The Blogs

Well, you might have noticed that we've been taking a bit of a break from the website after we finished the camping trip. We're sorry about that but it's for a very good reason. We're finally getting to work on the art for what will be the first MCFC book release, and the first in a series called "Oraculous Tales." Each book in the series will find the gang being transported to a different time and place in history to have an adventure and meet Rhetorical at the age he was then. Here is a sneak peek at the very first illustration that kicks off the first Oraculous Tale called, "Sword of the Ramurai!"

So, please bear with us for a few more weeks of scant updates while we continue to work on the book. We'll keep you informed about our progress on the book as we work on it, and of course we'll let you know when it is finally done.

Our last night of camping was perfect. We had a beautiful sunset, a good fire, a perfectly clear night, and we even convinced Rhetorical to finally tell a scary campfire story (a little too scary for me).

We packed up early the next morning and all piled back into the car to head home. Not far from our campsite we saw this little turtle trying to make his way across the road.

 

Moo-Cow had us stop so he could provide the turtle with ferry service to the other side.

Thanks for coming camping with us, we hope you enjoyed it! Why don't you leave us some comments telling us about some of your past camping adventures, we'd love to hear about them!  

I brought some empty notebooks, pens, pencils, crayons, and tape on our camping trip so everybody could make their own nature journal. I think it's the best way to remember and store all of the cool stuff you see when out in nature. Here, I'll show you how you can make one too!

Get a notebook that is a style and size that you are comfortable with. It can either be blank or lined, but spiral bound notebooks are the best type for this kind of journal.

Also make sure it is roomy enough for you to draw in it or to glue in samples (like flowers or leaves). Your nature journal is basically just a record that you keep of things that catch your eye when you are outside.

Here are some ideas of the kinds of things that you can put in your nature journal.

If you're stuck on how to get started try getting out your drawing supplies and drawing your favorite tree in your backyard. Along with the drawing write down any observations you make about the tree and maybe take a sample of its leaves to tape into your book.

After you add drawings or samples to your journal, find out what they are and write them down. Your parents or a friend might know, or else you can always look it up. But if you don't know what something is while looking at it don't worry about it. Just write and draw what you see with the best description you can give and you can always figure out what it is later.

Try filling a whole page with just stuff you see from one spot, and see how it all adds up to really give you an good idea about a place!

If you are lucky enough to come across something like baby birds in a nest, you can do an ongoing entry in your journal where you check on them every couple of days and record their changes. Just make sure not to get too close to wild animals, and of course never touch them.

Uh oh, I better go explain it a little better to Kiweenie. I see him over by a bush squishing bugs in his book and then licking the pages! Oh yeah, that's another rule—don’t ever kill anything to put it in your journal. If it is alive, then draw a picture to remember it by. Have fun nature journaling!

Ah, it's my turn to tell a tale around the fire is it? Ramses & F.W. are bugging me to tell you a horror story that would keep you up for weeks, but I don't I don't think I'm in the mood. Although, I will be happy to tell you about some mysterious beings as old as time. Trees.

You see, trees are the longest living things on the surface of our planet, and, yes, some are even older than I am. They are the largest, too. Sure, there are many things in nature that can kill a tree, things like lightning strikes, bug infestations, and humans, but as it is said “What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger,” and these old trees are mighty indeed. They are true survivors and worthy of our respect. I’ll tell you about two of my favorite old friends.
The most famous of the old trees are the sequoias (pronounced sih-KWOY-uhs). These massive trees have been around for millions of years. In fact, when dinosaurs roamed the earth you could find these trees all across North America and Europe. But, about a million years ago, the temperature of the earth changed, and these magnificent trees began to die off. Now, sequoias only grow naturally in just a few small areas of northern California. The oldest ones still around are somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000 years old. A mature sequoia tree, and it is only mature after a thousand years, has a trunk that goes straight up for 100 to150 feet (which is like 25 adults standing on each other’s shoulders) without a single branch. Then, high up on the trunk, large twisted branches spread out. As the tree grows bigger, the branches and trunk grow bigger to help keep its balance. The average height of a sequoia from the ground to the top branches is 250 feet! We would have more sequoia trees to marvel at if it weren’t for all the settlers that moved to California. They didn’t appreciate the majesty of these trees and only saw them as timber to build their new houses and ships. They ended up cutting most of these trees down. If you have an opportunity to visit the sequoias, don’t pass it up. I myself like to sit quietly among these mighty trees, imagining a time when the land was covered by these beings so great that they even made the dinosaurs look small.

The oldest tree in the world (and the oldest living inhabitant of our planet) is the bristlecone pine. Many can live 4,000 or more years, and the oldest is thought to be 4,767 years old. To give you an idea of how long ago that is, let me tell you this: some of the bristlecone pine trees that are living today were seedlings when the pyramids were being built. Impressed now? I know I may have given you the impression that the old trees of the world are all very tall, but the bristlecone pines are exceptions. They are actually quite small compared to the sequoias, only sixty feet at most. In fact some of the oldest are quite short and gnarled looking. When a tree lives to be that old, it has many tricky ways to survive. Invasions from bacteria, fungi or insects that prey upon most plants are unknown to the bristlecone due to its dense wood and high quantity of resin (sap). The needles on the tree are also very long living, so the tree doesn’t need to use much energy to produce new ones. Even when one of these trees dies, you might not know it because it can remain standing for hundreds of years.

Main Illustrations by Drew Weing

Bottom Illustrations and all colors by Ryan Wilson

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