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oad
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ottages
 
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hooting 
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tars
 
13
 
ond
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lld 
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!
sharon lovejoy
 
sharon lovejoy
Turn an Hour, a Day,a Weekend into a Lifelong Memory
 
includes
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Firefly Lanterns
 
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Worm Hotel 
 
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Pizza Box Solar Oven
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Faerie Houses
 
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 Memory Boxes
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Peek-a-BooPlanters
 
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40 ~ Toad CoTTages & shooTing sTars
 
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Home, Wild Home
A
nother way you can connect your grandchild to nature is by working togetherto turn your yard into a riendly gathering place or critters. All you need toprovide are three ingredients: ood, water, and shelter—which can be as simpleas a pile o twigs or as ancy as a painted toad house.
A pond, birdbaths, a diversity o plants, and a layer o straw mulch help make this garden a haven orcritters and kids.
40 ~ Toad CoTTages & shooTing sTars
 
u uu u
Attract Butterfies
B
utteries recognize certain combinations o colors, shapes,sizes, ragrances, arrangement o blooms, and visible andinvisible nectar guides to fnd their ood preerences. Toattract them to your porch or yard, just plant a pot or plot o some otheir avorites such as buttery weed, cosmos, lavender, or zinnias.Would you believe me i I told you that butteries are not onlyattracted to sweet owers, but also to resh piles o dung, rotting ruit,and mud puddles? Why not make a big mud pie to attract backyardbutteries? Butteries don’t drink rom open water, so your moistmud pie is the perect place or them to stop or rereshment.A buttery will land and uncoil its springlike proboscis tosuck minerals, dissolved salts, protein, and calcium—invisibleingredients they need or successul mating.
Mud pie recipe
Fill a large saucer with soil and sand.Sprinkle on a bit o table salt.Have your grandchild thoroughly wet the soil to make a mudpie, and then wet it every day—a task she will love. Place a at rockin the center o the pie so butteries can land and eed. Drizzle a bito maple syrup on part o the rock or an extra snack.Set the mud pie in a sunny area o your garden, preerablynear owers. You might want to spy on your mud pie rom insideyour hideout (see page 46). I you keep a close watch, you maysee all kinds o butteries, rom butter-colored sulphurs,ittery skippers, blues, which look like tiny patcheso sky, and yellow-and-black tiger-stripedswallowtails—all gathering or a mud pie party.
Everyone is welcome atthe mud pie party.
The neighborhood naTuralisT ~ 41
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Eva Wrightleft a comment

Lovely book! Wonderful for the homeschooling family!

Rayandaleft a comment

A beautiful book teaching children to respect nature...even spiders!