Today is National Tigger Day. If you have a costume, you wear that. Otherwise you wear orange, black and yellow.

Tiggers are good climbers, but they are not good at coming down, so don’t climb trees very often. They like to bounce, so be sure to bounce a lot.

I like Tigger and would have fun having a special Tigger Day 🙂

PS. Today is actually make your own holiday Day.

I like Tiger Salamanders.  I got to hold one yesterday.

Tiger Salamanders can grow to about 14 inches. We think this one was about 8 inches long.  They eat worms, baby mice and insects and are always hungry! They live under logs and in swampy places. You can find them easiest in the spring, and they come out at night.

Momma said that we can go salamander hunting one night!

We are making maple syrup. It is fun!

First you tap some maple trees. We have 8 trees tapped this year. When you one bucket full, you can pour it into big pots over a big fire. We’ve got four buckets already. Then you boil it all day. That is as far as we are going to get today.

No Shadow
Marker
2 Feb 2013

Today is groundhog day. If the groundhog sees his shadow he gets scared and runs back in to his hole, it means 1.5 more months of winter.

Here are some poems we found about Groundhog day.  Thanks Wikipedia!

James Morris who lived in Pennsylvania in 1841 wrote:

Last Tuesday, the 2nd, was “Candlemas” day, the day on which, according to the Germans, the Groundhog peeps out of his winter quarters and if he sees his shadow he pops back for another six weeks nap, but if the day be cloudy he remains out, as the weather is to be moderate.

Here is a poem from Scotland;

If Candlemas Day is bright and clear,
There’ll be two winters in the year.

and one from  England.

If Candlemas be fair and bright,
Winter has another flight.
If Candlemas brings clouds and rain,
Winter will not come again.

Snuffy and me in 2009!

Snuffy and Me 2013

I met Snuffy in 2009, he is a Corn Snake. He does not eat corn. He eats the mice and rats that eat the corn. Snuffy is a nice snake. I like Snuffy.

I saw him yesterday in a class. (It is Momma’s turn to write 🙂 ) We were learning about reptiles and amphibians. Snuffy is a reptile because he never lives in the water.  Amphibians live in the water part of their lives, like frogs and toads and salamanders.  They start with gills and grow lungs. Reptiles always have lungs.

I read in a book about a salamander who never loses his gills. He is an Axolotis salamander. I would like to see one. Momma said that when it warms up more, we will go looking to see if we can find some salamanders.

We are tapping maple trees. mark helping me tap maple trees. We think taped 7 maple trees.

I wrote that all by myself.  But Momma is going to help now because it is a lot of work to type!

To tap a tree, you have to find Maple Trees. Drill a hole in the Maple tree. Put a hose thingy first in a bucket and then in the tree and hammer it in. Wait for the sap!

Momma said this year, I will be old enough to help Mark more with the firewood for the fire!