Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Outdoor Nature Hour: goldenrod & aster


We are back at our Outdoor Nature Hour every week after a break during summer. Last week we studied goldenrod and found it's good for treating headaches and diarrhea. I collected some awhile back and it's drying in the living room for when needed.

Yesterday was balmy and we took the opportunity to study aster. The leaves can be cooked and used a vegetable but all of the aster we're finding is along the road and you never want to use a plant taking in all that pollution from cars.

While out exploring, we found a woolly worm. Supposedly, the number of sections on the woolly worm foretells what kind of winter to expect. This one only has three sections. Appears to be a mild winter then.

We had flooding on the farm last week from all the rain and it washed away some debris from this bridge. We are in serious need of an old map to find out what this bridge was used for. One of my older neighbors told me there used to be a hotel and bordello just up the way so it makes me wonder.

Afterwards we made leaf prints using instructions from ONH and the kids really loved it. They made some beautiful creations.
Even Chooj was able to do it pretty much on his own.

1 comment:

Dean said...

Hi Shannon- I'd caught a bee on some wild aster in Illinois last month. If it lets me post html, it is here,.

-Dean