P.O.P. Nature Study: Out in the Fields with God

{we're a month behind on this book/nature study---but a beautiful time of year for a picnic in the fields with God}

The family goes on a birthday picnic to the swimming hole.
On the way they view the "...snug valley---its white farm houses, white church steeple, red barns, meadows dotted with cows, blueberry fields, the brook, and the shimmering blue Mirror Lake."

It's a bit like heaven. Reminds me of Gone-Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright.
While eating the sandwiches and birthday cake, they spot dragonflies, red-winged blackbird on a weeping willow, water bugs, tadpoles and minnows. Don asks for a jar to catch some.
Back home, Emily gets stung by a bee. Emma has Carol puts a weed on the sting...plantain which was known by the Indian's as 'white man's footsteps'.

Karen's description is: "its leaves lie flat in the grass, and wherever the white man settled, these plants sprang up."


******

Common waterbug---Cerris remigis

Dragonfly ("Northern bluet")---Enallagma cyathigerum

Fathead minnow---Pimephales promelas

Freshwater leech---Macrobdella decora

Green frog---Rana clamitans

Plantain---plantago rugelii

Red-winged blackbird---Agelius phoeniceus

*******

QUESTIONS:
Is there a brook or other body of water nearby?

What kinds of wildlife live there?

Has anyone else gone for a picnic in late July/early August?