I’d like to give a shout out to all the service men and woman who have willingly worked to protect our freedom and land. It allows me to pursure my passions and raise my children in a world of endless possibilities!

not everything is perfect but it’s a blessing to live here. I’m grateful I have the opportunity to encourage Nature For Kids and I hope you all have a happy Fourth Of JULY!!!!!!

Old Glory music fading out….

No, not this….

This…

It seems like I never keep the muddy buddies recipe available because I always think it will be printed on the Chex cereal box but it isn’t. So I’ll make a permanent copy of the recipe here on Nature For Kids for you and me!

Muddy Buddies

Melt in a large pot:

1 Cup semisweet chocolate chips

1/2 Cup peanut butter

1/4 Cup Margarine

1 tsp. vanilla extract

After it is melted and smooth remove from heat and pour in 9 cups of Chex cereal (corn or rice). Put 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar inside a large plastic bag. Once the cereal concoction is mixed nicely put it inside the bag with the powdered sugar and give it a good shake.

Place a couple hanfuls in a sandwich bag and throw it in your backpack!

Here’s my little flower child Ava. Can you smell them? So Yummy!

Send in your best flower child shot and I’ll put your name in a drawing for a free Nature For Kids logo sticker and feature the pictures on this blog! Send photos to shawna@natureforkids.net. Flower child picture submissions end July 31, 2008.

However, now that my children are getting old enough to give it a try I think I should get back into it, even if it’s using plain old worms and spinners.

Our kids got to go on a fun fishing trip with their grandpa and grandma on the Snake River in Grandpa’s river boat! What fun Nature For Kids can be! They had so much fun that they’ve convinced me to make more of an effort in this fishing business.

Since I’m not the one to be giving advice on fishing with kids I’m counting on some hefty help by way of comments from all of you out there. Here are a couple questions right off the top of my head.

What are some good fishing websites?

Where are some fool proof spots?

Are those little kid fishing poles worth it?

How do you find out what the fish are biting?

What’s your best spinner?

How much worm is too much worm?

Is that last one a valid question? Anyway, enlighten me. I need all the help I can get when it comes to fishing with kids!

Glow In The Dark Baseball: Buy a bundle of glow in the dark necklaces and have each player put one on. Get a wuffle ball and put glow in the dark bracelets inside it or get a ball like this. Tape about 5 bracelets lengthwise on the end of the bat or a stick.

Star gazing: That’s an easy one. Print off a sky map here.

Sardenes: Like hide and seek but only one person hides. Everyone else tries to find them. When they do find them they hide with the person. The last person to find the hiding spot loses. 

Kick The Can: This is kind of like hide and seek mixed with tag. One person is It and counts to 20 while everyone else hides. The person that is It has to find the people hiding but guard a can on the ground as well. When a person hiding is found they have to try to run and kick the can over before the person who is It tags them.

Flashlight Tag: Plain old tag but using flashlights or glowsticks.

Steal The Flag: Split everyone into two teams. Have a flag on opposing ends of the playing site. Each team tries to steal the other teams flag without being tagged. You could use glowsticks instead of flags.

What are some of your favorite night games?

Before the competition began Cru said, “Cowboys have to be tough huh Dad.. at least that’s what the song just said.”

He got 2nd place and won a John Deer tractor toy with a time of 3.01 seconds. Take a look.

Do your kids love the flying dirt, speedy horses, and wild bull excitement of the rodeo? Send in a picture of your little cowboy! shawna@natureforkids.net

To help your dog get through the dog days of summer  try filling up a kiddy pool with water.

Skadi, taking an afternoon dip!

Here are some other quick tips that I got from msnbc.com

• Always have fresh cool water available
• Bring your dog indoors during the hottest part of the day
• Provide a shaded area in your yard
• Never leave your dog in the car
• Be aware of hot surfaces like sand or asphalt, these can harm your pets paws 

On the Hiking With Dogs post I mentioned the packable dog bowls. This is a great way to be sure your dog stays hydrated when on the go!

What are some things you do to get your pet through the dog days of summer?
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It’s usually not this clean and my kids are usually close by while I’m on the computer building blocks, painting pictures or trying to push buttons on the computer AHHH! Notice we have a hard wooden chair at the desk there. That’s to insure that we don’t get too comfortable and spend all our time on the internet. When the bootie starts to hurt I know I need to get up and head outside.

Please excuse my poor video skills and video camera…;-)

Before we went (blueberry picking), we read my number one favorite children’s book: Blueberries for Sal. We read it about three times every night during the week leading up to our excursion. I love anything by Robert McCloskey, and I really think Blueberries for Sal is his best work, even though it was awarded a Caldecott honor, and not the Caldecott medal (which he won for Make Way for Ducklings, but, sorry folks–Blueberries is the more endearing choice). I don’t think your home library can be complete without this book . . . and it’s still as fresh and entertaining now as it was when it was first published, sixty years ago.

I got some more books about blueberries from the library to read to the boys–one is one of our repeat check-outs that I plan to buy, and it is called The Terrible Hodag and the Animal Catchers. The reason we got this one is because the hodag in this picture book (and the pictures are amazing, beautiful woodcuts) eats blueberry bushes as his food of choice. But two of the books I checked out were new to me: Blueberries for the Queen and Blueberry Mouse.

Blueberries for the Queen is based on a true story. Apparently, the Queen of the Netherlands fled to the United States during World War II, for her safety. She rented a house in Massachusetts, and a local farm boy took a basket of blueberries from his farm to her as a present. Queen Wilhelmina invited him right in and treated him very kindly, thanking him for his gift. Children’s book author Katherine Patterson and her husband, John Patterson, teamed up with illustrator Susan Jeffers to create a perfect story for children that really happened. Truman loved this one.

Brigham liked the second book better. Blueberry Mouse is a fun, rhyming story about a mouse whose favorite food in the world is blueberries, and who lives inside a blueberry pie. She nibbles her house, one piece at a time, until it is all gone . . . but then she decides to replace her house with a blueberry cake.

I recommend checking out books to go along with any outdoor adventure. Our family loves fiction and non-fiction alike, and most kids will get excited when a story captures their imagination about an activity, or when they feel like they are an “expert’ already. All of these books got my kids excited about berrying, and our preparation and then work paid off when we got to, literally, enjoy the fruits of our labors . . . á la blueberry buckle. I’m warning you . . . one taste and you may dread the eleven months of the year when fresh blueberries aren’t in season.

Becca Renfroe is an at-home mom, a lover of all things outdoors, a freelance writer, and a baker of desserts. She and her family live in Northwest Arkansas.

Happy Summer Solstice! This year, June 20th is the longest day of the year, and all that sunshine has been working overtime for you and your kids! June and July are the best months of the year to go berrying as a family. Grab some buckets, put on your grubbies, and find a berry farm near you!

If you want to take your kids berrying, I think blueberries are the perfect choice. They ripen in June, which means the weather isn’t unbearably hot in most states, especially in the morning. The bushes have no thorns, the berries have no pits or seeds, and they are large and grow very closely together on the ends of the branches. Perfect for kid-sized hands to pluck and pack a pail. And the difference between ripe and unripe berries is easy to spot, even for a child.

We used a great website called pickyourown.org to locate a blueberry farm (I use it in the fall when we want to pick our own pumpkins, too). Most local farms that sell fruits and vegetables will have their own buckets for you to use, but you may want to check in advance. While you’re checking, see what type of payment they accept (not many will take your debit or credit card, and some are strictly cash only), and ask if the fruit is ripe. We were going to visit a blueberry farm we’d been to before, but when I called the owner, she said all the ripe berries had been picked and it would take a few days for more fruit to ripen.

So this year, my husband, Allen, and I took our three kids berry-picking at McBooberry Farms, outside of Rogers, Arkansas. The best thing about McBooberry was that when we bought our blueberries, the owner gave us a stack of recipe cards and some tips for freezing blueberries when we left (for instance, I didn’t know that it’s better to freeze the berries unwashed, then wash them before you use them, to keep the berries from getting tough).

Brigham, my 3-year-old, carried a spring-loaded plastic knife in his bucket, in case there were any bears. (Perhaps we read Blueberries for Sal one too many times). Truman (almost seven) and I picked steadily through the five-acre patch, and he really got into it, trying to fill his gallon bucket before anyone. If it had been a race, however, Allen would have been dead last between the three of us.

Watching Allen fill his bucket was an interesting commentary on our different personalities. This was Allen’s first time picking blueberries, and he kept saying, ‘They’re so good! I’ve never really cared about blueberries but these are so good!’ But he wasn’t lagging behind because he was eating all he picked, he was lagging because he is painstakingly thorough. He did not want a single unripe spot on any of his blueberries. I observed him pick one berry at a time, turn it every way to see how ‘blue’ it was, and then either plunk it into his bucket or (gasp!) toss it aside! I mean, if there was the tiniest penumbra of a reddish color on one of his berries, it was not worthy. I admit, my bucket was mostly blue with patches of purplish-red, and Truman’s was two parts blue, one part red, and one part pink (Brig had about nine pinkish berries total by the end of the day) . . . but Allen’s bucket was impressively, entirely, and cobaltly blue. So, I guess we can conclude that I’m all about quantity and he is all about quality. Or at least, I’m all about speed, and he is . . . not.

Our 9-month-old, Mollie, got wheeled along in the stroller for a while, but then we took turns holding her while we picked, and she loved the taste of the blueberries as much as her daddy did. It was a perfect, sunny day for picking, with a nice breeze to keep us working happily.

We paid $10 per gallon for our blueberries, and they are the plumpest, sweetest berries I have ever tasted. Later that day, I was in the grocery store and checked the price of a pint of blueberries in the produce section: $3.78. Which translates to $30.24 per gallon (not including sales tax). The difference between the two can’t be measured just by quality or freshness . . . because my kids got to experience firsthand how food goes from a seed to a plant to a harvest. They got to feel and taste and smell and get dirty, instead of taking produce for granted—something that magically appears at a grocery store. Not only that—we had a fun, relaxed, and wonderful morning together as a family, continuing an annual tradition and making long-lasting memories . . . all for a mere $20.

Becca Renfroe is an at-home mom, a lover of all things outdoors, a freelance writer, and a baker of desserts. She and her family live in Northwest Arkansas.