Family Outdoor Life Archives

Posted on December 29, 2014 by Barb — 4 Comments

Nature Study Goals 2014 – Final Recap

Concluding Thoughts

Overall I think I did pretty good this year in reaching my nature study goals. A few areas I could have done a better job but those goals can rollover into 2015. We were able to do some amazing traveling during 2014 which was very unexpected and exciting. So, what started out as a rather wacky idea to make nature study goals way back at the beginning of 2013 has actually been just what I needed to push me in creating the opportunity to grow and learn as a person deeply interested in discovering and then learning more about what I see in my natural surroundings.

December 2014 Final Results

#1- Visit two new national parks in 2014. Complete.

#2- Identify and journal three new birds. Complete.

Completed the Bewick’s Wren, the Clark’s Nutcracker, and now the Killdeer.

#3- Identify and journal three new rocks. Completed only one but will continue on again in 2015.

#4- Three new hikes. Complete!

#5 Visit a new-to-me nature center. Complete.

#6- Post a nature photo of the week for the entire year. I came really close to accomplishing this goal! I did 48 of the 52 prompts. If you are interested in seeing the Pinterest board with all of the images from the year, you can pop over to Nature Photo of the Week 2014.

#7- Camping in all four seasons.

We made summer and autumn camping trips easily. After much thought and discussion with my husband, we decided we really don’t have any desire to go camping in the winter. Call it wimping out or whatever you want but we would rather go camping when the conditions are warmer and the days are longer. Our spring camping trip will happen in 2015!

Grand Canyon May 2014 (3) — My daughter and I had our cross country road trip.

Shelving Rock Falls May 2014 (2) — Our family had some time in New York, Vermont, and Connecticut! This was at Shelving Rock Falls in New York.

Half Dome Top — My boys climbed Half Dome!

My son went on an extended trip to Peru.

I will be posting my 2015 after the new year rolls in and I get them down on paper.

Posted on December 11, 2014 by Barb — 4 Comments

Family Rock Study – Looking for Mica

Mica has been our rock seeking list for the past two years. Remember when I was trying to find, collect, and journal about all the rocks in the book Rocks, Fossils & Arrowheads ?

This was part of my Nature Study Goals in 2013.

I wasn’t completely successful in 2013 and now in 2014 I finally pushed us to get out and find some mica close to home. It is actually muscovite which is abundant in California and in the county where I live. I can’t believe how much time I have spent looking into this rock. I am just not a confident rockhound.

Here is a glimpse into our mica rock study.

So some sources said we have muscovite mica and some say mica schist. I am not completely sure what the difference is between the two (if any). I will just call it mica.

We visited our cattail site and took a look at the changes to the plants during the past few months. You may wish to start or continue your own year-long cattail study. Make sure to mark your weekly planner for a date coming up soon.

We were able to spy some cool bracket fungi.. a little late for our official bracket fungi study but still so very interesting.

There was water collected in the top that was shaped like a cup.

Well, that was our mica rock walk and study. I am still trying to come up with a better way to identify rocks without taking hours and hours. Any suggestions are appreciated!

Just a note to all my faithful readers.

I will be sharing how my Nature Study Goals for 2014 turned out and posting my 2015 goals soon. Look for a printable for your to use to record you nature study goals here on the blog soon.

Posted on November 24, 2014 by Barb — 2 Comments

Yosemite Half Dome Hike

In October I wrote about our autumn trip to Yosemite National Park with my three sons. I gave you a bit of information about their hike but I wanted to share some of their amazing and gorgeous photos from that Half Dome hike that they accomplished on a sparkling blue sky day.

Some links you might find useful:

Yosemite National Park Half Dome Hike – official website information

Half Dome Permits for Day Hikers – information on getting a permit. We had to put their names in for a lottery and they were able to get permits that way.

Hiking Half Dome – YouTube video from the National Park Service. I found this super helpful! You may just wish to watch this to see what it would be like if you could hike this trail to the top.

My two youngest sons have been cooking up this hike for awhile. It took some planning because one of my sons lives in New York now and has limited time to visit us here in California. Hiking the trail in October before the cables are down, they found the trail was pretty much empty and there were only half a dozen people up there when they arrived at the summit.

They started out before sunrise in the dark with flashlights, making their way along the trail from Curry Village to the base of Vernal Falls. Then as the sun rose, they summited the top of Nevada Falls. I have never done this hike because of my fear of heights. Obviously, my boys have not inherited my fear and they thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

These boys hiked fast and were up to the top in a few hours. These two boys have inherited my love for the outdoors and spent lots of time telling me afterwards about the many highlights of the day.

I am so proud of these two boys for reaching their goal of hiking together to the top of Half Dome. They are such good friends and are so supportive of each other even though they are very different people with very different talents. What a blessing to have perfect weather for this hike! I hope they make new goals to hike something else in the near future.

They are both now living in New York so maybe we will summit something in the Adirondacks next year when I visit. My daughter just recently hike to the top of Gertrude’s Nose in New York and I am up for trying that hike maybe next spring. No matter what, I am enjoying my children’s adventures and views of the world.

Posted on November 19, 2014 by Barb — 4 Comments

Our Attempt at a Fungi Study

Honestly, we have had very little opportunity to view any kind of fungus lately. The weather has just not created conditions needed to allow for much fungal growth. This means our bracket fungus nature study and our stinkhorn nature study will just have to be postponed.

I have looked in all the normal places and still no bracket fungi or stinkhorns to observe for this Outdoor Hour Challenge.

Does that mean we couldn’t learn anything? Not at all. Reading the pages in the Handbook of Nature Study help prepare us for future opportunities to see these amazing structures up close. I am confident that we will find some bracket fungi and some kind of stinkhorn to see in person in the near future.

In the meantime, we enjoyed a great afternoon of hiking on a beautiful autumn day. I am thankful today for being able to see the wonderful and amazing creation around us with open and appreciative eyes.

Have you found any fungi to study yet?

Posted on October 29, 2014 by Barb — 4 Comments

Autumn Tree Study – California Style

Here in California we do not have a witch hazel to study up close. We decided to do a more general tree study and take a trip to the U.C. Davis Arboretum since it is just an hour drive from our home. For those that are not familiar with arboretums, they are botanical gardens devoted to trees. This particular arboretum has a three and half mile loop you can walk adjacent to Putah Creek.

Just a note: In doing some researching even after I wrote the Autumn Nature Study Continues ebook, I discovered that the sweetgum tree is in the same family as the witch hazel (Hamamelidaceae). Although it isn’t a late fall bloomer like witch hazel, we do enjoy our sweetgum trees and their autumn color. I will be creating a page in my nature journal for this tree instead of the witch hazel.

Back to our arboretum visit…

In several sections there are walkways on both sides of the creek with picturesque bridges connecting the two sides. On the afternoon we visited, there were few people and it was calming to stroll along taking in the beautiful surroundings.

Each section of the arboretum has a theme, a collection of trees from various parts of the world like Australia or South America. My favorite area was the Redwood Grove where there were many coast redwoods and sequoia trees planted like a small forest. There were benches and picnic tables at which there were people sitting and enjoying a quiet afternoon. I wish I could share with you the delightful aroma of the warm redwoods in the sun.

Many of the trees had small signs that gave you their name, family, and native habitat. I always like to know what I am looking at so this added to my enjoyment of the walk. The valley oaks are plentiful in this area and there were some majestic specimens to enjoy with their large sometimes colorful leaves and acorns scattered all around the trunks.

This made a perfect habitat for lots and lots of squirrels. Watch out for squirrels darting across the trail or sitting in trees above and chattering at you as you walk.

Here’s an image looking up at the valley oak…we wondered how old these trees were.

We truly enjoyed this afternoon at the arboretum. Not only the trees, but the ducks and turtles in the water. From the bridges you could get a clear view of the many Western pond turtles that were swimming and basking on this particular day.

I always find it interesting to take a few close ups of the ground in different places. Here are two of my images from our walk.

Can you tell it is autumn? Look at all those acorns!

Finally, I collected a few leaves to sketch into my nature journal….love the colors all together!

We continue to have warm sunny weather and we are trying to take advantage of the opportunity to enjoy walks to note the autumn trees.

Have you taken an autumn tree walk yet?

Posted on October 22, 2014 by Barb — 2 Comments

Autumn Bird List

We have been on the lookout for hawks or any birds that might come our way to study as part of our Outdoor Hour Challenge – Hawks assignment.

We had the opportunity to travel to Monterey, California last week for a wedding. While we were there we drove the 17 Mile Drive from Pebble Beach along the coast. This is a fantastic drive and winds through cypress groves, along the Pacific Ocean, and allows for many scenic stops at beaches and rocky outcroppings. The image above is the Lone Cypress stop along the drive.

At one stop, we heard and observed a Red-tailed hawk!

We were able to get a really good look at his silhouette and identify him both by his shape and his call. Perfect timing!

This is a month of changing birds at the birdfeeder.

My October Bird List (in our yard)

Anna’s hummingbird
American goldfinch
Western scrub jay
Dark-eyed Junco (returned to our yard 10/13/14)
White-crowned sparrow (returned to our yard 10/13/14)
Mourning doves
Flicker (heard and not seen)
Great horned owl (heard and not seen)
Northern mockingbird (singing his heart out every day from the top of a tree)
Edit to add: Titmouse 10/21/14
Edit to add: Nuttall’s woodpecker on 10/21/14
Edit to add: Spotted towhee on 10/18/14
Edit to add: House sparrows on 10/22/14

Now that the season is finally changing around here we will see more visitors to our birdfeeders. Coming up fast, Project Feederwatch will be here before we know it!

What birds did you see this week?

These are affiliate links to products I have used and love.

Posted on October 15, 2014 by Barb — 8 Comments

Yosemite National Park – Autumn Trip

Our recent trip to Yosemite National Park put us into the autumn mood. It is a quiet place in autumn with far fewer visitors and very little water in the waterfalls. In fact, Yosemite Falls and Bridalveil Fall are both dry, dry, dry. The story of Yosemite in autumn is more about the trees and peaceful landscapes.

Hiking in the big Sequoia trees at the Mariposa Grove gives you a chance to experience these trees up close. You don’t have to hike too far to find magnificent specimens with their wide trunks reaching up into the sky.

There is no real way to capture the whole tree from the trail but these images help you visualize the towering trees a little better.

I hiked with two of my men on this day…the other two were off climbing Half Dome. I am going to share some of their experiences in another entry later in the week.

I found a copy of this book Yosemite Photographer’s Guide; Official Camera Walk Handbook and decided that it would be a fun long term project to take photos from every single location listed in this guide (like a need another project!). There are 32 locations mentioned in this book that we can look forward to experiencing through the lens of a camera (or iPhone in my case on this particular trip since I forgot the charger to my digital camera). NOTE: This is an older book that you can’t purchase new…there are a few used expensive copies on Amazon. I may switch over to a newer book like this one:The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite. I will let you know how I like this book when I get it in hand.

We started the project with a few locations that were suggested for the fall season.

This is location #17 – Cook’s Meadow. There is a short boardwalk from the road out to the river where you can view many of the park’s landmarks.

This is from the same location, looking across the meadow to Sentinel Rock.

We stopped at Location #13 – Cathedral Beach. At this time of the year, there is very little water in the river and you can walk a long way up along the side of the water. I stopped to enjoy a little bit of fall color in the late afternoon sunshine. We didn’t experience a lot of color during this visit but the oaks, maples, and dogwoods were scattered with color throughout the valley.

From the same location at Cathedral Beach, you can clearly see the Cathedral Rocks. This is a prominent rock formation along the south side of the valley.

Here are the Three Brothers taken from Location #14. What a great spot to stop and enjoy the peaceful surroundings of a Yosemite autumn day!

Hello Mr. Deer! This guy wasn’t happy with me taking a picture of him from a distance and as I was standing there just came nibbling closer and closer. I finally had to move because I really think he was going to just push me over to get to his destination. So tame and accustomed to humans….great for viewing up close!

There weren’t many wildflowers at this time of year…mostly brown grasses and lots of weeds with seeds. These thistles were so pretty on closer examination…so much so that I created a nature journal page featuring them in my personal journal. These were up where we were camping at Crane Flat.

Some color!

One afternoon as we drove back up to our campsite, we noticed smoke in the valley. As we drove up the highway, we spotted a wildfire. It had just started and we could see from the pull out that it was just on the other side of the ridge. It was the Dog Rock fire and it continued to burn all through the night and next day…well, even longer than that but we came home before it was completely out. You can see the fire tanker flying over the blaze if you look closely in the photo.

It was such a great family trip and we enjoyed our last morning just wandering around, taking photos and sitting in the sunshine.

We ended up at the Ahwahnee Hotel for coffee and chatting. This is an amazing place for sitting and taking in the historical atmosphere of a Yosemite experience.

It is always sad to come home from this unique place on the earth but I look forward to visiting again soon.

Thanks Yosemite National Park for a great visit!

Posted on October 6, 2014 by Barb — 3 Comments

Petrified Forest National Park – Tips and Images

I am excited to share some information about a national park that you don’t hear too much about. Petrified Forest National Park is located in Arizona and we visited in May 2014 as part of our cross-country road trip.

It is a park that you can visit as a day trip. There are no hotels or campgrounds at this national park so you will need to find accommodations outside the park. We stayed in Flagstaff, Arizona which is less than a two hour drive.

We entered the park at the southern entrance. As we entered, we were told of the strict rules regarding collection of petrified wood. You cannot take any petrified wood from the park and you must declare any in your possession as you enter so if you are stopped in the park, you will have a record of your purchases made outside the park’s boundaries.

This is a national park that you drive through, stopping at the many viewpoints to see the petrified logs and to learn more about how they were formed. The visitor center helps explain the process that made the petrified wood and then how it ended up in the middle of the desert of Arizona.

We stopped and walked through the Giant Logs trail near the Rainbow Forest Museum. It was a great way to learn more as you saw different pieces of petrified wood.

Isn’t it beautiful with all its colors?

We so enjoyed driving through and seeing the various land formations along the road. Once you stop your car and get out, you realize that there are living things even in this stark harsh place. It is a different kind of beauty that you find in the deserts of the southwest. The sky is so blue and seems to be wider and never ending.

Then we viewed a portion of the Painted Desert and visited the Painted Desert Visitor Center.

Photos really don’t do this landscape justice. The colors give such beauty to any way you look out your window.

Additional Tips and Links:

There is loads of information about what you will see here on this page: Brochures.
$10 entrance fee
Petroglyphs are accessible within the park.
Geocaches!
Near-by camping is available: Camping.
Visitor Center and Rainbow Forest Museum

You can read more of my national park tips in these entries:

Posted on September 29, 2014 by Barb — Leave a comment

Nature Photo of the Week Recap – September

I have slowed down in my photos pinned to the board…see the note at the bottom of this entry for an explanation.

Please feel free to join us over on the Nature Photo of the Week Pinterest Board.

Silhouette: That is the sun behind a very smoky sky. We have had a week of wildfire in our area and the mornings are dense with smoke…smells like a campfire burning even with the doors and windows shut. King Fire.

Furry: My cat on the roof….we were sitting outside after dark and with the moon so bright behind her we could see her little cat silhouette.

I have had some trouble this month getting photos for my remaining topics left on my list.

Here’s what I have left….decided to make a list to carry in the notes section of my phone for easy reference.

Crystals, berries, fish, cold, refreshing, simplicity, energy, , bridge, bubbly, sparkle, feather, reflection, self-portrait, Just do it!

Posted on September 24, 2014 by Barb — 9 Comments

Burdock Nature Study

Here is our burdock nature study entry..so happy to have had a chance to see it in person!

Hiking in Utah we saw an area with these plants that had HUGE leaves. I was intrigued and took a photo so I could later look it up in my field guide. I had no idea that what I was looking at was first year burdock!

Later on in the hike, we spotted these blooming plants and I was pretty sure what we were seeing was burdock. I had read all about this plant when I was writing the current ebook and was sort of on the lookout for it in our travels this summer. I apologize for the blurry photos but it had started to rain and we were moving quickly off the mountain.

Here is a closer look at the leaves.

And here is the underside of the leaf. It is much whiter than the top of the leaf.

Here are a couple more images we took to document our discovery.

In reflection, the plants and flowers are much larger than I anticipated.

The flowers look like prickly balls with purplish color. The flower is ringed with spiny hooks all around.

We noted that the first year leaves are large and wavy looking while the second year plant with the flowers are much smaller and less wavy.

This was a case of preparation in identifying a wildflower/weed…reading up on things and then looking for them when you are out for your Outdoor Hour Challenge time creates such a sense of satisfaction. Since the Handbook of Nature Study was written for a specific region, many of the topics are not found naturally in California. This never stumbles me since I view the time reading and researching topics for future use a very valuable tool in learning more as I go through life.

Did you find some burdock this week?

But, guess what? We found something right alongside our walking trail that looks remarkably like burdock. We snapped some photos and made some observations.

Doing some additional research online, we found out that this plant that looks like burdock is a the cocklebur plant!

Both the cocklebur and the burdock plants are in the asteraceae family…which is probably why they have some of the same characteristics.

What a great find and discovery!

Category: Family Outdoor Life