O, well that is for Opal one of my favorite stones

Continuing with the my ABCs of the natural world I get to the letter O.  O-- is for Opal.  I have quite a few opals.  I was told that an Opal is lucky, but there are plenty of rumors and myths surrounding opals and some to the contrary.

The reasons I love opals:

They have personalities, like people and no two are ever exactly alike.

The colors within can be fiery like fire or cool like the ocean.

Opal is the birthstone for October.  While my birthday falls on the second to the last day of September, my daughter was born in October.

October’s Child is born of woe

And life’s vicissitudes must know.

But lay an opal on her breast

And it will lull those woes to rest

Unknown author

Click on the link to check out these Myths and legends about Opals

So O in my book is for Opal. Do you have any opals?

ABC—N is for Nuthatch

You know when I started this nature themed ABC book I thought that the hardest letters would be letters like Q or Z.  I never dreamed that a really hard letter might be N!

Think about it, how many words that relate to nature can you think of that begin with the letter N?  Hard isn’t it?

Well, I thought and thought and thought some more and I did come up with one, and it was right on my backyard deck at the bird feeder. It was of course, a nuthatch.I quickly pencil sketched  this little guy while he was crawling down a tree in a dizzying manner. While researching nuthatches I discovered that they are one of the only species of bird that creep down trees!  Very acrobatic of you ask me!!

Nuthatches get their name because they grab nuts and seeds, take them to a tree, wedge them under some bark and whack at it with their beaks, in effect hatching the nut.  So…N in my view is for nuthatch.  How many natural items can you come up with for the letter N?