Corn Bean Avocado Salsa

Corn, Bean, and Avocado Salsa is one of my family's favorite vegan recipes! It has cilantro and a hint of lime, along with fresh tomatoes, corn, beans, and small pieces of fresh avocado. We eat it with chips, or sometimes on veggie burgers.

If you'd like to try it, you can find the recipe for it, and for Vegan Nachos, posted at the following site.

Corn, Bean, and Avocado Salsa...& Vegan Nachos!"

Vegan Nachos

Meeting Your Unborn Baby In A Dream

Many women dream of being pregnant, or experience a dream in which they meet their babies-to-be, either before or during pregnancy. Sometimes they are able to accurately determine the appearance, gender, personality and/or health concerns of their baby to be from these dreams. Other times they are simply provided with the information that they are pregnant, or that they will be soon.

Mothers and fathers-to-be are also often given a name for their new child. Although of course there are exceptions, most parents who are given a baby's name feel strongly enough about the validity of their dream or intuitive experience that they do go ahead and name their baby the name that's been given them.

Some parents dream of complications within their pregnancies. These dreams can serve to prepare the parents-to-be for the complication, or even provide them with hints on what to do to avoid the complications.

I am currently collecting stories about women's spiritual pregnancy dreams for a book that I'm writing. If you have a spiritual pregnancy dream or other story to share, I'd love to hear it!

If you'd like to read more about pregnancy dreams, please check out the following links!

Spiritual Pregnancy Dreams

Dreams of Being Pregnant

Dreaming About Your Baby's Gender

Our Tadpoles Have Legs Now!

When we woke up this morning, we discovered that three of the tadpoles we're raising now have hind legs! Here's a picture of two of them.

Tadpoles, which hatch from frog eggs, grow their hind legs first. Next their front legs pop out. Then gradually they reabsorb their tail, which shrinks and finally disappears. They begin breathing with lungs (as well as continuing to breath through their skin) around the time their tails have almost disappeared.

I've posted additional photos (including a close-up of one of our tadpoles brand-new legs!) and information about tadpoles and frogs on Tadpoles To Frogs.

Our Tadpoles Are Growing!

Our tadpoles are really growing and changing shape!

(The photo above is enlarged.)

You can clearly see eyes on our tadpoles now. And their shape has changed in the past few days. Now their bodies are rounder and their tails are skinnier. Even though the tadpoles have lots of room to swim, they spend most of their time with their faces touching the sides of the containers and their tails facing the center of the bowl.

Our Frog Eggs Are Hatching Into Tadpoles!

Two days ago, we brought home some frog eggs from our homeschool group co-op. When we looked into the container of pond water and frog eggs today, we could see some very tiny tadpoles swimming around! The larger ones are about four millimeters long.

Here's one, but this is greatly enlarged:



When I took a photo of the tadpoles and enlarged it on my computer, I could see many more tiny creatures swimming around in the water. These "bugs" just look like little black flecks to the naked eye, but resemble very tiny tadpoles when the image is enlarged. I wish I could tell you exactly what they are, but I'm not sure. They may be the very tiniest of mosquito larva. Mosquito larva tend to swim on the surface of the water, diving down into the water to escape danger, and then kind of wiggling back up in a jerky type manner. The mosquito larva I have seen before have long skinny bodies and were larger than these "bugs." Yet there are 4 different stages of mosquito larva. If you'd like to know more about mosquito larva, here is a good site about mosquitos.

You can see some of these very tiny creatures in this image below, which by the way is blown up exactly the same amount as the image above. (They are actually the same photo, just cropped in different places.)



I'll keep you updated with more photos as the tadpoles continue to grow and change into frogs! (Here's my next blog on our tadpoles! Our Tadpoles Are Really Growing!)

P.S. Watching the frog life cycle is part of the Real Science 4 Kids curriculum we are using this year.

Meerkats!

My son and I had lots of fun researching meerkats a few weeks ago! After learning about them from a variety of books and website articles, we went to our local zoo and he took tons of pictures of the meerkats there. He wrote a report, and I made a website about the adorable little cat-like animals called meerkats!



Meerkats lead very social lives, working together and often putting the needs of the group over their own. For example, did you know that meerkats take turns babysitting their mob's youth in order to allow the new mother time to go out and hunt for food? If she doesn't eat, she won't be able to nurse her babies. Yet another meerkat is giving up a lot when he or she agrees to babysit, as they can lose up to 2% of their weight in a day of babysitting! The babysitter doesn't get much chance to eat that day! That's some dedication and commitment to the good of the whole mob, don't you think?! Wow! How many humans agree to fast for a full day, in order to help out the others in their community?

If you'd like to read more about these adorable animals in the mongoose family, or see some more of the photos we took, you can do so by visiting Meerkats!

Congaree National Park

Congaree National Park

Our homeschool nature club took a field trip here today and had an awesome time! We canoed or kayaked down the river, got out and ate lunch, then canoed/kayaked back up again. It was beautiful. So peaceful and serene! The trees there are gorgeous! The snake we saw swimming in the water wasn't bad looking himself, although I have to admit we might have found him a little bit more attractive if he hadn't been swimming rapidly straight toward our canoe!

Congaree National Park is located in South Carolina. It is home to many Bald Cypress Trees and Water Tupelo trees. Spanish Moss hangs from many of the branches. Snakes hang from some of the branches too!

Visitors to the site can look for wildlife while taking a walk along a boardwalk or while canoeing or kayaking up and down the river. There's also a very nice visitor's center with several nature exhibits inside.

Here are a few pictures of Congaree National Park, as well as some information about the park, for those who are interested.

Guided Canoe Tours

Bald Cypress Tree

A Bunch Of Beautiful Photos of Congaree National Park

Congaree National Park - Home Page