This week my nature was a prickly pear. I had a chose to do a close-up picture or not. I never knew that a prickly pear was a fruit. A prickly pear is a cactus. Cacti are spiky.

Last weeks Nature Study was on this lovely creature; a turkey vulture. There were many in our yard when we were leaving for the park, so we were wondering if something had recently died. Callie quickly checked online and was relieved to learn that they eat carrion exclusively. This didn't stop her from checking on the Nuggets anyway.

This morning we found ourselves once again at one of our favorite local parks. There were an assortment of games played, badminton first. Both Callie and Brent are really new at this, so it is quite entertaining to watch.

The kids don't usually play on the equipment, but today was an exception. I found them using their imagination, they were sailing a ship, and arguing about which end of the ship the wheel would be at. I laughed and teased them, and they quickly came to a compromise. Callie informed me they weren't arguing, they were reasoning. Nice.

Then, of course, there was wrestling. Brent is getting smart and going after her knees, but Callie still has the upper hand.

Callie and Brent were both able to catch a grasshopper this morning. They were very excited. I actually don't know if these are grasshoppers or crickets. Either way, we let them go after they were photographed. We will be adding them to our Nature Journals.

We often see this cat on our way to the park. We decided to snap a picture and add her to our nature journal. Brent has not made his cat page, he jabbed a sharp pencil tip into the palm of his right hand and couldn't write or draw.

We have been keeping a nature journal of the things we see in person. Here are our pages on the Whip Scorpion we saw in the back yard. These are a work in progress and the kids keep adding to the pages. If we see another, we'll add that too. They convinced me to keep a journal too, so this is something we do together.