Building a squirrel house

If you live where there are big hardwood trees, especially oaks, ash, elms, and gum trees, you probably see squirrels in your neighborhood. They may live in hollows in the sides of the hardwood trees or, as a second choice, they might build leaf nests in the tops of tall trees. Their leaf nests are snug and warm, but they can be damaged or ruined by high winds. A leaf nest is not an ideal place to raise a litter of baby squirrels.

It’s great fun to provide a nest box for squirrels, because it will give you an opportunity to observe them closely. First the squirrels will cautiously investigate the house you build for them. When they decide to move in, you can watch them carry enormous bundles of leaves in their mouths to furnish their home. Eventually, a litter of babies will appear and the first tiny faces with big brown eyes will peek out the entrance hole to see what the world has to offer. Day by day, the little squirrels will explore more, first climbing onto the roof of their house and then onto the tree it is fastened to and finally playing recklessly on every limb.
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A squirrel house should be made of 1-inch lumber, not sanded smooth. The entrance hole should be 3 inches in diameter and facing south. The house should be placed 20 to 30 feet above ground on a tree at least 10 inches in diameter and close to a branch, so the squirrels can easily dart inside. Gray Squirrels like to have their homes 50 yards or more inside a wooded area. Fox Squirrels like to live at the edge of a woods.      

From A Kid's Spring EcoJournal by Toni Albert, illustrated by Margaret Brandt. Plans prepared by Bob Albert. See next blog for details on how to mount a squirrel house 30 feet up a tree!

You can help wild birds survive the winter – or an extremely cold winter night – by providing a variety of rich, high-energy foods for them. A study in Wisconsin found that when chickadees had access to bird feeders, they were much more likely to live through the winter. (With feeders, almost 70 percent survived. Without feeders, only 37 percent survived.) But once birds become used to finding food at your feeder, it’s important to keep feeding them through the winter because they will depend on the food you give them.

Favorite winter foods for wild birds:
Suet and bacon grease
Sunflower seeds (they are high in fat)
Greasy crusts and crumbs, donuts
Small birdseed, such as millet, canary seed, chicken feed, and cracked corn
Large birdseed, such as sunflower seeds, wheat, oats, corn, buckwheat, and soybean
Peanut butter, nuts (high in fat)
Fruits, such as chopped apples, bananas, and raisins

COOL experiments for young birdwatchers:
Collect several disposable plastic containers, such as margarine tubs. Fill each container with a different kind of bird food and label each one with the name of the food. Fill one container with water and try to keep the water from freezing solid. Remove ice from the surface and add more water as often as you can. Place the containers outside for birds. (You might want to nail the containers to a board to keep them from being tipped over.)

There are lots of experiments you can do with this setup:

Watch how much food is left in each container to see which kinds of food are most popular with your winter birds.

Watch one container at a time to see which birds eat what.

Watch one bird at a time to see if it will try more than one kind of food.

Watch the container of water. How many of the birds that come to the feeder drink water? Are more birds attracted to the water on frozen days when puddles and ponds have turned to ice?

Keep a written record of your observations. Include the date, the time of day, and notes about the weather. What did you learn about the birds that visit your feeder?

Nature activity from A Kid’s Winter EcoJournal by Toni Albert.
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The first step in partying with pumpkins is to choose a pumpkin. The most fun is to roam a field of pumpkins and pull your choice off the vine, but a pumpkin from the supermarket will work too. The second step is to carve your pumpkin or paint it, so that it’s transformed into a jack-o-lantern!

Draw a face or a Halloween picture on the pumpkin with a black marker. Or you can draw your design on lightweight paper. Tape the paper against the pumpkin, design up. Transfer your design to the pumpkin by poking a toothpick into the pumpkin along the lines of your design. (When you remove the paper, the toothpick holes will show you where to cut.) You can cut a simple face in the pumpkin with a paring knife, but for more elaborate designs, you might buy a little “pumpkin saw” that can cut curves. Design templates and pumpkin carving tools are sold at craft stores.

Before carving or painting, cut a notched lid from the top of the pumpkin and remove all of the pumpkin seeds and stringy pulp from inside the pumpkin with your hands. Separate the seeds from the pulp, wash them, and set them on paper towels to dry. Then fry them in a little oil until they are crisp and golden brown. Add salt. Eat and eat.

When your pumpkin begins to sag and pucker and collapse, it’s time to put it on your compost pile. (Be careful of analogies. We’re not going there.) When I’ve done this, three things have happened. Birds and animals feed on the pumpkin. Any remaining pumpkin creates nutrient-rich compost. And some of the seeds winter over, so that pumpkin vines appear on the compost pile the next summer. Three good things.

But when tons of pumpkins end up in landfills, it’s a different story. As they decompose, the pumpkins release methane gas, which contributes to climate warming. And the pumpkins, which are 90% water, may contaminate groundwater. This is when the pumpkin party gets really interesting – when it’s time for a Pumpkin Smash!

In the Chicago area, 93 tons of pumpkins have been diverted from landfills and converted to compost when SCARCE (School &Community Assistance for Recycling and Composting Education) has held community pumpkin drops. Volunteers smash the pumpkins during a variety of games before the pumpkin slush is delivered to a compost site.
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A pumpkin party can occur at any time in the life cycle of a jack-o-lantern – during the carving and creating, when the seeds are cooked and eaten, when the jack-o-lanterns are lit for Halloween, and when it’s time to smash the pumpkins to smithereens!

Fall is a very flowery time. The gardens in our area are bright with marigolds, zinnias, dahlias, cone flowers, salvia, and chrysanthemums. My favorite fall wildflowers are tiny delicate asters (white, lavender, or deep purple) and goldenrod, which sometimes grows taller than I am and fills entire fields with gold-yellow feathers.

Knowing that winter promises a long frozen desert without any flowers at all, I always look for ways to save the flowers I love. Here are some ideas:

​Press flowers

I love to press flowers and leaves. Lay your flowers – flat and facedown – between layers of newspaper or another type of unglazed paper. Place the layers in a flower press or under a heavy object (or a pile of heavy books) to keep them flat. Let the flowers dry for two weeks. You can preserve flowers for years with this method. After you remove the flowers for display, keep them out of direct sunlight so they don't fade. Spraying the flowers with hairspray or clear floral spray will strengthen them.

Use pressed flowers to decorate bookmarks, cards, or note paper, or make a collage to frame. Just apply a little white glue to the back of a pressed flower to place it permanently.

Push flowers into clay

​It’s fun to add a natural design to any clay project simply by pushing flowers, leaves, and grasses into the soft clay and then removing them. This is a great way to enhance a clay bowl or cup or even just a slab of clay. You can paint the clay too after pressing a design into your project.

​How do we talk back to Harvey, Irma, and Jose? Is there anything we can do in the face of hurricanes with 185 mph winds, “rain bombs,” rising sea levels, and devastating wild fires?

One thing we can’t do is wait – wait for our politicians and policy makers to act or wait for our government to catch up with other nations who are already working to address climate change. We can work individually and in our communities to limit global warming by reducing carbon emissions.

The following suggestions for tackling the climate crisis are culled from Al Gore’s “Averting the Climate Crisis,” (see the TED Talk) and National Geographic’s “14 easy ways to reduce your own carbon footprint.”

How to tackle the climate crisis

Reduce carbon emissions from the energy use in your home by using efficient insulation and green electricity. Make sure your lighting is efficient. LED light bulbs use up to 80% less energy than traditional lighting and they last longer. (See Karen Johnson's guest blog, "Smart people use smart light.")

Adjust your thermostat up in warm months and down in cold ones, especially when you’re not home.
Use cold water for washing clothes, then line-dry them.

Consider getting solar panels for your home or buying renewable energy credits.

Reduce emissions from your car and other transportation. Save on gas with an electric, hybrid, or super fuel-efficient car.

Maximize fuel efficiency, no matter what model you drive: Keep tires inflated, avoid speeding, keep your trunk free of excess weight—and above all, avoid driving when you can walk, bike, carpool, or take public transit.

Reduce your flight travel where you can, and remember that, unfortunately for your personal comfort, first- and business-class seats have a higher carbon footprint than economy ones.

Be a green consumer. Buy the most energy-efficient appliances and other products you can find.

Replace old appliances, such as refrigerators, washing machines, water heaters, and clothes dryers with smarter models. Look for ENERGY STAR certification.

Eat less meat. By one estimate, consuming a pound of beef gives off more carbon than burning a gallon of gasoline.

Make a decision to live a carbon neutral life.

To find out how, go to climatecrisis.net or https://www3.epa.gov/carbon-footprint-calculator/ to use the carbon calculator to find out what your carbon emissions are and what you can do to reduce them.

Recycle. The EPA estimates that recycling glass, aluminum, plastic, and paper could save 582 pounds of CO2 per year, equivalent to more than 600 miles of driving.

Reuse. Bring your own bags and buy in bulk when possible to reduce packaging. Pack lunches or picnics in reusable containers. Consider the global impact of acquiring more stuff.

Buy and use less plastic. Reduce your consumption of bottled water and other packaged drinks. In general, driving up demand for plastic means doing the same for fossil fuels.

Make your business carbon neutral.

Integrate climate solutions into all your innovations, whatever you create and do.

Invest sustainably in companies and funds that are part of the solution.

Become a catalyst for change. Learn about reducing your carbon footprint. Talk about it.
Raise awareness in your community.

Become politically active. Speak up. Contact your elected officials. Make our democracy work.

Urge the US to join the rest of the world community by committing to the Paris Climate Agreement.

Rebrand “global warming.” Call it climate crisis or planetary emergency. Al Gore suggests this as a way to help depoliticize the subject. We have been arguing over the cause, even the existence, of global warming for too long. Now we must face the effects of a climate crisis together.

As a visiting author to schools, I often told students that research is not a bad word. Research means reading books and articles and watching videos about a subject that fascinates you; it means exploring the web for more and more insight and information; it may include interviewing interesting people; it may invite you to try something new, to explore a museum or historic site, or even to travel to another city or country.

Since my books are often used by teachers, I research meticulously. I over-research. You would know how much if you could see my office. Ultimately, my research leads to hands-on adventures – or even hands-on-bugs adventures (for Busy with Bugs). To write The Incredible Coral Reef, I drew on a lifetime of snorkeling off the coasts of Florida and Hawaii and throughout the Caribbean.

To prepare a new edition of The Incredible Coral Reef, I wanted to get my eyes on a healthy reef. Sadly, in the last few years, I was shocked by a dead reef off the island of Grenada and a diminished reef off the coast of Panama. Last week, I snorkeled at Cozumel, Mexico, for a refresher – and refreshing – course.

If you’ve never seen a coral reef, I’ll try to describe the experience, but it’s like describing a dream. I’ll try.

First, the color of the water is swimming-pool aqua, neon blue, brilliant turquoise. It sparkles with light and foams with waves. When you enter the water, there is no sense of transition, because the temperature is exactly right for human comfort. The water is almost as transparent as air; you can easily see into the underwater distance. As you look around, you are amazed at the activity of swaying sea fans and soft corals, schools of fish, and crawling creatures. It’s like an underwater city built on complex structures of living coral animals resting upon the skeletons of their ancestors. It’s like a colorful garden of intricate texture and design. It’s like a dreamscape filled with strange unworldly creatures, each exquisitely patterned and recklessly painted. It’s like nothing on earth. It’s the Other, the Strange and Wonderful.
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I didn’t really go to Mexico for the research. I went for the reef.

This week, guest blogger Karen Johnson enlightens us about making a smart choice for efficient, cost effective, environmentally friendly lighting. Karen gives weekly tips for sustainable living in her newsletter, Earth For All Ages.
 
For us humans, light helps us see and influences our health and wellbeing. Different aspects of our internal chemistry are triggered by light and darkness. It’s not accidental that we wake and become alert when the sun comes up, and settle down as the sun sets. Lowering light levels in the winter send many people into the winter blues while spring sunshine makes many people feel happy and contented. Even a few minutes in the sun can lift our mood.
 
How about the lights we use in schools? Experiments to evaluate the impact of light on learning show that some levels of brightness and color are good for general lessons, while  cooler colors support increased concentration during tests and warmer colors can help calm down hyperactive children. Imagine schools in the future where lights can be modulated throughout the day to support a calm, focused learning environment. That may not be too far off!
 
Since we humans can’t create our own light, we have to put light into our environment. And that starts with a light bulb. Kind of like the single light in a firefly.
 
However ... producing light bulbs is a complicated technological feat. Unlike the little firefly that is born with a light, when we create a light bulb, we mine metals, create glass, build factories for production, and enlist all kinds of transportation to deliver parts and materials from around the world. The energy used to actually light the bulb involves burning fossil fuels (until we come up with something better) in giant facilities, which produce emissions that go back out into the atmosphere. We then must dispose of the used bulbs. That adds up to tons of wasted material, some of which is toxic and seeps from landfills into our rivers, streams, and oceans, where it enters the food chain and potentially lands back on our kitchen table!
 
So it matters what we choose at the individual level, because it will add up at the global level.
 
What is the average person to do? Get some information and make a simple, wise choice.
 
When buying a new bulb or switching out an old one, choose an LED bulb. These are the newest generation light bulbs, and are different in many ways from the older incandescent bulbs (the glass ones with the little filament inside) or more recent CFL’s (Compact Florescent bulbs, the curly white ones.)
 
Why change to LEDs?
 
1. You can save MONEY. Yes, they cost a little more at first, but they last so much longer. Each LED bulb is rated to last over 100,000 hours. That means if you left it on all day, 24 hours a day, it would last for 24 years. You save money by not paying for new bulbs or the cost of having someone install them. The older incandescent bulbs only last about a year before they need replacement.
 
2. LED bulbs are very efficient, requiring considerably less energy to operate. That means you save on your monthly electric bill.
 
3. LED lights are better for the environment. Why? Because when electrical energy is produced and consumed, carbon dioxide is released into the environment. Less energy needed equals less CO2 produced and released into the atmosphere. Fluorescent lights release small amounts of mercury into the environment while in use and CFLs have mercury in the bulb itself. This is a problem if the bulb breaks in your home, and if it breaks in a landfill, the mercury seeps into the soil and leaches into the global water supply. LED lighting, however, does not contain mercury.
 
4. LEDs provide better light. All light is not created equal. Some lights are considered “warmer,” some “cooler,” and some more like natural light. Different types of light affect color perception, our moods, and even our ability to concentrate or relax. LED lights are available in warm and cool tones.  
 
5. LED’s improve safety and decrease liability. Well-lit areas reduce the risks of both injury and crime. Because LED light bulbs last so much longer, there is less risk of bulbs burning out, leaving an area in the dark.
 
Thanks, Karen!

Spider webs
 
Spiders have spinnerets on their rear ends, which spin out silk. A single spider can spin different kinds of silk for different purposes: for traps and nets, ropes for binding prey, safety lines and parachutes, egg sacs, and nests and sleeping bags. Spider silk is stronger than steel of the same thickness. It’s stretchier than rubber.
 
When I walk in the woods, spider webs often catch my eye -- especially after a shower when the webs are lined with water droplets. A newly made web is perfect and precise, just right for catching the spider’s prey. An orb web is made to trap flying insects. A funnel web or a sheet web catches crawling insects. And a cobweb may net both flying and crawling insects.
 
Look for spider webs in corners or around windows in a basement or garage. Look around the foundation of your house. Look in grass, shrubs, or trees. When you find a web, take a photo of it. You can make a photo collection of different kinds of webs. Jiggle the web with a tiny twig to draw the spider from its hiding place if you want a photo of the spider too.
 
To collect a spider web, you’ll need a large piece of sturdy paper, a can of black spray paint, and a can of spray adhesive. (You can find spray glue at a home improvement center.) Find a web that can be reached from both front and back like a web between two trees or two posts. Scare the spider away with a twig. (Don’t worry, it will make a new web.) Lightly – very lightly! – spray one side of the web with the black paint. Then spray the back side of the web with spray adhesive. Bring your paper against the sticky side of the web, so that the web sticks to the paper. To protect the web, you can cover the paper with clear contact paper when you get home.

Bees and pollinators
When we admire flowers, we usually look at their colors and shapes, but the most interesting parts of a flower are in its center. That’s where all the action is. The center is like a factory where seeds are quietly made. The trick is getting the male part of the flower – the yellow dust called pollen – to the tiny seeds-to-be in the female parts of the flower. Most flowering plants can’t make seeds without outside help. Bees, butterflies, flies, wasps, birds, and bats brush pollen onto the female parts of the flower as they land on the flowers and move around. They act as pollinators.

Bees and pollinators and us
A third of our food supply depends on pollinators. They’re essential to food production. When we lose bees and other pollinators, we lose more than honey. We lose apples and pumpkins and cranberries and strawberries and avocados and more than 140 other fruits and vegetables. In the US, we could lose more than $15 billion a year in agricultural production. Pollinators also support healthy ecosystems that clean the air, stabilize soil, and support other living things, both animals and plants.
 
Bees and pollinators and us and them
Last year we lost 44% of our honeybee colonies. Since 1990, almost 970 million Monarch butterflies have vanished. Diseases, pests, and climate change are contributing to the decline of pollinators, but growing scientific evidence points to pesticides containing chemicals called neonics as the biggest culprit. The largest neonic producers, companies like Bayer and Syngenta, coat seeds and provide pesticides for crops, which result in killing pollinators as well as pests.

Bees and pollinators and us and them and the future
What can we do to help protect pollinators – and apple pie and guacamole?

• Don’t use products in your home or garden that include these neonic ingredients:

          acetamiprid, clothianidin, dinotefuran, imidacloprid, and thiamethoxam. Use eco-friendly pest-               control products.

• Buy flower seeds and vegetable seeds that are not coated with neonicotinoids. Take time to study the ingredients list, because some of the “bee-friendly” plants sold at garden centers have been pre-treated with bee-poisoning neonics.
• Ask Congress to ban these pesticides and to encourage the development of safer alternatives.
• Try to buy organic plants. Try to plant native species to attract the insect pollinators in your area. But the important thing is to plant lots of flowering plants – organic, native, or otherwise. Even some weeds are invaluable. Dandelions are super pollinator attracters. Violets are lovely and make a good ground cover.
• Don’t spray weeds (and pollinators). Let clover and dandelions grow in your lawn, or dig them out.
• Join an environmental organization that is actively working to protect pollinators, such as: 

                    The Sierra Club – “You don’t have to smoke cigarettes to die from nicotine poisoning” 
                    Friends of the Earth – BeeAction.org 
                    The League of Conservation Voters – Stop the Bee-pocalypse!
 
Bees and pollinators and us and them and the future and our new backyards
It’s fun to plant with pollinators in mind. Whether you’re planting a potted plant for a city roof garden or landscaping a backyard, consider pollinators and their favorites.
          Honeybees – anise hyssop, aster, beebalm, black-eyed Susan, catmint, columbine, coneflowers,                       goldenrod, lavender, sage, thyme, yarrow
          Common Eastern bumblebee – clover, rosemary, sunflower, willow
          Hummingbird moth – phlox, bee balm, honeysuckle, verbena
          Native bee – anise hyssop, blazing star, fruit crops
          Pollen wasp – Western wildflowers
          Karner blue butterfly – butterfly weed, leafy spurge, blazing star
          European honeybee – sage – lemon balm
          Monarch butterfly – milkweed
          Hoverfly – yarrow, wild mustard
          Bee fly – Desert and alpine flowers
          Drone fly – alyssum, cosmos, Queen Anne’s lace, lupine
                     From Martha Stewart’s Living magazine
         

A brilliant idea

Katie Martin-Meurer teaches a three-dimensional design course at the University of Wisconsin. She wanted her students to design bird houses for a local park. But then she found out that there might not be enough insects for the birds to eat. In the last 35 years, the number of insects, worms, and other small creatures has almost been cut in half – mostly because of loss of habitat and the use of pesticides on plants.

So Martin-Meurer had another idea. She had her students build bug motels. She asked Daniel Young, an entomologist (someone who studies insects), to help them. Their assignment had two parts: they had to build a correct habitat for a particular insect or bug and they had to provide information on why that little animal is important in nature and needs to be protected.

Isn’t that a wonderful idea? When the students’ bug motels were finished, all 90 of them were placed at nature centers and hiking trails throughout the state. Each one has a QR code, which visitors can scan to find out about the bugs that might make their homes in that bug motel.

Build a bug motel

If you’d like to build a bug motel, think of some of your favorite bugs. Find out what kind of natural habitat (home) they need. Then find out why we should protect them.

​Motel rooms

Here are some ideas to get you started. A good motel room (habitat) for daddy longlegs, millipedes, and pill bugs might include a layer of soil topped with leaf litter. Add a piece of damp, rotting log or bark. Add an apple core for food and always keep the room moist with a mister.

A motel room for cicadas, click beetles, and grasshoppers could include a few inches of dirt with some leafy branches to climb on. Add plants and some pieces of leafy vegetables. Keep a moist paper towel in their room.

Crickets like a motel room with two inches of sand and a container of wet sand for egg laying. Add things to hide in like small sections of toilet paper rolls. Load their frig with lettuce (for water), dry cat food, and vegetable scraps. Keep their room warm but away from direct sunlight.

Why do we care?

All living things are important to our environment, but partly because of their great numbers, bugs are especially important. Bugs provide food for many animals, including birds, bats, lizards, frogs, and fish. Some bugs are decomposers, which clean up everything from dead leaves to dead bodies. Others, especially certain flies, bees, and wasps, are pollinators. Bugs also help keep nature in balance. They keep “invader plants” and insect pests under control by eating them.

What can we do?

Like all animals – including us – bugs are harmed by polluted air, water, and soil. So everything we do to take care of our Earth helps us all. You know what to do: recycle, turn off lights, don’t waste water, etc.

Don’t use pesticides on your lawn or garden. They kill good bugs as well as bad ones.

Don’t buy mounted butterflies or beetles collected in rainforests.

Plant a butterfly garden or a caterpillar garden or any kind of garden. Any garden will be a habitat for bugs.

​Bugs are little animals

When I was writing the book, Busy with Bugs, I had a surprising thought: Bugs are little animals. And getting to know them helps us understand the entire Animal Kingdom. Bugs live in every kind of habitat: mountains, deserts, rainforests, caves, rivers, oceans, fields, backyards – and our houses. Some bugs are predators; some are prey. Some are diurnal (active during the day); some are nocturnal (active at night). Some bugs hibernate; some migrate. Bugs fly, hop, crawl, and run. They eat, drink, rest, hide, communicate, build homes, raise young, attack, fight, die. They are little animals.

And since bugs are animals, we must treat them with respect and care. If you’re interested in catching and keeping live bugs, you’ll need to handle them gently and take care of them responsibly. By learning to love and protect all living things on our planet, you’ll become a better caretaker of our Earth.

Keeping bugs alive

Whether you catch a bug with a bug trap (see “My 5 favorite bug traps”) or find a bug when you’re exploring, use a paintbrush to push the bug into your collecting jar. If you find bugs under a rock or rotting log, gently replace the rock or log in its original position after you collect your critters.

Make sure your collecting jar has openings to let in fresh air. And put a damp, crumpled paper towel in the jar. That will keep bugs from losing moisture and give them a place to hide. These two simple steps will keep your bug alive. You can learn so much more from a living bug than from a dead one.

Taking care of a pet bug

How many children put a bug in a jar and give it grass to eat? But that doesn’t work, because each kind of bug has its own diet. It would be like putting you in a room and giving you grass to eat. You’d probably say, “Don’t they know that I like french fries?”

You can’t feed a bug until you know its name. You can start by counting its legs. All insects have six legs – and two antennae and three body parts (head, thorax, and abdomen). Other creepy crawlies, which I call bugs, may have eight legs (like spiders or daddy long-legs, which are not spiders) or fourteen legs (like a pill bug) or two pairs of legs on each body segment (like a millipede). Your job is to observe your bug, describe it carefully, then look online or in an insect field guide until you can identify it. You may need some help from an adult.

Once you know your bug’s name, you can find out more about it. Google “What do ladybugs eat?’ or “How can you keep a cricket for a pet?” Sometimes you can take a shortcut if you find a bug on a plant and see evidence that the bug has been eating that very plant. A feeding caterpillar will leave big holes in the leaves of a plant and also frass (caterpillar poop). Then you know exactly what to feed that caterpillar.

I worked very hard to make a Keeping-Bugs Chart for my book. It tells exactly what kind of food and shelter is right for different kinds of pet bugs. It also tells how to provide water with a damp paper towel, a mist or spray, or a certain diet. It even tells which bugs can be kept together in a terrarium. Working on the chart made me understand that you can’t keep a bug as a pet unless you know exactly what it needs.

But … once you’ve done your research and set up your bug’s home, it’s not difficult to care for a pet bug. And it can be extremely interesting. Suppose you’re keeping several crickets in a terrarium. You might observe them eating, chirping, kicking, head-butting, wrestling, establishing territories, or laying eggs. Be sure to keep notes and take photos. It might take care of your science project next year!

Have you ever spread a picnic on the ground and then wondered how so many bugs could suddenly find you? Our world is filled with insects and bugs. More than a million species of insects have been described and classified. Scientists believe there are millions more. If you spent your entire life counting bugs on Earth, you wouldn’t have time to finish. You would have to count a billion billion bugs!

But if there are that many bugs around us, why are they so hard to find when you want one? Suppose you're all ready to go bug hunting. You have a bug container and a magnifying lens and maybe even a field guide to insects. But you can’t find any interesting bugs. Well, you need a bug trap.

In my book, Busy with Bugs, there are directions for making ten different bug traps. Sometimes they work – and sometimes they don’t. (It depends on where you live and the time of year and when and where you place the bug trap.) But m  y five favorite bug traps are practically guaranteed to catch bugs.

Beat Sheet
Make a Beat Sheet by putting a white cloth under a tree or shrub. Beat or shake the branches. Did any bugs fall on the sheet? Scoop them up into your collecting jar. This is a good way to find cicadas, ladybugs, or beetles.

Note: A good way to collect bugs without harming them (or being harmed) is with a paintbrush. Use the brush to gently push bugs into your bug container.

Creep-Under Bug Trap
Spread a thick mat of grass clippings in a shady place. Lay a large plastic garbage bag or a piece of lumber on top of the grass. (If you use a garbage bag, secure it with rocks at each corner.) After a few days, lift the trap carefully and see who moved in.

Fly-Right-In Bug Trap
To catch flying insects, put bits of ripe fruit in a wide-mouth jar. Or at night, put a glow stick in a jar to catch insects that are attracted to light. Place a funnel in the jar opening with the small end of the funnel pointing down. The wide mouth of the funnel balances on the rim of the jar, so that when bugs fly into the jar through the funnel, they won’t be able to get out again.

Note: Ripe banana attracts fruit flies.

Flowerpot Trap
This couldn’t be simpler, but it works for me almost every time. Put a clay flowerpot on its side in a deeply shaded area where small plants are growing. Check the flowerpot every day to see if a daddy longlegs is resting in it. You may also find snails, slugs, millipedes, or pillbugs.

Shining Sheet
On a warm summer night, if you provide a light, the night will provide bugs. You can easily observe moths, beetles, and many kinds of flying insects with a Shining Sheet. Hang a white sheet over a railing or between two trees. Set up a flashlight behind it. Then sit quietly in front of the sheet and watch for visitors.

I don’t try to catch moths (or butterflies), but I love to see them. If you do this experiment every few days during the summer, you’ll see the most amazing variety of flying insects – new ones each week.

Have fun catching bugs!

By guest blogger, Alex Robbins, SafetyToday.org

There are few things more important than choosing the right daycare facility for your child. Whether you are picking a learning environment for your 3-year-old or 9-year-old, the tools for success remain the same. Here are eight must-haves that you should find in your child’s potential daycare center.

Age-appropriate toys and activities
A daycare center is almost useless if your child can’t grow using age appropriate toys and organized activities. If you visit a potential daycare center, but find little information about ongoing learning experiences, themed days, and toys geared toward different age groups, you may want to continue looking. A center with staff members that truly care about your child will have a variety of activities, toys, and methods to help him or her grow. Learn more about the importance of daily routines and age appropriate activities through PBS.

Proper equipment
This must-have mostly revolves around safety equipment. Is the daycare center properly secure against intruders? Are there baby gates to keep younger children separated from older children? What kind of equipment is available for toddlers? You should see baby proofed doors, appliances, gates, outlets, and more on your first visit. Even if you don’t have a toddler, you should pay close attention to how much your potential daycare values safety.

Educated and qualified staff
You’ll have a good idea of the education and qualification level of staff members on your first visit to a potential daycare center. You should be introduced to the members who will be working directly with your child. As you meet with them, you should feel welcome to ask any questions you’d like about their prior experience. If you don’t feel comfortable or your questions aren’t being answered, you might want to look elsewhere. The staff members of a daycare center are the most important cog in the wheel. They make everything run smoothly.

Safety regulations
Any professional daycare center should have an easily accessible handbook filled with safety regulations that will help keep your child (and other children) safe from harm. These regulations should include information about vaccinations, required at-home periods of rest after contagious illnesses, and other restrictions. If your potential day care center doesn’t have these rules on hand, they likely don’t enforce them. This could become a serious problem in the future.

Healthy food
Your child should only be eating healthy food at his or her daycare center. This means you should be introduced to the kitchen, the meal plans, and the daily functions involved in preparing food for your child. Transparency in the kitchen is essential to providing a professional daycare atmosphere. After all, you want to know what your child is ingesting.

Clean and safe facilities
It goes without saying that your child should only attend a daycare that is both clean and safe. This could be a matter of location, safety equipment, or general cleanliness. If, when touring the facility, you notice any serious problems with sanitation, you should probably walk away.  Not sure what to look for? Parents.com recently published an article outlining what to seek in a professional daycare center.

A trial period
Most great day care centers offer a trial period option for your child, allowing him or her to gain access to the facility for a few days. Based on the reaction of your child, you can make a more informed decision about whether or not the daycare center is right for your family.

Trust
The final must-have for your potential daycare center? Trust. If you don’t trust the staff members or if you feel as though something is being hidden from you, relaxing during the day will be nearly impossible.

Quick tip for kids: Stranger danger
It can be a little scary being in a new place surrounded by unfamiliar faces. Daycare is a lot of fun and you’ll make so many new friends to play with, but don’t forget to be cautious of strangers. If you ever come across someone you don’t know or if someone unfamiliar approaches you during outside playtime, let your teacher know immediately.

Now let’s get back to the parents. Still struggling? Care.com offers some useful questions to ask when touring a day care center for your child. 

If you search for these must-haves and take your time, you’ll find a quality daycare center that your child will love for years to come.

Have you ever heard someone say, “It’s so hot you could fry an egg on the sidewalk?” Did you ever think of trying it? Many people have experimented with finding ways to cook with heat from the sun. The key to success is to build a sun cooker that reflects the rays of the sun and concentrates heat on the food that needs to be cooked.

Building a sun cooker is a cool experiment. But for the three billion people in the world who have to cook their meals over an open fire or with a stove that pollutes the air, a sun cooker can improve their lives, their health, and the air they breathe.

You can make a bowl into an efficient sun cooker. Find a bowl with as small a base as possible. If you have an aluminum bowl, polish the inside of the bowl until is is smooth and shiny. That will make a bright surface that will reflect the sun rays. If your bowl is not aluminum, you can line it with aluminum foil. Make sure the dull side of the foil is against the inside of the bowl. Your job is to make the foil-covered bowl as smooth and shiny as possible. Smooth the foil with the back of a large spoon, or roll a rubber ball over the foil to remove every single wrinkle. Try to make the bowl as bright as a mirror.

To cook a small potato, first place a little suction hook inside the bowl at the bottom. (Straighten the hook with pliers to form a spike.) If you’re working with an aluminum bowl, simply attach the suction hook directly to the bottom of the bowl. But if you have a foil-covered bowl, open a small slit in the foil, so that you can attach the suction hook to the surface of the bowl. Push the potato onto the spike.

Take the sun cooker outside at noontime when the sun is hottest, and point it directly at the sun. As the sun moves lower in the sky, change the position of the bowl so that the sun shines directly into it. Check the potato with a fork. When the fork slips easily into the potato, it is done! How long did it take?

There are many experiments you can do with a sun cooker. Try designing your own cooker. Try placing it in different locations. Does it work better when placed in the grass or on the sidewalk? Try cooking different foods. Make up a sun recipe. 

From A Kid's Summer EcoJournal by Toni Albert.

Try a Tadpole

As long as there have been kids and tadpoles, kids have been fascinated by tadpoles. And perhaps tadpoles have been fascinated by kids. We don’t know.

If you have never watched a slippery little head-with-a-tail change into a fat-bellied frog, it’s time to try it. The first step is to visit a pond in early spring to collect frog or toad eggs, or spawn. Frog spawn looks like a mass of cloudy jelly; toad spawn looks like long strings of black beads; and newt spawn is found as single eggs, each surrounded by clear jelly. Collect about a handful of one kind of spawn. Don’t mix frog and toad or newt spawn in the same container.  Put the spawn in a gallon jar or aquarium filled with pond water, and add some water weeds.

Your part in growing little frogs is easy. Keep the aquarium out of direct sunlight. Change the water once a week – always using pond water, not tap water. And once the tadpoles have hatched, provide water plants or decaying lettuce for them to eat. When the tadpoles begin to grow their back legs, their diet will change to meat. You can hang a tiny piece of meat in the water. Or simply feed them bits of dog or cat food.

As the tadpoles lose their tails and begin to breathe air, place rocks in the aquarium so that they can climb out of the water. Keep the aquarium covered or they may jump out! When the young frogs become this active, it’s time to release them at the pond where you collected the spawn. Then they will be in the right environment to catch the insects they need to eat.

Releasing tiny frogs in this way – after keeping them safe from predators while they were growing – is helpful to the frog population, which sadly is declining.        

From A Kid’s Spring EcoJournal by Toni Albert.

We (he) mounted the squirrel house in early January, because squirrels are very cautious about moving into new quarters. They need time to investigate. Then if a couple decides to move in, they need more time to furnish it with huge mouthfuls of leaves and twigs. Gray squirrels mate in late winter and mid-summer, and the litters are born 40-44 days later in March/April and July/August. (Yearling females only mate once.)

Squirrels live high in trees, so Bob mounted the squirrel box about 20 feet up a sturdy maple tree. We had a 16-foot ladder and extended it by placing the foot of the ladder in the bucket of our Kubota tractor. Bob carried the heavy squirrel house, a portable screw gun, and four #8x3-inch screws up the ladder. I held the camera down below. His job was to balance the house while securing it to the tree with two screws at the top and two at the bottom of the mounting board (the vertical board attached to the back of the house). My job was to take a picture and try to breathe normally.
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If you plan to mount a squirrel box, be very careful. It will all be worthwhile when you see those little squirrels peeking out, venturing out, and finally playing freely like digital acrobats.  

​Deer Droppings 
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It's time to look for deer droppings. Not that kind! I'm talking about deer antlers.
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In fall and early winter, during the rutting season, antlers are weapons used in clashes between bucks fighting over does. But after the rutting season, sometime between January and April, a buck's testosterone levels fall and trigger his antlers to fall too. The buck will then begin growing new antlers, which are soft at first and covered in "velvet," but by fall, the antlers will be hard and rubbed clean to the bone, ready for more clashing.

It's exciting to find a shed antler. For one thing, you know you're standing in the very place where an event in a buck's life occurred. For another, you have an impressive artifact, which can be crafted into something beautiful – or given to a favorite dog. Dogs, as well as many small mammals and rodents, love to chew on antlers, which are rich in calcium and minerals. My daughter-in-law gave our little dog Jazzy a small antler for Christmas two years ago. Jazzy has spent hours chewing the antler tines down to rounded stubs, but she still has a long way to go. I estimate that it will be her favorite toy for several more years.
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Tips for hunting for antlers 

When: Hunt for antlers in early spring when most bucks have shed theirs, so that you have the best chance of finding one. Also, it's easier to find antlers before grass and vegetation have covered them.

Where: Look for antlers where deer eat – the edge of a field, especially the line where field and woods meet; the base of an oak tree; in brushy areas where shrubs have buds; near evergreens.

Look near sources of water, such as creeks and ponds.

Look near a salt lick.

Look along deer trails, which are clearly visible at this time of year.

Look for cleared places where deer bed down.

How: You know how! Walk and walk and walk. Keep scanning the ground around you, or use binoculars to look over a field. Ivory colored antlers with sharp tines often look like twigs and fallen branches, so train yourself to look twice at whatever catches your eye. Look for bones, too, because sometimes antlers are part of an entire carcass.

How to handle antlers: I usually soak a found antler in water with a little bleach for a day or two. Then, even without scrubbing it, the antler will be clean and white. Jazzy wanted an antler that I soaked and she accepted it even with the smell of chlorox on it, but I decided to wait a couple of weeks for the smell of bleach to wear off before giving it to her.

On the other hand, if you want to keep an antler outside, you might decide not to clean it at all. The color of stained bone is more authentic and interesting.

My granddaughter Avery found an entire skull with eight-point antlers still attached. What a find! We don't think this was a deer that died recently, but we were still sad to see such a fine animal killed.

FYI for teachers: Sheep, goats, and cows have horns, which aren't typically shed. The age of a Big Horn Sheep can be determined by counting the annual growth rings on its horns. Deer have antlers that are shed each year. The antlers may or may not be bigger each year, depending on the deer's health, food supply, and genetics.

Friends in high places
 
Yes, I have friends in high places. When I whistle, they come flying. I practically have them eating out of my hand.
 
It begins with a … well, if you’re not inclined to be generous, a bribe. I prefer to call it giving a small gift in exchange for a big gift. I pour three scoops of bribe into a bucket and go to our meeting place, where my lofty friends are waiting for me. I whistle a three-note call, almost a bird call, and my flighty friends come swooping down from all directions. I can watch them land in the trees around me, quickly coming nearer until they dart into the feeder, so close I can hear the soft whoosh of their wings. It’s thrilling to have this sense of friendship and communication with wild birds. 
 
Feeder fun: Some pointers
 
Our feeder attracts birds, squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, and deer -- and once, a bear! So I buy shelled corn, sunflower seeds, and wild bird mix. In winter, we add fruit for bluebirds and suet blocks for woodpeckers, Carolina wrens, titmice, and chickadees. We put meat scraps on a stump in back of our house for crows and the fox. The fox loves salmon skin, and crows like almost anything from the compost pile. Oh, we also put out a salt block, which is sculpted into odd shapes by rain, snow, and much deer-licking.
 
You may be thinking that this sounds expensive. Of course, if you think of attracting and viewing wildlife as a hobby, it’s a bargain compared to many other activities that children and adults pursue. And there are ways to make it more affordable. I buy corn and birdseed in 50-pound bags from a feed mill. Fifty pounds of corn costs $7.00; birdseed costs $10.00. We buy suet blocks for 89 cents at Ollie’s Bargain Outlet.
 
You don’t have to keep your feeder full all the time. Decide how much feed you can afford to put out each day, and then let the birds and other animals work it out. I’ve never tried to keep squirrels away from our feeder. They’re so much fun to watch – beautiful, clean, playful acrobats. They don’t overeat (well, my corn-fed squirrels are bigger than city squirrels); they don’t bully the birds or fight with each other. All of the animals eat together, some in the feeder, some on the ground. It makes an interesting, entertaining feeder.
 
Our feeder is placed on a five-foot post, too high for a cat’s leap. It’s surrounded by a large maple and shrubs, so that birds can dive for shelter when the hawk swoops down. There are several short lengths of hollow logs at the base of the feeder, an air raid shelter for chipmunks, birds, and squirrels.
 
It’s a good idea to offer water too. I’ve tried a number of things over the years, including a tier of copper pools with water splashing from one to another. A great hit with birds and butterflies, but too much maintenance. Now I keep water in a shallow pan on the ground or on a stump. It’s important in deep winter, when water is hard to find, to keep the ice broken or removed.
 
That’s all I know about feeders. My next blog will be about feeding.

Note: All of the photos in the slide show were taken at our feeder by Bob or Toni Albert.