Good Morrow my Good Masters!  We were sent on a Quest this week – a quest of discovery.  Could we look at something in abundance in our yard – an item we had studied just week – and discover something new?  Something we might have missed with the naked eye? Could we dare to explore – and find dun dun duuuuuun.  . . . a Plant Cell?

We rescued our magnifying glasses from the sand pit, long since been left from burning boards from the sun this late Indian Summer, gathered our Microscope, pulled out a few pre created plant cell slides, and got a lesson from our friend Jo Dana on how to use the different lenses. (Turns out, if you don’t clean them, they don’t work. Huh. Go figure.)

And then the rain came down.  What you don’t see is a HUGE black cloud over our house.  and the water is completely drenched with a down pour. So we wait. . . .  Can you see the difference below? Rain above, No rain below.  You east coasters are feeling sorry for our Indian Summer over here aren’t ya.

Quest?  Right the quest – So the young Knights and a Princess in Pajamas ventured into the forest . . . .

Deftly wielding their swords to gather the specimens.

A battle ensued while I was quietly wandering the path – until they realized they could both have a fern – and dropped their swords.
(No young masters were run through during the Quest, just plants, poor little leaves.)

Our investigation begins in side of the court walls.

Our first distraction came from a carnival happening on a Fern Leaf. Master Nate was very distracted by the pore pods on the leaf.  First looking at them on the tiny tendril, and then after being scraped off.  “They looked to be alive matey! (wait, is that pirate or renaissance?) The fluid in the spores moved within the cells. 
The race was on for further discovery –

We rolled quite a few leaves, fileting them with a long slender blade, but the whole leave itself proved to raise the young lad’s curiosities.

Jon discovered these little creatures on our avocado leaves. Quick little critters, they moved really fast. We’re thinking they didn’t like the light!

Jon found a skeleton  – and that’s when we lost the Quest of finding Plant Cells. Sigh.  The race was on to find more living things on the leaves. 

If you would like to join us in our next adventure – come on over to the Handbook of Nature Study’s Outdoor Hour Challenge – You too may be taking photos of aphid skeletons.