Monthly Archives: March 2006

Nature Study

Butterfly Gardening

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After my butterflies post, Love2LearnMom asked:

Do you know of a good site or book for finding plants that attract butterflies (and perhaps hummingbirds) well?

We are big fans of ButterflyBushes.com. Lots of good information about both types of plants necessary to attract butterflies to your garden—nectar sources and caterpillar food sources. Each species of butterfly seeks out specific plants to lay its eggs on, so you need to provide these host plants or you’ll just have occasional passerby butterflies sipping at your flowers. For example, black swallowtail larvae like fennel, dill, rue, and parsley. Baltimore Checkerspots like Turtlehead (which has quite a pretty flower).

ButterflyBushes.com also sells hummingbird-attracting plants. Cardinal flower is our favorite!

I have ordered from these folks many times and have always been pleased with their plants. We bought several little four-dollar butterfly bushes from them a few years ago, and now they tower over my head! (And I cut them back almost to the ground every March.)

But even if you don’t want to order from them, their site is extremely informative. You’ll have fun browsing.

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Math

My Head Hurts

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From Unity of Truth: “Are all infinities the same?“

Well, it seems obvious that that there must be twice as many numbers if you count the half numbers as well as the whole numbers, and three times as many if you count the 1/3 numbers as well as the whole numbers – indeed six times as many if you count halves, thirds, and whole numbers.

But what is obvious is not always true.

There are no more half numbers than whole numbers, because if you line up all the half you can count them – using whole numbers — for as long as you want. So there aren’t any more.

Read the rest.

Books, Family Adventures, These People Crack Me Up

Book-Banning, Beanie & Rose Style

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Yesterday I asked Jane to run upstairs to my room and get a book off my bedside table. "It’s called As I Lay Dying," I said.

Rose let out a shriek. "Nooooo! No!"

"What’s wrong?" I asked. "You don’t want Jane to get it? Did you want to?"

"NO, Mommy! I don’t want you to read that book at ALL! That’s a terrible book!"

"Oh, honey, it’s a beautiful book, really," I reassured her. "Does the title scare you?"

Rose glowered. Fear makes her fierce. "I. Don’t. Like. It."

By this time, Jane had returned with my book. Beanie rushed to my side and studied the cover, which shows (not surprisingly) a drawing of a coffin in the back of a wagon.

"Mommy!" Bean shrieked. "Don’t read this! I don’t want you to lay dying!"

"Sweetheart," I said, wondering where all the melodrama was coming from, and then remembering that they’re my children. "This book doesn’t have anything to do with me. I’m just reading it."

"Well, I don’t like it."

I pointed out that reading How to Eat Fried Worms didn’t make Rose actually EAT any worms, fried or otherwise.

"I would NEVER!" Rose shuddered.

Beanie considered this a moment.

"I wish you would," she said, forgetting all about my nightmarish taste in literature. "It would be very interesting to watch."

Current Affairs

Homeschooled Artist’s John Paul II Painting Tours Parishes

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Julie Snyder, a homeschool graduate, was 21 years old when she painted this beautiful portrait of Pope John Paul II last year. Last week, the painting accompanied a Monstrance that had been blessed by the Pope on an “Adoration for Vocations” pilgrimage to parishes, schools, and religious communities in the Boston area. Julie, who is now an art student at a Massachusetts college, completed the portrait last April, shortly after the Pope’s death.

Talent runs in Julie’s family: she is the sister of Emily Snyder, author of Niamh and the Hermit and Charming the Moon.

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Family Adventures, These People Crack Me Up

The Slippery Staircase of Life

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This, I am told, is the name of the game Beanie and Rose were playing when I came out of my room a little while ago. They were crouched on the top stair with big Cheshire cat grins. Which, it turned out, were appropriate to the game: they were cats.

"The landing where the stairs turn is the end of childhood, see," Rose explained to me. "And once you’re below that, the stairs get EVEN SLIPPERIER and if you aren’t careful you slide all the way down to the bottom and then you’re DEAD."

"If you’re a cat," Bean chimed in.

Rose nodded. "Right, if you’re a cat."

What I want to know is, how do they already know the part about things speeding up once you make that left turn out of childhood? Because that bit doesn’t just apply to cats.