Snakeskins and Corn
My nephews Bryant, Andrew, and Joseph (Ages 6-8) have an insatiable fascination with the natural world. Here are some of the things I learned today over processing corn about how they’ve been interacting with the created world.
Joseph has a turtle collection in an old stock tank. This summer he has collected several Red-Eared Sliders, a Stinkpot, a Mud turtle, a Spiny Softshell, and a tiny Alligator Snapping Turtle. He feeds them Dock leaves, and one other kind of plant I can’t remember now. At least one turtle in the tank has been laying eggs, but most of them have been broken when Joseph found them. The only unbroken one he’s found broke when he helpfully tried to bury it in mud like the turtles would have done if they had been in a more natural environment. Joseph’s sister Christy was very startled when she was holding the Spiny Softshell one day at the two sides of his shell when he stretched his long skinny neck around to the side and tried to bite her. The Snapper was too tiny to do any harm with his jaws.
All three of the boys are into snake skins in a major way. This involves finding dead snakes or killing them and skinning them and drying the skin by stretching it out on a board and tacking it down with nails. The head can be preserved in alcohol. Today’s project involved a very small snake, no thicker than a pencil. I overheard Andrew give my sister Carol a blow by blow account of how this is done, beginning with “You slit the skin all the way. . . . and then you cut off the head and the bottom, and then you gut it. . . . “ Oh my. God bless their patient mother.
A snake skin preserved earlier proved its worth as barter when they were able to trade it for a toy gun (which broke the same day, their mother told me).
Kudos too to Joseph’s mother, Judy. One day on the way to the grocery store in Nickerson, she passed a road-killed racoon without giving it much thought–till she was well past it. Then she realized that she would make her son’s heart very glad if she took that coon home for him to skin. By the time she passed it again on the way home, she had convinced herself to do the right thing and take it home for Joseph. She checked carefully to make sure no one was watching this irrational behavior, and she tried to be quick–but she was not quite quick enough. The mail carrier passed and gave her an “Are you out of your mind?” kind of look. With the coon on a rag in the back of the van, Judy answered the mail carrier’s question in the affirmative in her own mind on the way home. That coon smelled very bad. The summer-season pelt was worthless, but Joseph didn’t need a valuable pelt to be happy.
While we worked on corn, a flock of wild turkeys ranged through the field beside us and across the lawn we were on. At a strange bird call from the mulberry trees in the pasture, one of the boys announced, “That’s a Rock Dove.”
After the corn was husked and the boys had each dumped a five-gallon bucket of husks into a feeding trough for the cattle, they were off to the shelterbelt to explore. They returned with a fistful of huge feathers for each of them–turkey and owl feathers, according to Joseph. He really would like a turkey vulture feather to add to his feather collection. It would be huge and all black.
While I was a homeschooling parent I would sometimes play a labeling game from my educational background when I observed my own children pursuing a learning experience with the same kind of diligence I now observe in my nephews. Playing the same game today would have resulted in labels like biology, zoology, experimentation, identification, dissection, preservation, herpetology, ornithology, animal husbandry, horticulture. . . The list could go on, but the main point is that the work of childhood is learning, and no amount of curriculum planning or following, or starting with neatly segregated and impressively labeled learning categories produces learning results as impressive and painless as that which comes naturally when parents simply support and encourage their children’s natural curiosity.
In separating children from their parents and from regular interaction with the natural world, I believe today’s education system has cut off two of its best allies in the education process. Thank God not all children are so deprived.
Joseph has a turtle collection in an old stock tank. This summer he has collected several Red-Eared Sliders, a Stinkpot, a Mud turtle, a Spiny Softshell, and a tiny Alligator Snapping Turtle. He feeds them Dock leaves, and one other kind of plant I can’t remember now. At least one turtle in the tank has been laying eggs, but most of them have been broken when Joseph found them. The only unbroken one he’s found broke when he helpfully tried to bury it in mud like the turtles would have done if they had been in a more natural environment. Joseph’s sister Christy was very startled when she was holding the Spiny Softshell one day at the two sides of his shell when he stretched his long skinny neck around to the side and tried to bite her. The Snapper was too tiny to do any harm with his jaws.
All three of the boys are into snake skins in a major way. This involves finding dead snakes or killing them and skinning them and drying the skin by stretching it out on a board and tacking it down with nails. The head can be preserved in alcohol. Today’s project involved a very small snake, no thicker than a pencil. I overheard Andrew give my sister Carol a blow by blow account of how this is done, beginning with “You slit the skin all the way. . . . and then you cut off the head and the bottom, and then you gut it. . . . “ Oh my. God bless their patient mother.
A snake skin preserved earlier proved its worth as barter when they were able to trade it for a toy gun (which broke the same day, their mother told me).
Kudos too to Joseph’s mother, Judy. One day on the way to the grocery store in Nickerson, she passed a road-killed racoon without giving it much thought–till she was well past it. Then she realized that she would make her son’s heart very glad if she took that coon home for him to skin. By the time she passed it again on the way home, she had convinced herself to do the right thing and take it home for Joseph. She checked carefully to make sure no one was watching this irrational behavior, and she tried to be quick–but she was not quite quick enough. The mail carrier passed and gave her an “Are you out of your mind?” kind of look. With the coon on a rag in the back of the van, Judy answered the mail carrier’s question in the affirmative in her own mind on the way home. That coon smelled very bad. The summer-season pelt was worthless, but Joseph didn’t need a valuable pelt to be happy.
While we worked on corn, a flock of wild turkeys ranged through the field beside us and across the lawn we were on. At a strange bird call from the mulberry trees in the pasture, one of the boys announced, “That’s a Rock Dove.”
After the corn was husked and the boys had each dumped a five-gallon bucket of husks into a feeding trough for the cattle, they were off to the shelterbelt to explore. They returned with a fistful of huge feathers for each of them–turkey and owl feathers, according to Joseph. He really would like a turkey vulture feather to add to his feather collection. It would be huge and all black.
While I was a homeschooling parent I would sometimes play a labeling game from my educational background when I observed my own children pursuing a learning experience with the same kind of diligence I now observe in my nephews. Playing the same game today would have resulted in labels like biology, zoology, experimentation, identification, dissection, preservation, herpetology, ornithology, animal husbandry, horticulture. . . The list could go on, but the main point is that the work of childhood is learning, and no amount of curriculum planning or following, or starting with neatly segregated and impressively labeled learning categories produces learning results as impressive and painless as that which comes naturally when parents simply support and encourage their children’s natural curiosity.
In separating children from their parents and from regular interaction with the natural world, I believe today’s education system has cut off two of its best allies in the education process. Thank God not all children are so deprived.
posted by Mrs. I at
7:41 PM
1 Comments:
Oh my--I am afraid I would have a hard time with all that. Maybe that is why God gave me a daughter instead of boys. I too applaud the mothers' flexibility. Meanwhile I will pray for guardian angels to protect them from snake bites, rabies, etc.
By
Dorcas Byler, at 7/28/2007
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