Author: Barb

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Early Spring Wildflowers (Post 2)

The hillside is beginning to burst open in flowers this week making our daily walk such a feast for the eyes. Everyday now it seems that there is something new to discover.

This unique white flower has me puzzled.
EDIT: Vera helped me out with this one…it is chickweed!

Here is another photo of the plant and its blooms.

This tiny white flower is blooming right in the middle of the pathway. It is about 1 or 2 inches high at the most. I really need to take my field guide with me and try to identify this one as well.

This one has me stumped….grrrr. I know it has to be something fairly common because I notice along the trail in a couple different of areas. I am going to take a better look today and see if I can figure it out.
Edit: Georgiaberry suggested that this may be Spring Beauty and I am going to check it out today.

Okay, this has been one frustrating post for me. I really want to identify all the flowers this year and so far I have more questions than answers. Maybe I should hire myself a botanist to go on the trail with me and have them teach me all the names of the plants. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Expect a garden post soon…our yard is waking up. I read through the pages in the Handbook of Nature Study on plants….wildflowers, weeds, and garden flowers and I made a list of those flowers were are going to study this spring. I will share those plants that we have included and maybe you will like to join us over the next few weeks or whenever you have these particular flowers blooming in your area.

I just had a great idea…..how about since we finished our Winter Wednesday activities, we start a Wednesday Flower Day study? That will hold me accountable to keep up our family’s studies and anyone can join us that wants to have a little structure. I will post about it tomorrow.

https://naturestudyhomeschool.com/2013/06/outdoor-hour-challenge-wildflowers-and_14.html

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They Don’t Call it the Golden State for Nothing

What a gift I received yesterday.

We were out on our afternoon hike and we rounded the bend and we all immediately stopped in our tracks. The view had changed from the day before. The hills in the distance were a bright orange…..with California poppies.

I tried to zoom in as much as I could to show it more clearly but this was the best I could do.

Overnight the hillside had transformed into a carpet of golden poppies.

I have lived within two miles of this wonder and have never seen it so beautiful in 29 years.

Amazing.

CA Poppy bursting out

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Keeping Our Sanity with Daily Nature Study

” Out in this, God’s beautiful world, there is everything waiting to heal lacerated nerves, to strengthen tired muscles, to please and content the soul that is torn to shreds with duty and care….She (teacher/mother) finds, first of all, companionship with her children; and second, she finds that without planning or going on a far voyage, she has found health and strength.”

Handbook of Nature Study, page 3

This week has had its ups and downs but by far the ups have outweighed the downs….thanks for the encouraging words and comments and your understanding.

This seemed like a perfect week to take a break from the Outdoor Hour Challenge writing and just get outdoors and enjoy the sunshine with my family.

We have made time to walk everyday and with each new day we observed something to let us know that spring is coming quickly.

We had a visitor in our backyard yesterday. This mourning dove stayed around long enough for us to really observe all his field marks. We saw the black stripe on the head, the spots on the wings, the black and white on the long tail, and if you click this photo and look at his feet….you will see how pink/purple they were.

In the spirit of trying to catalog the wildflowers on our daily hikes, I found this plant that is one of my particular favorites. It is actually one of a handful of wildflowers that I learned about as a child. Mule Ears look like sunflowers when they bloom.

Edit: I now think that this is not Mule Ears but is Arrowleaf Balsamroot.

Here is the beginnings of the bloom.

We have been watching this particular wildflower along the trail for a week or so now and it is popping out in blooms more everyday.

It is called Western Hound’s Tongue. I think it is funny that in this post I have Mule’s Ears and Hound’s Tongue…..aren’t those great names?

Here is a close-up of the blossom.

Here is another plant with a great name….

California Maidenhair Fern.
It is so pretty and if you look very closely, the stems are black.

Amanda had time to join us yesterday on our hike and it was great to spend an hour or so out exploring in the woods together.

As a busy young adult it is not always easy to make time to get outdoors but she said afterward that it was refreshing and encouraging to see all the signs of spring along the trail.

Here is a photo from the other day that I have to show you. The last big rainstorms washed a section of the trail away and exposed a lot of rock. Since we live in gold country, I sort of jokingly said that maybe there was some gold washed down along with the rocks.

My teen decided he was going to climb down and take a look. We didn’t find any gold but we did find quite a bit of really pretty quartz.

This week has truly been saved by two things: prayer and our outdoor time. Our outdoor time is even better when we spend time together…..relationships made stronger by shared experiences.

Hope you have a great week and I will hopefully have the computer situation under control and the next Outdoor Hour Challenge next Friday.

https://naturestudyhomeschool.com/2009/02/announcing-outdoor-hour-challenge-ebook.html

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Early Spring Wildflowers (post 1)

I am trying to catalog the wildflowers we see during our daily hikes. This is going to be a project that takes some effort…there are already quite a few flowers blooming.

Here is a close-up.

Manzanita– not really a wildflower but a blooming shrub
 This is just starting to bloom and I could tell the minute I touched it from the fragrance what it was.

 

That is it for today. I did see hounds tongue but I didn’t take a photo. …I will today and include it in the next post.

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Desert Nature Study-Joshua Tree National Park and More

I wanted to share some more of the photos from our trip to the desert that we took a few weeks ago. The photo above is from Joshua Tree National Park. The scene is typical of what you will find as you hike along the trails of the park. It has taken me three trips to the desert to begin to develop a love for the animals and plants that live here. In this strange and wonderful landscape, you can find the most beautiful of things if you look carefully enough.

There really are blooming plants here and if you get the chance to get up close, you realize that there are bees and other insects as well as birds that are attracted to the color and fragrance.

I will admit that there are sections of the park that are more rock than anything else. My two boys couldn’t resist a good climb when they saw it.

When you get up close you see all the intricate patterns and designs of the desert plants. I believe this is some kind of cholla cactus.

Now here was something that surprised me and I examined it carefully for some time. Can you see all the different colors of lichen on this rock? There is a moss green, a grey-green, an orange and a soft yellow-green all living right here on the side of this rock. Beautiful.

Many times as we hike along we name the rock formations we see. The boys named this one “Whale Head”.

Not to be confused with “Whale’s Mouth”.

They keep me smiling…..and thinking.

We came across a wash on our hike and the wildflowers were already blooming. There are three different flowers blooming in this photo…two white and the desert sand verbena.

How about a video? (Why does it take so looooong for the videos to load onto Blogger anyway?)
This squirrel was entertaining us with his acrobatics…trying to get that certain pod to eat.

Here is what the squirrel was gathering to eat. This is a palo verde tree.

I took a lot of photos at the Living Desert Museum and I shared a lot of the butterfly and hummingbird photos already but here are a few more of the larger animals we saw that the boys spent a lot of time observing.

The giraffes…there were four of them.


The cheetahs..there were two of them. I love this photo….look at that face!


For some reason I threw our nature journals in my backpack and we took the opportunity in the afternoon to slow down and do some sketching at the museum. It was a great way to remember our time there.


What a great memory.

It was great way to end our stay at the museum. The desert holds so many interesting and surprising creations for us to learn about….a life time of learning just one plant and one bird and one animal at a time.

So whether you venture out in the national park or you stay in town and visit the Living Desert Museum….there is so much to enjoy as a family. Pick your adventure.

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Signs of Spring: Waterfalls and Wildflowers

On Monday we drove down to the bridge across the river near our house and this was what it looked like. The rainstorm has brought the river level up much higher than last week and look at that mist…..awesome.

We got a chance between pouring rainstorms to go out for a hike today. It was colder than I expected but it was worth the effort. I took a short video of one of the creeks that has sprung up since the rain started last week. Enjoy the sounds of water rushing down the hill.

Here are a few more shots of a different waterfall along the trail….one that I have shared before. The water was the highest we have seen yet.

What a glorious little waterfall.
There is a flower just starting to bloom right at the waterfall.
Here is what the flower looks like close-up.
I think it may be some sort of saxifrage…not sure.

We also were treated to some Shooting Stars today….the first I have seen blooming for this season. I didn’t get a decent photo but I will try again tomorrow.

This area around the trail is changing very fast now and it has a whole different feel to it as we take our walks. Spring is very, very close.

https://naturestudyhomeschool.com/2010/03/outdoor-hour-challenge-signs-of-spring.html

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Birds in the Winter: Our Winter Wednesday Bird Style

We recently participated in the Great Backyard Bird Count and even though this is our third year participating, we still found it a thrilling activity. The whole family participated at some point over the weekend and although it was a very snowy weekend, we saw some amazing birds. This was a great way to learn about our winter birds and we took the opportunity to combine the Bird Count with Winter Wednesday.

The point that sticks out to me this year is that we had no trouble identifying any of the birds that we observed. We have built up over the last three years the ability to quickly name any bird that happens into our yard or to our feeders. I think that is amazing!

Here is our list of birds that we saw over the weekend:
White-breasted nuthatch
Spotted towhee
California towhee
Cedar waxwing
Western Scrub-jay
Oak titmouse
House sparrows
House finches
Black-eyed juncos
American robins
American crows
Anna’s hummingbird
White-crowned sparrows
Canadian geese

We decided to learn more about the White-breasted nuthatch since it was one of the birds mentioned in the Discover Nature in Winter chapter notes. We have a pair of these that frequent our feeders on a daily basis. They are such perky little birds and have such an interesting sound. They are very acrobatic and entertain us when they climb down the tree trunks head first.

We started off with a coloring page from the Cornell University website found at this link:
Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology and National Audubon Society
Previously, I had printed out the table of contents and it hangs on the wall near our bird viewing window. When we observe a new bird, we check the list and see if there is a coloring page for that particular bird. Then I print just that page out for those that want one for their nature journal.

We also looked the white-breasted nuthatch up in our field guide and on the All About Birds website.

I was interested in learning more about the Cedar waxwing birds that we saw in our trees during the Bird Count. We counted 61 of them at one time! This was the most we had ever seen all in one flock. They were eating the berries/nuts out of the pistache tree.

I used a coloring sheet from the Cornell book as well and then I looked information up in our field guide and at All About Birds. I learned the meaning of the word “frugivore“.

We also learned what is meant by the term “field marks“.

We also found these feathers in our backyard this week and we haven’t been able to figure out who they belong to yet.

There is always something new to research and learn right from our own backyard. 🙂

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Even More Lovely Than I Imagined: Winter Weeds

Our Winter Wednesday – Winter Weed Study

We really enjoyed our Discover Nature in Winter reading in the chapter about winter weeds. It is a totally new topic of nature study for us. I feel like we are just getting our feet wet this year and as the years go by, we will be able to observe more subjects. I gathered a few of our photos from recent walks here at the beginning of the entry.

The one thing that the boys noticed about the winter weeds that we observed is that during this season it is not the flower we are looking at but rather the seeds.

We discussed how the seeds were important at this time of year as food for many of the animals that inhabit the area. We also talked about how the rain and the snow knock the weeds over and as they lay on the ground, they are dispersing their seeds in that way as well.

I hope that we remember to look at these particular plants in the summer to compare the differences. It would make a great nature journal entry.

These last photos are from yesterday’s family hike. We took a couple of hours to hike along the American River which was just roaring! It was the first time that all six of us were out on the trail together in a very long time.I told my husband as we hiked along that it was great to have us all spending time in the fresh air and I relished the conversations and relationships that the kids have with one another.

Here are a few of the weeds we saw as we hiked along.

It was such a great afternoon and as always, with any trip to the river, there was eventually rock skipping….so many lovely rocks to choose from.

How about a wildflower photo from the day?

I love a good purple wildflower photo. 🙂

One last treat from the day…..

A beaver dam!

I am so glad that I organized the Winter Wednesday activities. It has given our family a new perspective on the winter season and another reason to get outside and enjoy the day together.

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Skunks and Badgers: Our Outdoor Hour

Our Outdoor Hour Challenge #50 – Skunks and Badgers

Our area is inhabited by quite a few striped skunks. In the summer time we frequently see them in the evening hours in our backyard as they dig under the birdfeeder and in the yard. We even had a family of skunks living under our house a few years ago.

Every night that summer we would have the fragrance of skunk to contend with. We sort of became used to smelling it at night but when they would sometimes spray right up under the windows, it would make you feel sick to your stomach.

This time of year we only occasionally see skunks and it is a nice break in our “nature study”.

This is a photo from last year and it shows what the skunks come and do at night in our yard. They dig around looking for insects and worms and the holes look like swirls when they are done. This was an especially bad night where I am so grateful they decided to dig in the unlandscaped part of the yard and not a few feet over and into the grassy area. They are very good diggers as you can see. This year we have a dog that sleeps outside in her kennel so we shall see how that goes with the resident skunk population.

On another topic, we did have a special treat this week while we were on our trip to the desert. The Living Desert Museum actually had a badger to view and observe! We had never seen a real badger before and we were surprised at the size and the claws! The badger was busy digging in his enclosure so we stood and watched him for a long time and we can now see how he uses those long claws to dig his burrow.

Skunks are really an ongoing nature study subject for our family since we have them so close at hand. We have learned to live with them and to stay out of their way.

https://naturestudyhomeschool.com/2010/09/ohc-summer-serie-12-raccoons-and-skunks.html

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Winter Wednesday-Our Winter Insect Study

We have had our eye out for insects the past few weeks.

Yesterday we actually saw two very small butterflies as we took our afternoon walk. We are going to try to take our butterfly net today and see if we can catch one to identify.

Added after today’s walk: We actually caught one of what we thought were butterflies and now I think they are moths.

Here is the best photo I could get inside the net. They are orange on the backsides of the wings. This is the first time that I have tried to actually catch a butterfly with a net and I am really glad that my son did not have a video camera. It was hilarious….I sort of felt like a tennis player, swatting at the air. Let’s just say that I got a lot of exercise. 🙂


We saw this on a bunch of leaves and we brought one home to investigate. We decided it is some sort of leaf miner that has been at work.

We found a whole section (pages 329-332) in the Handbook of Nature Study on leaf-miners!

“To most children, it seems quite incredible that there is anything between the upper and lower surfaces of a leaf, and this lesson should hinge on the fact that in every leaf, however thin, there are rows of cells containing the living substance of the leaf, with a wall above and a wall below to protect them…….The serpent-like markings and the blister-like blotches which we often see on leaves are made by the larvae of insects which complete their growth by feeding upon the inner living substance of the leaf.”
Handbook of Nature Study, pages 329 and 331

Here are a few more photos from our walk today.


So these little fungi caught our eye today on this piece of bark. They looked like little mini hamburger buns.


The manzanita is starting to bloom and the shape of the blossoms are so pretty and delicate.

I feel like we are finally starting to catch up on our Winter Wednesdays and our Outdoor Hour Challenges. We have been so busy and the weather so wet that it really distracted us from our time outdoors. It feels good to be back in the routine again.

Learn more about leaf miners in this challenge: 
 Leaf Miners and Leaf Rollers.