the world. ;) So, living in small spaces is kinda nice after all.

:)

little bloggers.

So, I've been away awhile. But I've not been far... just a click away, here at my kids' new blog!

You'll definitely want to take a peek!



They've both posted about their recent jungle river trip with their dad, and there are quite a few pictures with a Peruvian flavor courtesy of Oma :)

I've been so busy with holidays and entertaining guests and visiting tourist attractions that I completely forgot to even mention it here... until now!

So please feel free to pop over and leave them a comment, they'd be THRILLED! ;)

in a nature study quandary

So, one day, imagine you find a nest of 6 baby rats in your yard. What on earth are you to do with the things? They're too cute and helpless to kill, and yet, you don't really want your entire yard crawling with the things until they reach adolescence so that you can dispose of them with a clean conscience... 

I mean, after all, they are definitely no federal laws protecting these vermin like over at Jeanne's place.

[read here to find out the rest of the story]

We had a lot of fun studying the cutesy little things while they were still cute.

We even read about Robber the Rat in Burgess Animal Book this week. 

Funny.

So what would you have done?  

it will not be this way forever...

I did not intentionally plan to neglect this blog these days...

it's just that we're out of town 

and 

on a break from official school 

and well... you know.  

am I right?  :)

I just knew you all would understand!  

We are not taking a break from reading books...

or from noticing nature...

or from learning about relationships...

you know, real life. educational life. 

I do have daily PERU pictures posted over here.  come and take a look!  :)

See you all back here very soon.  :)

amy in peru