in awe and wonder

Have you ever wondered…

uskids — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 07:13:00 +0000

…about thunder…and lightning?

A while ago Dad told us how to calculate the distance of lightning. Here’s how you do it:

Right after you see a flash of lightning start counting 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 5…
As soon as you hear thunder, stop counting.
Divide the number of seconds by three to calculate the distance in kilometers. In other words if you counted 18 seconds then divided that by three you get six, so the lightning struck about six kilometers away

Did you know that:

sound travels through the air at about 330-350 meters per second?
the speed of sound is about 299,792,458 meters per second?

!!!WOW!!!

gotcha!

Rach — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 22:24:57 +0000

It’s been delightful watching the two of you, L7 and M5, capturing and releasing and re-captruing this gecko for the past week.

Weta

uskids — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 20:44:54 +0000

Tree weta/ Putangatanga

hemideina species
Native

Common in forest, orchards and gardens, especially in firewood sheds. They hide during the day in holes in trees, coming out at night to eat mostly fresh leaves, but also small insects. If handed roughly, they can inflict a painful bite , kick or scratch with their legs.

M5 found this weta in the garden

reason to celebrate

Rach — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 19:31:47 +0000

Creation declares God’s praises (right now, here at the end of summer in New Zealand the cicadas are singing and the crickets are chirping)…..that’s one great party!

We love to observe and keep our *creation journals*……and just recently we began this online journal too. Come and wonder with us.

Here we are on one of our winter beach expeditions:

GIANT Dragonfly

uskids — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 06:23:34 +0000

As we were finishing dinner outside we saw a BIG Dragonfly. As I (J12) raced to get the camera after he landed on the wall, mum got Andrew Crowe’s Which New Zealand Insect? . This is what he said:

Bush Giant Dragonfly/Kapokapowai
Native
The male has broad claspers at back. Seen early summer to autumn, near the edge of native forest. With a wingspan often reaching 13cm & a body length 79-86 mm, this is New Zealand’s largest Dragonfly. Clattering flight. Large eyes, far apart. It can eat 20 house flies in one hour and has been seen catching insects as large as cicadas. Yet the adults themselves are often eaten by rats, wild cats, kingfishers, and even wasps. The Maori name has been used for all large dragonflies and means “water snatcher”. *Our* one was easily as big as they are supposed to get. It landed on K9 and gave her a bit of a fright, but took off before she had time to get too worried about it!

still swollen

uskids — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 01:57:30 +0000

It’s not much better, is it?
I suggested I might not be able to help fold the washing this morning.
But I can still play cricket.

The Butterfly Emerges

uskids — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 05:52:56 +0000

Last night a saw this butterfly coming out of his chrysalis. Unfortunately his wings hardened before he (or she) could straighten them. I do not think he will survive.

awe and ow

uskids — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 23:32:40 +0000

K10‘s big toe just got bigger.

metamorphosis miracle

uskids — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 06:12:45 +0000

This morning I saw that overnight one of the chrysalises that we had hopefully saved had hatched open. T3 was not as keen to have the butterfly on her hand as M5 was.

famine on the way

uskids — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 21:00:34 +0000

On our seven swan plants I counted at least 70 caterpillars, one of which is making his chrysalis. In his book “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”, Eric Carl suggests caterpillars stay inside their cocoon (as he calls it) for “more than two weeks”, but we have noticed our monarchs stay in for only four to eight days. I’m not sure how many are going to survive, because there may not be enough food for the huge number of crawlies.

When we weeded the garden we found two chrysalises lying on the path, so we tied them to some string hoping that they will survive (and that we will see them hatch open). K9 found the middle already staring to make its chrysalis one on a leaf which was on the ground. The chrysalis has finished