Which means this was out last week to cram in that last play date, visit the park (twice!), go on a field trip with our cm nature group and visit the butterfly house. We were supposed to do that last one with a local cm mom but as it often the case when you make plans involving lots of kids, someone was sick. Sad. I briefly considered canceling because I hadn't even told kids we were going yet but I decided to fight the laziness inside me and keep to the plan. And since it was just going on a random, kinda yucky cold Thursday, I thought we'd probable have the place to ourselves and could actually stop and draw things in our nature book. And we did and it was awesome.
We sat on a bench and studied the two biggest butterfly types. They were quite similar on the outside so we were unsure if they were different species or maybe just male/female of the same. We later learned it was different two types and what each of their names were but I'm glad we didn't know at the beginning. One thing I've had to fight with nature study is the urge to get the name right away. Because it seems like once I do, my brain is done. I think I "know" it and it's much harder for me to keeping looking and observing and not just move on. The kids don't seem to have this issue. This situation was a great example of why I should keep fighting that tendency in me.
Jonah's butterflies
Lucy's butterflies
My butterflies.
We also saw several carnivorous plants. Jonah really loved the venus fly traps. The picture in my blog header of him looking down over the bridge is actually him looking at a venus fly trap at a state park in North Carolina so this isn't his first exposure. He doesn't remember that though and thought these things were so cool (which, let's face it, they are). Lucy and I drew some pitcher plants. We also explored the new halloween bugs they had on display and the scorpion is uv light exhibit. When we left to go play at the playground, I could honestly say it was one of our best nature mornings in the past year. Great discussions, great observations, great attitudes (the hardest part sometimes!).
But even at the best of nature times, it's a bit of a parenting marathon. I'm trying to spell things for Jonah, write things for Lucy because she had more to say that she can easily write, keep Norah from wading into the little river all the pitcher plants are next to, fish out the pencil that was dropped into the pond by a different child and make sure everyone follows the no touching the butterfly rules lest they become a butterfly killer. Worth it I think but still exhausting.
So my nature journal isn't always what I want it to be. I get notes. Sometimes pictures, sometimes, like the blue morpho above, basic outlines and a few arrows. I actually had quite a bit of time with the pitcher plant because Norah was having fun taking all the colored pencils out of the bag, zipping and unzipping it and loading it back up. Then she discovered the water and my time was up. And that's really what made me realize that this WAS a really good nature journal time and I still didn't get what I wanted. I just have to admit that fast (notebook/nature journal) keeping is gonna be the name of the game on nature exploration days. At least until none of my children are old enough not to drown in 6 inches of water.
Jonah's venus fly traps on the bottom and something smiley over it.
So last night after the two little kids went to bed, I had about an hour before Craig and Lucy got back from scouts. So I grabbed my "fast keeping" drawings and I stole Lucy's watercolor set. I have a nice full size watercolor palette and paints and a nice small travel set but it would have taken my 20 minutes to find that so I skipped it. And I made the type of nature journal page I wanted to make earlier. It's still my beginning skills level dry brush and shh, don't tell the drybrush people that I committed the cardinal sin of dry brush nature journaling - I didn't mix my own green, I just used the palette one. But I was able to take my time and think a bit. It cemented what I learned and I'm really happy with it. It was just a lovely way to pass some time. I was just wrapping up when Lucy came home so it took about an hour but it was an hour worth spending. Definitely better for my soul than if I had just watched an hour of netflix.
So fast keeping works. I'm observing and learning and setting a good example for my kids. And I wont' worry about a picture perfect nature journal outcome. But slow keeping can work for me to. I want to do this again. And I have this feeling that my painting skills will improve much faster if I practice more than 3x a year. So here's to slow keeping. And fast keeping. And whatever works keeping.
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