From the archives: Creature “Spirits”

It's a busy little Halloween weekend here at Caliso, so we pulled a spooktacular post from the archives of witch--ooops, which we think you ghouls will enjoy!

It covers the paranormal--actually it covers the very normal activities and sounds of familiar creatures that just may explain the ghostly scream you heard beyond the trees, or why certain objects keep moving mysteriously around your home.

Please note that the links at the end of the post are not linking directly anymore. All we had to do was copy/paste the links to listen to the eerie wild animal calls; but oh so worth it as they are sure to send a chill down your spine (they sound amazingly like a human screams, and even a baby crying).

So, click on "Creature Spirits" below...if you dare. Mwahahahaaa!

Restore Your (Family) Nature: Creature “Spirits”: Confession time. I’m a huge fan of all shows that chase after evidence of ghosts, cryptozoological creatures (like Bigfoot), and UFOs. I can...

Leaf Me Never: Fall Leaf Garland Craft

Ah fall, quite possibly my FAVORITE time of year. For this desert native, I love autumn and the cooler temperatures it brings—perfect for hiking, camping, and just hanging outside, taking in nature. This family activity is a great craft to complete outdoors this time of year! It is easy and fun to create using nature’s beautiful fall leaves or at least being inspired by them. With this idea you can make a fall garland, a leaf booklet (use the hole and ribbon to create your book bind), a family portrait garland, place tags for a family dinner, or what ever else your creative mind takes you. Let’s grab some leaves and have fun!

 

You’ll need: Leaves (fake or real…if real, make sure they are still soft and bendy), glitter (think fall gold, orange, red, brown, yellow), hole puncher, glue, ribbon, scissors.

 

But we also recommend plastic or wax paper surface as glue will seep through leaves, family photos, mini clamps for holding pictures in place while drying, wire or wire ribbon for tendril affect.

Directions:

Collect your leaves (even more adventurous to collect REAL fall leaves if those are available to you—just make sure they’re still soft and bendy). We used fake leaves because, well, we don’t have “fall” in the desert! You could make mini-garlands (faerie garlands) with smaller native leaves, something we’ll try some other day.

Make a hole with the hole punch near the top center of the leaf. Depending on how you want to hang them, that could be at the leaf stem, leaf tip, from the side or even near the center of the leaf.

Decorate your leaves. Here are some ideas: use a pen to draw, write messages, poems, jokes, or your favorite quote, glue glitter in designs or on the leaf edges, glue photos on the leaves and decorate with each one with glittery frames. Little ones can just dab glue about randomly and shake on some glitter…it will look fabulous! Sometimes it’s nice to leave some leaves blank to string in between your glittery delights, but how it’s made is entirely up to you!

Let your leaves completely dry before stringing! This is a good time for a snack break, take your nap, do your homework, or run around the yard for play exercise. You also could pick up the dog droppings or wash the dishes for mom or dad, but I was just thinking outloud.

String leaves for hanging. Leave about 6”—8” of ribbon (or wire) on each end for tying loops for hanging. String through the holes your punched earlier. We recommend looping the ribbon (or wire) around stems to keep leaves in place on your garland, or you can double loop the ribbon through the hole, this will also hold your leaf in place and keep in from sliding along the garland. If you are stringing through the center of the leave, try tying a loose knot on either side (both sides of your leaf) to help keep it from sliding. If using wire (our preference), be sure to leave lots of extra for making tendrils and still having enough left over for the end of your garland! You can always add wire at stems for a seamless line :)

For tendrils…wrap wire around a pencil or your finger. Remove finger or pencil ;) 

Ready to hang! Decorate a fall basket, a centerpiece, archway, outdoor niche, the gate or front door…hang your fall treasure anywhere you wish to enjoy.

Let us know how it goes, share photos of your garlands and any tips with us!

 

Breakfast Geology

Good Morning Bunnies! How about a little bacon and eggs for breakfast? We're pretty sure this is how geologists get their proteins and minerals ;)

We love this quirky find in the Hi-Desert Nature Museum's (Yucca Valley, CA) geology display.

Howlite is commonly found as carvings, or in jewelry. It is a porous mineral, easily dyed to look like turquoise because of the similar look of the veining patterns. Dyed howlite (or magnesite) is marketed as turquenite. Howlite is also sold in its natural state, sometimes under the names "white turquoise" or "white buffalo turquoise," or "white buffalo stone" (none of which are true turquoise).

Honey Onyx is a delicate, soft stone often used as a decorative and architectural stone for kitchen countertops, bathroom sinks, and as stone sheets and tiles. It is particularly beautiful when back lit.

Travertine is a sedimentary limestone deposited by hot mineral springs or in limestone caves ("flowstone"). It is sometimes marketed as travertine limestone or travertine marble (it is not a marble). Travertine is often formed in creeks or rivers, or in caves as stalagmites and stalactites. Sometimes flowstone cave structures are deposited into thin sheets called "draperies" or "curtains" with brown and beige layers that look like bacon--often called "cave bacon."




"Cave bacon," a type of flowstone. Image by DanielCD














Source Wikipedia

Predator or Prey

My husband took our 4-year old to our favorite desert zoo and botanical park. One of their most recent additions is the North American Jaguar exhibit. As you enter the exhibit, you walk along a path surrounded by familiar Sonoran desert vegetation (familiar to us anyway!), where you can easily imagine this beautiful large cat lurking somewhere nearby. Careful observation yields jaguar tracks and even its scat—convincing enough to invite a little fear into the back of your mind, there’s no way this thing got out, right? Then you are at once upon the exhibit, with glass and fencing that blend away so easily that you can easily enter into the veil of a wild and free close encounter with this predatory cat. It was here that my husband and son had an amazing, albeit a little creepy experience.

My husband had to follow up on scheduled call and while he was doing that, my son sat in the little zoo wagon watching the jaguar. And the jaguar was watching him. Rather, the jaguar was stalking him. Each moment my husband would turn away from the jaguar (only seconds at a time), it moved closer to my son, always watching him. My son noticed the jaguar moving closer and told my husband. What a great learning opportunity my hubby thought, and so they decided to “test” it. Sure enough when my husband simply looked away, the jaguar would move in closer. When my husband was looking at the jaguar, the jaguar would glance at my husband. It moved quickly from the cover of one bush to another.

The photos are of the jaguar after it moved in, now crouched beside some bushes, less than 5 feet away from my son. Notice how his paw is forward in the second shot which to me, looks like he’s entering a “pounce” position. It was enough to give both my husband and son an uncomfortable feeling. In my sons words, “that was creepy daddy.”

I've often heard of similar experiences with young children and large cats at zoos, in fact years ago one of the mountain lions here used to watch small children very intently and show similar behaviour within its enclosure. I think it's a fascinating opportunity to see these elusive animals react in such an instinctive way. I imagine it’s an intense experience, especially when you realize YOU are the prey that is triggering this instinctive behavior. As for my son, he bravely returned to the exhibit (very reluctantly at first) in order to show me the jaguar that he, “thinks wanted to jump on me mommy.”

Only the week before my son enthusiastically learned about carnivores, herbivores, and omnivores in zoo camp, including his preschooler perspective, “I’m meat mommy, so there are animals that would want to eat me!” which led to this interesting opportunity to apply those same concepts when talking about his encounter with this particular meat-eater. (Not to mention an additional opportunity to reinforce some favorite bedtime stories on courage and compassion through a gentle and supportive pep talk on courage that helped my brave little guy return to see the same cat less than an hour later!)

It could end up being a memorable experience that will stay with him for a bite..er bit :)

Spontaneous Critter Encounters!

This beautiful June Beetle flew into our car this morning just as we were leaving for zoo camp. Spontaneous critter encounters are the best! It was a great reminder to have handy a safe and secure critter catcher for up close viewing. These encounters are exciting and you want to be able to take advantage of such a wonderful moment with your children.

A mason jar with a screen lid, a jar with its lid punched with nail holes, or a small pet store critter carrier are all great standby's for safely catching, securing and viewing unexpected visitors before releasing. Having more than one on hand is sometimes useful as we have all three but this plastic one was perfect for taking with us for sharing. Why not keep one in your car for the park, the trail, or when camping, or at a friend’s house—you never know when a critter may stop by to say hello for a short visit!

We recommend releasing critters after a few hours of viewing—so get those field guides out, take some photos, and identify it while you can. Use a hand lens to get up close viewing that you wouldn’t normally be able to do. It’s fascinating! Even though you are being VERY careful with them by not moving the container around or tapping on it, you can imagine it is likely a stressful situation for your critter. This can affect their health very, very quickly as it is not an ideal environment for them (being enclosed, experiencing unnatural temperature variations and being away from their natural resources and cycles they rely on throughout the day or night). Just keep that in mind but be sure to enjoy this spontaneous gift from nature, then release your critter near where you found it.

Three cheers for cool, green, metallic beetles! Bugs--bugs--bugs!

SDBG's Insect Fair & Hamilton Children’s Garden

For those of us who live in the southern California desert, summer temperatures tend to limit our options for outdoor play time and exploration. One way to get around this is to escape to cooler areas like the mountains or the beach. We enjoyed a great day trip to the Hamilton Children’s Garden at the San Diego Botanic Gardens (formerly Quail Bontanic Gardens) in Encinitas, CA. This weekend’s event was their annual Insect Fair and we went especially for that event.

We learned about a variety of native and exotic insects, reptiles, and birds. Many live critters were on hand to get visitors up close to the many creatures we share our planet with everyday. All of these first encounters started near the wonderful Undersea Succulent Garden which is filled with beautiful tiled sculptures, lava stone, huge shells, and marine glass planted planted among succulents that looked very much like ocean coral, sea stars and other marine critters.

Nearby, young visitors and their parents played in nature with some water play, bubbles, plant creatures, garden play houses, dino dig, a miniature railroad, and crafts within the Seeds of Wonder garden, especially created for toddlers and preschoolers. While on the other side of the park, the laughter and energy of children climbing up and under a huge tree house, splashing in a stream, creating music in a musical garden, spelling and smelling in an alphabet garden, herb and salad gardens, exploring a grass maze, and boulder jumping in the "rock hopping" garden (you must hop from boulder to boulder, no touching the ground!), led the day for families in the equally fantastic Hamilton Children’s Garden.

What an amazing place! You will likely find something for the entire family to experience between the amazing gardens, integrated sculptures, children’s play areas and specialty gardens, trails and lookouts. We found a lot of hidden whimsy throughout the day in the form of critters, “secret” hideaways and paths, artful, enchanting gardens and inspiring displays.

Be sure to visit their site for more information about the Seeds of Wonder garden of delights for the little ones and the huge tree house to be explored and climbed on in the Hamilton Garden! Some of their annual events include the Chocolate Festival, Fairy Festival, Garden of Lights, Lady Bug Day, Orchid Festival and much more! Click San Diego Botanic Garden

If you’d like to see more pictures from our day at the San Diego Botanic Garden check out our Facebook album.

Sun Painting

 A great project to try for celebrating the beginning of summer is sun painting. You can usually find sun painting kits, sun-sensitive papers & paints online or in nature, craft, and educational catalogs and stores. But for this post we went “old school,” simply using dark construction paper (avoiding fade resistent/archival papers).

Do you recognize any of

the objects we used?

By experimenting with junk drawer items along with objects found in nature and in my son’s toy box, we enjoyed an easy, mess-free activity. Creative play emerges when you begin to arrange your items in patterns, themes, radial designs, or if you decide to cut out paper snowflakes or other designs to lay atop the dark paper.

 

Materials:

• Dark colored construction paper
• Natural objects (leaves, twigs, pine cones, and so on) or household objects (scissors, keys, combs, and so on)

Easy-peezy directions:

• Place paper outside in direct sunlight
• Arrange objects on paper in random order, patterns, a mandala-inspired design, etc.
• Leave objects in place for a couple of hours (make sure paper remains in sun during that time!)
• Remove objects and admire your sun painting creation!

*TIPS*

• The flatter the object lays, the crisper the image it will leave behind.
• Use small rocks or other weighted items to hold objects flat or in place, but watch for any shadow they might create in your design.

Enjoy collecting your objects and experimenting with their layout. This is a great “background” activity to add to a summer day. My son took his afternoon nap during the couple of hours needed for our images to appear nicely. You can do this project in between seeing a movie, enjoying some pool time, taking a hike or bike ride while you wait for your sun painting.

Happy Summer Solstice!

For a "how-to" sun painting with colorful sun-sensitive paints, please see this link.