Magic and Mayhem

We started today cleaning up the wetland we adopted. Daryl took the kids out there for about an hour before they came back for more garbage bags and a quick snack. I joined them at that point and we cleaned for the next 2 hours. All total, we covered about 3/4 of a mile and filled about 20 bags with garbage! It was almost all beer bottles and beer cans.

We did find a few neat things, though. We found 3 skeletons– one deer skull, one nearly intact fox skeleton, and one animal we believe was a mink. The kids put the bones in bags to take to the DNR in case they wanted to use them for educational purposes. I told them they could keep them in the yard too. We are such homeschool dorks.

They did a controlled burn of the wetland earlier in the week and the whole area was black and sooty. We got really dirty! The burns actually help the prairie and they also expose all the garbage and make it easier to spot. The DNR burns each area about every 3 to 4 years.

After we finally finished cleaning up our area and the stretch all the way to the next highway, we came home and changed. I ran warm, soapy water in the tub and we cleaned everybody’s hands and feet. They were nearly black!

We headed to a town a half hour away for happy meals as a treat, and after that we stopped by the wetland office to let them know to pick up the trash. We also asked about our bones to see if we’d correctly identified the animals. He told us what the mink was, and we’d been right about the deer and fox.

While we were there we walked the path to the wetlands, caught a frog, played with “caterpillar grasses” and looked for more birds for Daddy’s list. Alex loved playing in the interpretive center and out on the grass. Anna took pictures until her camera batteries died. I hung back and enjoyed the scenery.

Daryl dropped me off at home when we finally made it home and he took the kids to a nearby creek for an hour. I cleaned and moved furniture to put down a beautiful oriental rug we got from a lady on Freecycle. It’s been a really long but really nice day!