Make It Monday–Pop Bottle Wind Spinner

Easy Peesy-just wait til you try it!

Supplies Needed

An empty plastic two-liter pop bottle
Colored electrical tape, or labeling tape
Scissors
Flexible tape measure
Pen or pencil
Exacto knife
Paper clip
Ball bearing swivel  (used for fishing, and can be found by the fishing accessories in any discount store)
String for hanging

Instructions

 

Begin your pop bottle wind spinner by rinsing it out well, and removing all the labels, as best as you can.

Run lengths of colored electrical tape around the middle of the pop bottle, as shown.  This will also help cover any of the label that still might be stuck on.

Measure along the top tape strip with a flexible measuring tape.  Use a pen or pencil to measure off 3/4 inch sections.

Using an exacto knife, cut a vertical strip down the length of the pop bottle at each 3/4 inch mark.  Begin at the top of the tape strip, or about at the point where the pop bottle is straight and not curved from the top.  Extend the cut all the way to about 2 inches above the bottom. You may find it is hard to keep the cut lines straight.  Take your time and do the best you can.  If some are curved cuts, you will hardly notice in the final result.

Next, squish down the pop bottle.  This will make the strips flare out.  When they do, pinch each strip in the middle to create a fold.

The next step is to angle the strips by making folds at the top and bottom, so the wind can catch them.  To do this, begin at the top.  Make a 45 degree fold to the right at the very top of each strip.  See the photos below for help.

Now, at the bottom of each strip, make a 45 degree fold to the left.You can also add other details to the wind spinner.  Here I cut little triangles out of the tape and decorated the top and bottom of the pop bottle.

 Now you are ready to make the top for your pop bottle wind spinner.   Make a hole in the top of the pop bottle cap.  The easiest way to do this is by heating the end of an untwisted paper clip, then melting quickly through the plastic (be careful, plastic fumes are not good for you).  Or, you can use a drill to make the hole.  Another method is to pound a nail into the top of the cap to form the hole

Unfold a paper clip (I used a white paper clip).  Thread the wire of the paper clip through the end of the ball bearing swivel.  Then, twist the wire together once or twice to form a loop.

Push the wire ends of the paper clip through the top hole of the bottle cap. Fan out the wire ends inside the cap to anchor into place. 

 Screw on the pop bottle cap, add a string for hanging, and you are ready to hang your wind spinner!

 No batteries in camera, no pictures! Here is a good shot of what one can look like: http://www.instructables.com/files/deriv/FTB/2OKJ/FPQL8N8X/FTB2OKJFPQL8N8X.MEDIUM.jpg

Will post photo soon!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Make It Monday-Going Batty

Halloween is almost upon us, then it’ll be over in a flash. But before Halloween goes into hiding until next year make a  fun, green Halloween.  It’ll make you go batty, but it’ll be worth it!

If you would like to make a couple of these bats for yourself, you need some small yogurt cups. You will also need black spray paint for plastic, black craft foam, a hot glue gun and glue sticks and a few drops of red and white acrylic paint for the eyes and blood drops.

• Take the yogurt cups outside and spray them with the black spray paint for plastic, let them dry then spray a second time for good even coverage.
• Cut wings and ears from black craft foam.
• Once the paint is dry fire up the glue gun.
• Add just a little bit of glue along the edge of the wings and ears and attach them to the yogurt cups
• Paint on eyes and fangs with white paint
• Paint red drops of blood dripping from the fangs

Now you have a crafty bat made from yogurt cups that would normally end up in the trash. Enjoy!

Make It Monday-Magazine Reeds

I’m getting fairly obsessed with magazine reeds these days. I first saw them at the state 4H fair and couldn’t wait to get home a try my own hand  They’re such a great way to make crafty use of those old magazines you have lying around. Once you’ve glued the reeds to a surface and sealed them, you have a project that’s extremely sturdy, colorful, and beautifully recycled.

What you’ll need:

• Magazine pages
• Two bamboo skewers (the narrowest ones you can find)
• Glue stick (see note below)
• Ruler
• Pencil
• Aleene’s Tacky Glue
• Moist towel
• Sharp, strong scissors
• Small box
• Mod Podge and brush

A note on glues: For this project, you’ll want a glue stick that sticks strongly and isn’t too wet. I’m a big fan of Aleene’s Tacky Glue Sticks. Similarly, I love good, old Aleene’s Tacky Glue for the gluing phase of this project—it sets up quickly, so the magazine reeds won’t slide around on your project.

Incidentally, you’ll end up with a lot of glue on your fingers during this project! Keep a moist towel nearby for clean-ups.

Make a Magazine Reed
First, tear out a pile of magazine pages. You don’t have to worry about the torn edges being too clean—they’ll be hidden when you roll up the reeds. If you have a particular color scheme in mind for your project, then make sure the pages you tear out contain large amounts of these colors. You can use ad pages, article pages—all that matters is the predominant colors.

Fold each page in half lengthwise, as shown. If you have a torn edge, just line it up with the straight edge as best you can.

Cut the page in half along your foldline. Take the first half, and place it face down. By this I mean that the side of the page you want to have showing on the finished reed should be facing down.

Place a bamboo skewer on the bottom right corner of the paper, as shown. It should be a little more than a 45-degree angle to the corner. No need to break out the protractor, though—this isn’t an exact science!

Beginning at this corner, roll the paper snugly around the skewer. I like to begin rolling from the cut edge of the paper, not the torn edge.
As you roll, you’ll want to pay attention to the left-hand end of the skewer. The magazine paper will roll up around it and quickly cover it. Don’t let this happen! Take a moment every so often as you’re rolling to pull the end of the skewer out of the reed a little so you can still see the end as you continue rolling. (Hold your roll-in-progress down with your right hand and pull the skewer out with your left.)

The reason you’re doing this is so that you can still grab and remove the skewer once you’ve finished the reed.

Once you’ve rolled the paper to this point, spread some glue from the glue stick along the top edge of the paper, about halfway across from the right-hand corner. Then continue rolling the reed over this glue.

When you’ve rolled to this point, apply glue to the rest of that top edge of the paper and also to the left-hand edge. Finish rolling up the reed, making sure that the last tip of paper is securely glued down. Pull the skewer out of the reed and it’s done. If you have trouble pulling that skewer out, you can take a second skewer and poke it through the center of the reed to help push it out.

Make a pile of reeds to get ready for the next part of the project. This box required about 50. Once you’ve rolled a few reeds, you’ll find a rhythm and each one will only take a few seconds to make.

A Couple of Reed-Making Tips:
The reason we apply so much glue to the edges of the paper is so that you can cut your finished reeds into various lengths. If you only glue the end of the paper down, then when you cut the reed, it springs open and is difficult to reroll.

If your magazine page has a wide, white margin along the long edge, be careful! Make sure that this is the edge of the paper where you begin rolling. This will hide that white margin in the center of the reed so the colors can show.

If you roll this reed from the other side, that white margin will cover up all the colors. Not that this has happened to me a hundred times or anything.

Cover a Box
I’m using a ready-made chipboard box here, but you can cover any box you have on hand—raid your recycle bin for something you can repurpose. Little bits of the box may show through your reeds here and there, so you may want to paint your box before adding the reeds.

For this design, I used a ruler to draw guidelines on the lid of the box. You can place your reeds in any configuration you like, and the possibilities are endless.

Choose four reeds to begin the design. Fold each one in half—I fold them against the tip of my thumbnail to give them a nice, sharp crease.

Apply a generous line of tacky glue over your pencil line. Place these reeds into the glue, carefully pressing them together and adjusting their position. Let them sit for about five minutes while the glue sets.

The reeds should sit as close together as possible. If your design has any spaces, such as in the center of my four reeds here, you can tuck in a small slice of a reed to fill the space. I clipped this piece with scissors.

Work in sections from this point. Apply a generous amount of glue to the box, and then place the folded reeds into the glue, adjusting their position with your fingers. Press the reeds together as your work. If glue oozes out between then, just wipe it away with your fingers.
When you’ve covered a section, leave it to dry for an hour before proceeding to the next step.

This is a good time to mention that you can also cut the reeds to size before you glue them in place. In fact, when I’m working with straight reeds, I always precut them with scissors. However, for this design, I find it easier to glue first and trim later.

Once the glue is dry, use a pair of sharp, long-bladed scissors to trim away the ends of the reeds so they’re flush with the edge of the box. I like using scissors to cut the reeds rather than a utility knife—the knife tends to damage the reeds.

Repeat this process to cover the remaining sections of the box with reeds.
If you like, you can finish the cut edges of the reeds by gluing contrasting reeds over them. You’ll need to hold these reeds in place for a few minutes while the glue sets. I like to then use a bit of low-tack painter’s tape to hold the corners down until the glue is fully dry—this keeps them from warping.

Apply two coats of Mod Podge over the finished box, allowing it to dry between coats.

Garden rescue for fall

When fall hits, the end of tomato season is near. No more of those luscious ripe, red home grown beauties are in store until the next summer. It always seems like such a waste to throw out the green ones that came from all the spring’s efforts.

Every gardener grieves knowing all those small and medium sized green tomatoes are going to waste. If you live in the southern US, fried green tomatoes are a staple this time of year, but my family starts to whine because they find them more than a little tiresome night after night.

A well grown tomato plant will be loaded with lots of green tomatoes at the end of the season, and while green tomato relish is wonderful, it is not the reason most of us labored so long and hard to grow the plants.

 If you know what to do, those unripe tomatoes can be coaxed into ripeness with time, patience, and room. While they will never match the sweetness, and flavor of those ripened on the vine, they are still miles ahead of the red pieces of cardboard you buy in the stores.

 For starters, only choose green tomatoes that have some small tinge of pink on them. If they are totally green, they will never ripen. Those are candidates for the frying pan.

For just a few tomatoes, you can put them into a brown paper bag with a ripening banana in the bottom. A “ripening” banana is one that is ideally yellow in the middle and a little green on the end. Ripening fruit produces ethylene gas which speeds the ripening process. Bananas are champion ethylene producers, and are a good choice because they continue to ripen after being picked. Tomatoes are losers in this department, by comparison.

 If you have more tomatoes than you have room for bags, try using paper boxes. Line the bottom with newspaper, and put a layer of green tomatoes, stem end down, but not touching. Another layer can be added on top of a second layer of newspaper, but no more than two. Be sure to select only tomatoes that have no insect damage, and are firm and intact. A ripening banana can be used to speed the process, but the tomatoes will ripen on their own without help. But a banana can be used in one box, then the next to stagger the ripening process. Put the boxed tomatoes in a dark, cool, slightly humid spot and check them every few days.

 

If there is a frost coming, don’t bother harvesting individual fruits. Pull the entire plant out of the ground and shake off as much dirt as possible (getting rid of the root ball removes a handle you are going to need to hang them). Remove any twigs, leaves or branches that are not needed to hold the fruit. Hang the entire plant, upside down, in a sheltered area, such as a garage, or a basement (or if you are really brave, the laundry room). They must be kept in the dark. While the leaves need sunlight to feed the plant, the tomatoes themselves will actually ripen better if they are kept in the dark.

Inspect the tomatoes, those that are darker green, hard and show no signs of beginning to ripen will ever get ripe. The ones that have begun to lighten are showing signs of getting ripe. If you are not sure whether they will ripen, it does no harm to leave them on the vines for a few days to see if any changes appear. If they remain hard, and dark green, they are good material for frying, or for relish.

They will ripen almost as well as if they had remained outside to finish their march to being table ready.

Don’t let them get hit by frost, then none of them will ever ripen. Surrender to ripping up the plant is not easy, but is better than having to discard the entire unripe lot.

But in the end, the reason anyone grows tomatoes is for the table, and even if the fresh, wonderful red ones will no longer be around, there are wonderful ways to enjoy them, green or not.

 

I used to take all of those slightly pink tomatoes at the end of the season, nestle them in newspapers in a paper box, and put them in our cool, humid basement. Well into January, we could find quite a few ripened tomatoes for cutting, and tomatoes perfect for frying as green. We used flour insted of corn meal, and the results were fabulous

For those tomatoes that are never going to ripen, enjoy them fried, or made into relish.

 

How many ways can you use green tomatoes? These are my favorites:

Fried Green Tomatoes

4 medium green tomatoes, sliced into thick slices
2 eggs, beaten
1 ½ cups yellow corn meal, seasoned with salt and pepper.

Dip each slice in the beaten egg, then the cornmeal. Fry over medium heat in small batches and serve immediately.

 Best Ever Green Tomato Relish

2 ½ pounds green tomatoes
½ pound very small onions, quartered (boiling onions work well)
6 jalapeno peppers, quartered, seeded and sliced into rings*
2 quarts water
6 cups sugar
3 cups vinegar

Boil water and add sugar, vinegar until sugar is well dissolved. Add green tomatoes, onions and peppers. Bring to boil, and then reduce heat to simmer for about 8 minutes. Ladle into sterilized ½ pint jars by putting vegetables first, leaving about ¼ inch of headroom. Fill with fluid. Remove air bubbles. Put on caps and tighten. Process in boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Makes 6 ½ pints.

*For the faint of heart, the peppers can be reduced in number, or omitted entirely. This relish is quite hot with the full contingent of peppers.

Green Tomato Chutney
You can deal with the tomato skins in one of two ways.  You can either blanch them in boiling water for one minute to loosen the skins, or do what I do.  Just cook everything, then pick through with a spoon and fork and remove the skins. Most of them will have fallen off and curled up into little cylinders during cooking. Of course you could make this chutney with ripe tomatoes, too, but part of its charm is the tartness that comes from the green ones.

2-3 lbs. tomatoes in various stages of ripeness, coarsely chopped
1 Tb. olive oil
1/2 red onion, finely chopped
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. red wine vinegar
2 Tb. chopped fresh rosemary
2 Tb. chopped fresh ginger
dash of red pepper flakes
salt

Heat oil in a large saucepan.  Add onion and ginger and saute until softened, about 5 minutes.  Add the rest of ingredients, bring to a boil, then turn heat down and simmer for about 45 minutes, until mixture is thickened, tasting a few times and adding more of anything to taste.  Remove from heat, let it cool, then store in the fridge.  Will keep for at least a week, and will thicken up a bit more when cold.

Green Tomato and Manchego Pizza
This isn’t something you’d eat for dinner: far too delicate and insubstantial. But as a pre-dinner snack, it is terrific. A few hours or a day in advance, prepare the tomatoes: for each eight-inch pizza you need half a green tomato about 2-1/2 inches in diameter.Cut it in half lengthwise (spheres don’t have lengths, so let’s say longitudinally), then cut each half into very thin (1/16 inch) slices. Put them in a bowl with some salt, some olive oil and a few leaves of fresh sage, slivered. Cover and leave until needed.

Preheat your oven to 475 degrees F. Using handball-sized pieces of dough, roll out thin eight-inch circles; let them rest for five minutes, covered with a cloth. Top with a single layer of overlapping tomato slices, making sure that the sage is fairly well distributed. Using a vegetable peeler, shave some young manchego or similar sheep’s milk cheese onto the pizzas – not too much. Grind some black pepper, drizzle some olive oil and bake for ten or twelve minutes. Cut into wedges and serve with nice white wine.

Spaghetti with Green Tomatoes Spaghetti con Pomodori Verdi

1/4 cup mint leaves
1/4 cup basil leaves
1/4 cup arugula
1/4 cup dill
5 green tomatoes, coarsely chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
1 pound spaghetti
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
Salt and black pepper, to taste

Bring 6 quarts of water to a boil and add 2 tablespoons salt.
In the bowl of a food processor combine the herbs, tomatoes and garlic and puree. Add the cheese and pulse for 30 seconds.
Cook the pasta in the boiling water until tender yet al dente. 1 minute before the pasta is done, turn on the food processor and slowly drizzle the oil in to make a smooth sauce. Drain the pasta, discarding the water, and return to the hot pot. Stir in the tomato mixture, season with salt and pepper, to taste and serve immediately.

Make It Monday

So here’s the idea, we love to make things around here. You name it an we have probably crafted or cooked it at least once. I thought maybe you create things as well and we could all share them here.

 

But craft materials are expensive, you say…Ha! I say! Using found items like beach glass, sand, rocks, and pine cones, challenge and delight yourself on “Make it Monday.” Every Monday, I’ll share my crafting projects as I contemplate the pine cone or mull over the various uses for a twig or bark. This may include a pine-cone room diffuser, a birch-bark picture frame, a pressed-leaf lampshade and twiggy candles. I challange you; get outside and to start hunting and gathering natural and recycled material for your craft projects. Remember, there is always another way to use it just one more time!

Please do not strip a tree or harm the environment when foraging for crafting supplies, but do pay attention when walking the dog or jogging along the waterfront. You never know what sort of treasures are crying out to be restyled and honored in a craft project.

Our favorite recycling bin project is tincan laterns.

This is how we make them:

• Clean, dry tin can
• Hammer
• Nail
• Wire clothes hanger
• Needle Nose Pliers
• Wire Cutter
• Small votive-sized candle

1. Fill the tin can with water, and place it in the freezer until the water is frozen solid.
2. Take a wide-headed nail (roofing nails work great), and pound it into the side of the tin can until it pierces the metal.  (The ice will keep the can surface firm as you pound!)  Keep piercing the metal to make any design you like—a star, perhaps, or a moon, or creative sun.  When you’re done,  make two more extra holes across from one another near the very top of the can—these will be for your handle.
3. By now, your block of ice will be melting.  Dump it out, and you’ll see that you’ve got a very attractive small lantern! 
4. Now use the wire cutters to cut the wire hanger, and use the needle nosed pliers to shape it.  Stick it through each side of the tin can, and loop it around to make a handle. 
5. Congratulations!  You’ve made a tin can lantern, quite similar to ones that lit our country’s log cabins across the frontier.  Make several, and then turn off all the lights for an entire evening—reduce your carbon footprint!

Starting Nature Journals

I love to teach about nature, but had heard that many homeschool parents do not. After talking to parents, they say they would like to learn more, but don’t know where to start.  

When I go on nature hikes with families we go out to see what we can find. We always bring a notebook or a sketch pad, nature guides and usually someone brings a camera. Sometimes we have binoculars or a telescope, too. I think the best way to remember what we discover is to make notes in a nature notebook. Don’t know where to start?

Nature Notebooks, or Journals, can be very complicated, or easy. I like easy.
I use my computer to print Nature Notebook pages which we put into a loose leaf binder. We glue photographs or drawings of what we found onto the page and then make notes. Make notes about everything you observe. Some of the things we record are:

Name of Animal:

Scientific Name (Genus/Species):

Date:                                         Location:

Description:

What does it eat?

Where does it live?

How big is it?

What did it do while you were watching?

What else did you learn about it?

You can adjust your pages and observations depending on the age of your child.

If you don’t have a binder, you can keep your pages in a folder until you can stitch them together to make your own book, or, if using a digital camera, create digital pages and store on a disk. This year, we have started to collect movies and sounds of our nature discoveries using the video option on our digital camera. We keep our videos together at YouTube and have created an online journal.

Before long, your notebook will be filled with information and you will know a lot about the world around you.

Collecting & Recording Information

All About Tracks

Winter is the best time to survey for wildlife because they leave their tracks behind in the snow. However, if you have damp or muddy areas in your yard, you may also find tracks there. To figure out what wildlife you have, look at the track itself, as well as the pattern of the tracks to see how the animal was moving. This should be done several times when snow or mud is present.

 

Scat and Food Remains

While observing your study plot or walking a transect line, look for evidence of feeding such as nut shells or partially eaten berries or scat (feces).

Watch for Birds

There are several ways to figure out what birds you have around the yard. Your surveys should occur at different times of the year, so you can find out what birds are found year round and what birds migrate to the area in the spring.

Inventory the birds at your feeder. To identify them, look at their shape, size and color. If you have nest boxes, sit quietly and watch for the birds using them.

 Listen for Animal Sounds

Many animals, like bugs, insects and frogs, make sounds that are used to identify them. Begin by listening to frog calls at www.pwrc.usgs.gov/frogquiz  Bird songs can be found at www.enature.com/birding/audio.asp

Analyzing Data                                                                                                                                                        Once you have recorded your results, organize them into categories. This might include tables, charts, graphs, or placing the information on a map. Look at the information you have collected. Are there ways to look at the information mathematically (estimates, means, and frequency)? Can you draw any conclusions from the data? Does the data help you answer your original question? If not, what other data would you need to collect?

 What’s Next?                                                                                                                                                                     From the information you have collected and analyzed, write a clear conclusion statement that answers your question and uses data to support it. Your conclusion should include new questions and ideas for finding answers to those questions.

The scientific process is never done. Making field observations and recording them in a journal is the first step to becoming a field biologist. A field journal is a scientific tool, just like a measuring tape or binoculars. It is a permanent record of everything you find, observe and collect.

Keeping track of day-to-day events and observations is an important part of creating a permanent record while building your knowledge of the natural world. The observations you make may be focused to provide data to answer a specific question or may simply be a record of what you saw, smelled or heard while spending time outdoors. By writing information down, you can go back into the laboratory and have a complete record of your experience. If you didn’t identify something in the field, your journal has clues you can use to look it up later in a field guide.

Include in journal 

• Date, time, location and weather.
• Record observations of the plants and animals, include size, color, textures and behaviors.
• Use a scientific illustration: sketch a picture or take a digital photo.
• Write questions asking what else you would like to know about what you are observing

Environmental Science in Your Backyard

Imagine you are a biologist. What kinds of questions would you ask to learn about fish and wildlife that live in or near your yard or neighborhood park?

For example, you might ask: What animals are found here? Why are they here? What time of day do they use this area? Where are good food sources? What kinds of habitat surround this area? Are there places where animals could hide from danger? Is there a water source? If you have a stream or pond, what animals live in it?

These basic questions can be answered through making observations, collecting information, analyzing that information and finally showing evidence that supports your conclusions about what animals live here.

Fish and wildlife biologists seek answers to questions like this every day. Their work is complex, as they look at differences between groups of wildlife or environmental onditions, as well as the relationships between species, habitat and human influence. They use this information to make decisions about how to manage wildlife species.

Use your observation skills to investigate what lives on your yard.

 

The Big Question

The first step in investigating your yard is to ask a question that you can explore. Having a specific question is important because it allows you to focus your efforts. Once you have a question, you’ll know what data to collect to help you find answers.

What kinds of questions could you ask about the animals and plants your yard?

Mapping

Creating a map of the site is an important step in your investigation. While making the map, notice what’s really there, for example, a driveway, buildings, play areas, lawns,

sources of water and places where plants and trees grow.

Your map becomes a handy reference that will be useful when you begin do to your surveys of the plants and animals on the site.

What are other features you might show on your map?

Observing and Collecting Data

Conduct a habitat and wildlife inventory of the yard to give you a picture of what is happening right now. The information may help you answer your investigation question, or it may lead you to ask more questions. Be sure to collect this data in an organized way. Each time you collect information, you’ll want to do it in the same way, so you can make a comparison. You might want to set up a study plot (a defined area) you will visit or a line (called a “transect line”) that you will walk every time you go out to make observations.

 

Tools to Explore the Yard

1. Inquiring mind

2. Field journal

3. Sharp pencil

4. Measuring item, like ruler or tape measure

5. Ball of string

6. Hand lens or magnifying glass

7. Small trowel (for soil samples)

8. Collecting bags (plastic zipper bags in a variety of sizes)

9. Collecting jars (unbreakable yogurt containers)

10. Tweezers or forceps for picking up small items.

11. Thermometer

12. Compass

 

What grows here?

Observe the plants and trees in your yard. What color are they? Are they always green, or do they lose their leaves?

What is the shape of the leaves? Do they have texture? Do they have a flower or a fruit? Once you make your observations, use a field guide to help you identify them.

 

Finding Wildlife

Evidence

Determining what wildlife use your yard can be challenging, since we don’t often see the animals. Record what you see, hear or smell in your field journal. Here are several ways you can figure out what animals are using your area

Stone Soup

Many years ago three soldiers, hungry and weary of battle, came upon a small village. The villagers, suffering a meager harvest and the many years of war, quickly hid what little they had to eat and met the three at the village square, wringing their hands and bemoaning the lack of anything to eat.

The soldiers spoke quietly among themselves and the first soldier then turned to the village elders. “Your tired fields have left you nothing to share, so we will share what little we have: the secret of how to make soup from stones. All we need is some water and a large pot.”

Naturally the villagers were intrigued and soon a fire was put to the town’s greatest kettle as the soldiers dropped in a smooth stone gathered carefully from the river’s edge. “Now this will be a fine soup”, said the second soldier. Sipping some of the warm soup he said “but a pinch of salt and some parsley would make it wonderful!” Up jumped a villager, crying “What luck! I’ve just remembered where some has been left!” And off she ran, returning with an apronful of parsley and a surprisingly large turnip. As the kettle boiled on, the memory of the village improved: soon barley, carrots, beef and cream had found their way into the great pot, along with cheeses and laves of bread. In no time tables were set in the square, grace was said and everyone all sat down to eat.

The villagers and soldiers ate and danced and sang well into the night, refreshed by the feast and their new-found friends. In the morning the three soldiers awoke to find the entire village standing before them. At their feet lay a satchel of the village’s best breads and cheese. “You have given us the greatest of gifts: the secret of how to make soup from stones”, said an elder, “and we shall never forget.” The third soldier turned to the crowd, and said: “There is no secret, but this is certain: it is only by sharing that we may make a feast”.

 And the soldiers wandered off, down the road.

Being Confused-Staying Safe

I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks.
                                                                                                                                               Daniel Boone

Going for a hike can be a fun way to spend time in the outdoors. You may see plants and animals you’ve never seen before, and you’ll go places that only hikers go.

When you go on a hike
•     Dress for the hike. Wear sneakers or hiking boots, not sandals. Bring a warm jacket even if it’s hot at home. It’s cooler in the woods and on mountains.
•     Carry your own gear. (You’ll find a list of gear you should take in Your Gear.)
•     Hike with a buddy.
•     Stay with your group. If you run ahead or lag behind, you may miss a turn and become lost.
•     Never play hide and seek on a hike.
•     Always wait at trail junctions.
•     Be a responsible hiker. Carry all your trash out.

If you get lost
•     STAY IN ONE PLACE. If you wander, it will be harder for searchers to find you.
•     Stay together if you’re with a friend or pet.
•     Blow your whistle every few minutes.
•     Stay warm and dry. You can snuggle up with your friend or dog. Or use your garbage bag to make a poncho. Most of your body heat escapes through your head, so cover it with a hat or scarf. And don’t lie on the bare ground, because that will make you colder.
•     Don’t hide. Stay in the open where searchers can see you. Put out something bright for searchers to see like a bandana.
•     Protect yourself from wind and rain.

Don’t be afraid
•     Mom and Dad won’t be mad because you’re lost. They’ll be very happy to see you again. And they’ll be proud that you remembered what to do when lost.
•     As soon as they know you’re lost, they’ll get searchers to help find you.
•     Wild animals don’t like to be near people. If they sense you’re near, they’ll run away.
•     If you hear a noise, make a noise back. If it’s an animal, it will run away. If it’s a searcher, they’ll find you.
•     Nothing changes because it gets dark. Try to memorize your surroundings while it’s light; then you’ll know where things are in the dark.
•     You can sing, whistle or tell yourself a story to make yourself feel better