Ever since watching Jesus Camp, I’ve been wondering why someone would teach a child that global warming is not real (aside from the pure politics involved). The National Arbor Day Foundation has released updated hardiness zones for planting in the US and, shock of shocks, it’s actually getting warmer in the US. The New York Times chimed in with an article on it earlier this week, stating in it that
Cameron P. Wake, a research associate professor at the Climate Change Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, said that winter temperatures in the Northeast have increased an average of 4.3 degrees over the last 30 years.
That’s quite a bit more than the figure of 0.6 degrees that a future preacher was learning to memorize in Jesus Camp. Yesterday I was reminiscing about Christmas as a kid, and how my perfect Christmas involved a snowy night and a nice fresh blanket of snow to play in the next day. I think this last occurred in 1979 or so. M’s been asking where’s the snow and we’ve been wondering ourselves. This warmth might feel good and be good for our heating bills, but it is truly disturbing.
Yesterday M and I took a wonderful hike with a new local group called Nature Strollers . We went to the Goose Pond Created Wetlands area at Goosepond Mountain State Park . I’ was already planning to begin a nature notebook with M, so I figured this hike would be a great start for it. Of course I haven’t actually gotten around to buying the actual notebook yet. I’m looking for something with nice paper and a medium size that can easily be carted around in a backpack. I’m not sure if I’m going to go with a spiral bound one or a small binder. The binder might work better since I think it would be great to be able to insert plastic envelopes to put in things we find on our walks – you know, acorns and things. I plan to go shopping for it over the weekend or next week.
Anyway…back to our walk. It was great to get out with some other parents who are as nature-oriented as ourselves. The group is run by two very knowledgeable women who are members of the Audobon Society, so I felt like we were taking some sort of nature class much of the time, which was great. M and I learned so much from these women. I absolutely must get my hands on some more field guides and read up on bugs, birds, wildflowers, and other good stuff.
Here is a list of things that we saw on our hike: Monarch Butterflies, Sulphur butterflies, Monarch caterpillars, tadpoles, tiny fish, an eastern watersnake, puff balls , an old turtle nest, a praying mantis, a praying mantis egg case , an egg case for some sort of fly, a turtle, lots of mosquitoes, blue damselflies – mating and laying eggs, a water spider , grasshoppers, crickets, mushrooms, and a bumblebee.
Best of all, M made a friend…
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