How to plant a Three Sister's Garden
We first heard about a three sister's garden at the Forest Hill Nature Center, near our home. With our emphasis on gardening I thought we should try to plant one this year. We saved our pumpkin seeds to plant.The beans came from our bag of soup mix beans.

Basic Directions: 1.In late May or early June, hoe up the ground and heap the earth into piles about a foot high and about 24 inches across. The centers of your mounds should be about four feet apart and should have flattened tops.
2. First, in the center of each mound, plant five or six corn kernels in a small circle.
3. After a week or two, when the corn has grown to be five inches or so, plant seven or eight pole beans in a circle about six inches away from the corn kernels. 4. A week later, at the edge of the mound about a foot away from the beans, plant seven or eight squash or pumpkin seeds.(We are doing half and half so at least the kids will have zucchini to harvest)
5. When the plants begin to grow, you will need to weed out all but a few of the sturdiest of the corn plants from each mound. Also keep the sturdiest of the bean and squash plants and weed out the weaker ones.
6. As the corn and beans grow up, you want to make sure that the beans are supported by cornstalks, wrapping around the corn. The squash will crawl out between the mounds, around the corn and beans.

native american studies

I found the pattern to make these medicine bags. I think it will fit with our Native American emphasis this year. I found it here. I think it will be great for our nature walks to keep things we find in. I also grow sage which I will dry and put in each of the bags for the kids. Native Americans used sage for many things and it might have been found in a medicine bag. Last year we studied Pilgrims and found out one of my ancestors came over on the Mayflower. This year we are taking a closer look at our Native American Heritage. One of my ancestors is Phillip Ream founder of Reamstown, PA and I believe there might be a link to our Indian heritage there. A mention is made that they lived with the Indians on the land that he bought. My mom looked Native American and was always asked what tribe she was from not to mention that from the day she was born she was nicknamed the papoose. We suspect but have no way to prove it.It's just fun exploring family history. Three of my children may have a little Cherokee in them as well. So it is fun to study our history.

Copper Culture County Park

Ocanto takes it's name from an early Indian settlement bearing the name "Oak-a-toe".  The first inhabitants are called the copper culture people. The  oldest metal smelting site in North America is in Ocanto, WI. It dates to somewhere around 5600 to 5500 BC. The French claimed the region in 1671, the English in 1760 and the United States after the Revolutionary War in 1783. The Territory of Wisconsin was established in 1836 and it became a state in 1848. We also saw a bee tree like pa found in our Little House in the Big Woods book Pitty-pat has been trying to read. The book is also set in Wisconsin. So we tied that in to our trip as well. Not a bad field trip but because we were there on Saturday of  Memorial Weekend the Museum wasn't open. It didn't open until Monday despite being advertised as being open in the flier. There really wasn't anything to see other than what we took pictures of above but it was free and it did have a nice walk down to the river.