Autumn Tree Study
We continued our tree study with the Sweet Gum or liquidambar tree in our backyard.
We had a huge wind and rain storm last night so the tree has lost most of its leaves.
Here were his observations:
The tree has just about lost its leaves. If you look carefully, perhaps clicking the photo to enlarge it, you will see a little bird on the branch of his tree- just the behind section.
The bark is ragged and rough.
I saw ants and a bit of moss on the trunk.
It didn’t smell like anything.
The leaves under the tree were mostly yellow but some were reddish.
I saw the sticker balls on the ground and some were brown and a few were green and heavy.
Where the leaves have fallen off, there are little buds on the tree.
I think he did a pretty good job of observing his tree. He completed the Seasonal Tree Study notebook page for his journal and it is filed away with the other two pages.
One more season to go.
Very nice observations! I wish we would’ve done a little more…but it was our first time. We’ll learn. I noticed today how rigid the trunk of our silver maple tree is…I read that a rough bark helps indicates the age of the tree. Love the details in the pictures! Great work!
Nice work. The sticker balls may even make nice *natural* Christmas ornaments–with some gold or silver spray paint. Well, I guess spray paint isn’t very nature friendly. Maybe some glitter?
I love your blog.
I agree with Laura. One year we put a real nest in our Christmas Tree.
19 years ago my sister-in-law came out to visit me in Colorado. She is my husband’s oldest sibling. It was winter. We took a walk through our neighborhood. She started pointing out the types of trees we had. I wondered how she did it. This was before I read Charlotte Mason’s works and Catherine Levison’s work.
In Catherine Levison’s book she has a section on Tree Studies and she quotes from a Parent Review what was said by Edward M. Tuttle.
Edward was my husband’s grandfather. My sister-in-law was Edward’s oldest grandchild, and my mother-in-law was his oldest child, born the year after her father married and left the Cornell Nature Study department.
I love Anna B. Comstock’s book.
Love your blog. You are a nature type and I found your blog on a search for Periwinkles, but I am mistaken on what I was searching for.
Years ago on the way to the Marin County Coast in California, my husband and I stopped near a fresh water stream and looked at the pebbles and saw some crawling. They were like little hermit crab/snail combo with a conglomerate of pebbles as it’s shell. No bigger than an half inch. I had been told they were Periwinkles, but as I see your picture and many more, they were not periwinkles. Do you have any knowledge of what this beastie may of been?