Nature Crafts and Critters-Nanaimo, BC

 The past few days, I've had some fun with making a medium-sized wreath for my front door. I am very pleased with the result. What do you think?  Materials: 9 inch styrofoam or wire wreath 25cm x 4 cm (9.75 inch x 1.6 inch) 24 inches of string (to hang) scissors tweezers glue gun white acrylic paint red acrylic paint No 4 flat paintbrush water container about 75 x 4cm (1.5 inch) round pine cones 11 x 4 cm (1.5 inch) redwood or sequoia cones 5 x horse chestnuts 7 x long acorns (painted red or green) 5 clusters of alder ones (painted white) 20 partially developed double acorns 2 handfuls of soft hemlock cones for filler or use burlap to wrap the styrofoam or wired wreath Here's How to Make It Step 1 Collect and lay out your materials. It helps to know what you have before you start.  Step 2 Fold the string in half and tie an overhand knot about 1 cm from the end.  Loop string around the styrofoam wreath, tighten and glue in place. If you don't want the knot to show when you h

Daphnia can be a great food for may species of fish and small aquatic critters. They are relatively easy to culture if you know a few things about them. Their cultures tend to crash when the water temperatures go outside of a certain range and the water quality declines too far. They can be fun to culture on their own as a school project as well! In the photo above, the yellow is the digestive tract. The black is a forming egg. The second photo is the top view. The antennae they use to swim with can be seen. Tips 1 to 3: 1. For a steady supply, always have at least two cultures going, each placed in a different location. That way, if one culture crashes, you can rely on the other until the crashed one is back up and running. 2. Once you have an established culture, collect the tiny black triangular eggs that float on the surface before they sink. Dry them and save them in a container at room temperature. When immersed in water, they should hatch within 2 weeks. 3. You don't need ma