Wickiup Nature Center

 Over the week-end Ben and his Mom, Tracie went to Wickiup Nature Center.  It's a great place to take children to introduce them to nature.. This week-end they had a Halloween Theme.. Ben said they walked on trails that had signs that told them what to look out for and if you found it you received a prize to put into your pumpkin bucket.. He had a lot of prizes in his bucket .  Inside the building was this bull snake.. non poisonous.. He looks like a rattler snake and will even curl up and strike at you..he can leave teeth marks but won't hurt you seriously..  We have them on this farm and they are good for getting rid of mice and rats.. The old farmers tell you if you have a bull snake on your farm that is a good thing .  This is the time of year that snakes get ready for hibernation..It's that time of year that we all have to get ready for the cold weather..:)

Ben got his face painted while he was there.. When Tracie sent me this picture over my phone I thought he had a head bandanna on his head.. Nope ~! it's all paint.. Ben the pirate~!  Cute..
He loved his face painted and wore it until bath time last night.
      Last night I went to his house and he showed me his new Spiderman scooter. It's blue and red.. He has been wanting one for a month or more. This one has only two wheels, the one he had had four wheels.. So he is happy and he showed me how fast he could go around the sidewalk at his house..

           We got out the markers, colored pencils and paper and drew people pictures , colored them~ cut them out with scissors and then fastened them to bendable straws.. They were so cute ~ the bendable straws made it so the people we taped on them would bend in all directions. He said next time we should make some for Uncle Wally for his grave stone.. We could put them in a plastic bag to keep them dry and tape it to the stone and then the angels could come and take the pictures to Uncle Wally.. I teared up because he remembered our visit to the cemetery and going to Wally's grave site..                                                                                                                          I brought this tractor one home,  I helped him make for Pa Pa Dee Dee.. He did most of the tractor and I put on the man.. We had lots of fun.  
          Today is Monday and the storm clouds have moved in and I can hear rumbling of thunder and see lightening in the sky outside my window.. It could rain for a month here and we could still need rain. After the drought we had this summer ~ rain is welcome~!   Have a Tiggeriffic Day ~ ta ta for now from Iowa:)