Earth Scouts--Week 3

M was at a friend's house for a sleepover Saturday night, so just E, Z and I headed out for our Sunday a.m. EarthScouts adventure (notice how I can't decide whether to make that one word or two?). This week's mission: a hunt for the color GREEN (starting to sound repetitive?). We found the usual, green pine needles, hemlock needles, fir needles, lichens, moss (looking lusher than two weeks ago), a little more grass. Our quests may be sound somewhat redundant, but the point is to get out there and open our eyes and ears. While we were out, we saw this tree, very recently excavated by a pileated woodpecker.

And some slime mold.

And still quite a bit of snow (but much less than two weeks ago).

Z refuses to concede that it is in fact spring (or, as the twins would say, that it's spring out), until all the snow is gone.

I had thought maybe M had lost interest in the whole thing after last week's miserable outing, but he was genuinely disappointed when he got home that afternoon and found out he'd missed EarthScouts. Then yesterday E, Z and I were outside doing a (very) little yard work while we waited for M's bus (why is it that the grass in the "lawn" and fields is like a centimeter tall, but the grass in my herb garden has a good eight inches of growth??), and E started collecting sticks and rocks in the wagon and declared that he was "doing EarthScouts." I think that's a sign of success!