Project Support Beauty in Nature

The lovely and adorable Lotus from Sarcastic Mom challenged us last month to contribute to her Project Support Beauty in Nature. The idea was to do something, large or small, to help our world look the way God intended it to. I thought it would be a great homeschool activity, so I gladly took the challenge.

We have always been a family in love with nature. We hike on a regular basis, garden as well as we can in our little yard, and have an abundance of flowers for the pure joy factor. We are constantly telling the kids how horribly litter and graffiti is. I'm pretty sure that the crimes of murder and littering are about equal in their little minds. We recycle, eat whole foods and cloth diaper.

So I wasn't exactly sure what we should do to support Lotus' project. It being February, and having an infant, a two year-old, a four year-old and a six year-old, I didn't think a major clean-up of a local area was in order. I decided to ask the kids what they thought would be an appropriate project.

"We could adopt all the stray cats and bring them in our warm house." (Asker)

"Feed a horse and a pig." (Toots)

"Be a farmer and feed all the trash in the world to the pigs." (Asker)

"Pick me, pick me. Um, milk pigs" (Clam)

What is the obsession with pigs? Anyway, after talking it through a few more times we decided to do the following:

Pick up one piece of trash every time we go outside (we live at the bottom of a very steep, windy hill, so there is no lack of blown-in trash), and make some bird feeders for the winter birds.

Unfortunately, my camera is not working and Dave has been out of town with his, so I don't have any pics to show of our handiwork. Makes for boring blogging, I know.

But we made some pinecone bird feeders and hung them outside for the birds. "Feed the Birds" from Mary Poppins was sung many, many times.

We also have been trying to remember to pick-up trash on every occasion. This is something we would normally do anyway, but we are doing it more consistently and it has become a fun challenge instead of a chore. Asker keeps asking for a "pokey thing" so that he can look like the "guys from the jails" who pick-up trash on the side of the road.

When Dave gets home next weekend, I'll try to take some pics of the bird feeders and my little convicts-in-training.

Be sure to check out the other Project Support Beauty in Nature posts to get some great ideas and see community in action.