Back from the Abyss

So...I think it is time to update this site!!  My goal is to bring you up to date on all the posts I meant to do.  Life was busy in May and June and now July is almost over as well.  Boy does time fly.  I will start with the ant farm.  Last year I purchased an ant farm for around $5 from the Bay.  Good deal I thought.  It came with a coupon to send away for free ants.  My kids asked several times to do it but it never seemed right.  I also bought one for a homeschooling friend of mine.  She attempted to send in the coupon but found out that ants don't ship across the border.  We looked into more 'local' sources.  No one seemed to have ants available.  One sunny day the kids found lots in our parking area.  I sent them out with a jar and they collected around 20 ants.  About half of these didn't survive and we did collect more about a week later.  Here are a couple of pictures of their progress:

We had the farm for about a month.  It was interesting to see how far they built overnight.  They started to pile all their 'garbage' into one pile and it began to stink and turn the gel a funky color.  We had to throw it away.  It was getting nasty.  The kids released the survivers and the rest went in the garbage.  Both kids took it to school for show and tell.