A Nature Class first

What a morning!!!

Today was our first Nature Class with our new teacher, Mr. Tim. We are going to miss Ms. Chanda for so many reasons, but we have just as many to be excited about Mr. Tim. Too bad our first trip out was not ALL fantastic.

Today was our long nature walk through Clemson Extension. We were on trails the girls and I had never been on. There are buildings out there!! Nice ones!! LOL We even saw a toad with THREE legs! I know April is going to hate they missed that. Mr. Tim told us that dragon flies eat tadpoles, but sometimes will only take a leg. He (the toad) was so sweet. He kept making a little tweety sound, not really a croak but higher.

We also noticed, unlike Ms. Chanda who stopped at almost all scat, Mr. Tim would rather discuss other things. ;) I believe that is something our kids are going to have to adjust to; they do love discussing poo! lol I know two different children stopped at two different piles to point it out, but Mr. Tim was in the lead and focused on other things. :) Bug, true bugs, not just insects. So much to learn from him. I was so confused! Still am. ;)

Well, I think we may have been about half way through our walk when we came across a small pond. We stood there for awhile looking a midgeys (not sure how to spell that) and dragon flies. We also watched the gator in the pond for a bit too. Just as we started going again is when the drama struck. And what drama it was! (Jesse told me in the car on the way home) Mr. Tim saw a snake skin hanging on a tree so they walked over to take a closer look. Hmm. Not on the trail, maybe that should have been our first clue! It was; however, behind one of the nice buildings (no clue what/or which one). Wendy and I were a little bit behind the pack when I heard Mr. Tim tell everyone to run. They stood there. He said it again. Then they ran! Then the screaming started. Poor Thomas!! I still had no idea why they, we, were running. I just new Thomas was screaming while Hope dragged him behind her.

Turned out we were running from yellow jackets! Fierce little boogers they are. We thought we had cleared it, just to discover all of Thomas' screaming was because he had been stung...twice. I started pulling out my first aid kit to spray him down. Poor Thomas continued screaming. It turned out he had a stinger stuck in his arm on a third sting we missed. Needless to say, he wanted nothing more to do with the outdoors after that point. Next thing I know "Franklin" was hit on his hand. Then his leg, which didn't look nearly has bad has his finger. After we found Thomas' third one, then Chloe comes running over. She got stung on her hand too! Three of the six kids were stung. No adults were harmed (go figure). But two of the three kids were hit more than once. I just keep thinking that could have been so much worse had Mr. Tim not kept telling them to run. I told the group after, "What did we learn today? When Mr. Tim says run, you haul butt!"

I have to say our drama queen, Chloe, did remarkably well with her sting. Not one tear. She ran right over and I put Neosporin right on it. She held her hand the rest of the time, but never became hysterical. I was so proud. Honestly, I didn't think they girls were bothered by it. Not until we left the garden (we spent twenty minutes at the Trading Station). We drove over to our favorite place to have a picnic and they requested we keep the windows up. Jesse said she wasn't really hungry. This was an hour past our lunch time. We decided to just go home. I think they may be done with school today. Just a bit too much drama today.