I started dreaming of spring bulbs blossoming way back in the fall. Although I didn’t feel like getting out and digging the holes and actually planting them, I knew that if we did there would be a springtime show of color.
Well here it comes!
Here is our Early Spring Flower entry for the last challenge of the Winter Series of Outdoor Hour Challenges.
Our fall planted daffodils are adding splashes of yellow to our front yard. You might remember we did a complete remodel of our landscaping last summer/fall and we are just now starting to see the new plants getting green again. It is amazing to look out my front window and see how things are shaping up.
We have had lots of vases inside filled with daffodils….the new ones have rather large blooms.We can all clearly identify all the parts because of previously studying daffodils, including dissecting them. They are still an amazing flower to observe and to marvel at when you think that they come from a dried up old bulb you stick in the ground months ahead of time. They seem to know just when to start growing.
Don’t you think they are even lovely from the back?
We have jonquils blooming in the yard as well which smell heavenly.
Another watercolor nature journal today….this one was fun because I used paint splotches at the end to sort of fill in the page. I would love to know from my readers whether my nature journal entries encourage you or discourage you from doing some of your own pages. Leave me a comment or send me an email….
I have enjoyed seeing your early spring flowers this week and it has recharged me to get going on the next series of spring challenges tomorrow. If you are still experiencing lots of snow and cold temperatures….be encouraged by those of us who are through to the other side of winter already.
As part of preparing for our mammal study this week, I pulled our mammal field guide from our shelf to have for easy reference. I opened to the introductory pages and I would love to share a few thoughts from those pages with you in this post.
Most mammals are creatures of the darkness, only becoming active at night after dark and returning home again before dawn.
Most nocturnal mammals communicate by odor which humans cannot detect and with sounds which are frequently high pitched and low in volume.
Direct observation of most mammals is difficult except for a few species like chipmunks and squirrels.
The vocalizations of mammals have not been extensively explored and most make brief sounds called “call notes”.
We were walking along our usual trail having a great conversation when my son twirled me around to get me to look up on the hill. He had spotted a few young deer not too far from where we were. They were slowly moving along, not really paying too much attention to us.
California mule deer are very common in our area and we often see groups of 8-10 deer alongside the road or in grassy meadows. My husband actually hit a deer with his truck last month when he was coming home from work…minimal damage and the deer bounced back up and ran off into the woods. He was lucky. He once hit a deer and it totaled the vehicle.
We were planning on studying our backyard squirrels this week as part of our mammal study but we spent a little time reading up on the mule deer too. California mule deer are very graceful and agile mammals. They have lovely eyes but don’t let those innocent looking eyes fool you. They have been known to eat my garden down to the ground in one night.
There are three fox squirrels and one gray squirrel in our yard just about every day. They are in the bird feeders and up in the trees chattering at us and the dog pretty much all day long. I started off trying to keep them out of the feeders but it is an impossible task.
They are very acrobatic and can get to just about any of our feeders.
We spend time each day watching these very acrobatic mammals hop from limb to limb and then hang upside down to eat from the feeders.
Here is a coloring page for a Fox Squirrel. We found this website that has a recording of the sound the fox squirrel makes.
Again, I ended up including photos as part of my nature journal entry to show the differences between the Western gray squirrel and the Fox squirrel.
One of my sons told me that it used to be an “event” when the gray squirrel showed up in the yard but now we have so many squirrels that they are commonplace. We have started to think of them as rodent pests rather than welcome visitors.
We had almost given up trying to fit in a winter insect study but it was such a perfect day today to get outdoors that we took advantage. I whipped up some sandwiches, we jumped in the car, and we had a little picnic before we took a hike on our close-by and most familiar trail.
What impressed me the most as we started to hike was the greenness all around us! The grasses, the mosses, and the ferns are what Crayola would call “spring green”. It felt good to get outside and hike…we saw a red-tailed hawk right above us and it was amazing! We heard robins and Western scrub jays as we went along, nice to hear the familiar spring sounds in the woods.
Then the sky and clouds captured my eye and the beauty made me stop to admire and try to get a good shot of just how beautiful the almost spring sky is in our neighborhood today. We had a hail storm around 5:30 AM today and then the storm passed and the clouds parted, revealing a bright blue sky.
So for our insect study I was hoping to find some oak galls or leaf miners and I was successful in finding one of those things.
Leaf miners are talked about in the Handbook of Nature Study starting on page 329 (Lesson 77).
“Among the most familiar of these are the serpentine miners, so called because the figure formed by the eating out of the green pulp of the leaf curves like a serpent…..The serpent-like marking and the blister-like blothces which we often see on leaves are made by the larve of insects which complete their growth by feeding upon the inner living substance of the leaf.”
We saw evidence of other insects all around the trail when we stopped to look closely.
As I was taking these photos, I happened to see this guy. I have absolutely no idea what kind of insect it is but was great to observe him this afternoon, a sign of life in these woods.
The next leg of the hike had some surprises in store for us. Like these very first of the season Shooting Stars!
And these colorful and cheery buttercups…added bonus….some small fly-like insect.
I have been down this trail a hundred times and I haven’t ever noticed how nicely this manzanita is shaped. It must be pretty old because it is taller than most of the manzanita in this area and looks more like a tree than a bush. See the nice oak on the left all covered with spring moss?
On the way back up the trail we stopped to admire the waterfall and I was excited to see the early spring saxifrage beginning to sprout. Soon it will be blooming and I will know it is spring.
Kona had to get in the water while she waited for me to finish my photo taking. She moved some rocks around in the water with her nose and got a drink.
Here is the waterfall from the trail. This is looking up and there is a section below where we are so the sound of rushing water is heard from the parking place all the way down to where we turn around and come back up. It is one of those very relaxing and comforting sounds that we enjoy on this hike.
Here is a red insect I spotted while I was crouched down taking photos of the saxifrage. I don’t know what it is but it had wings and eventually flew away.
I think that wraps up our hike and our insects for our study. We are going to try to identify the red insect in the photo above and add it to our nature journals this week. What a great day outdoors! I think I have been color deprived because just seeing the few wildflowers, the greens of the grasses and mosses, and the colorful insect has brightened my mood. I think we all feel better.
Update:
I updated my last entry with a photo from last summer….we were at the redwood forest in Northern California. Click over and scroll down to see how small we are in comparison to the base of the tree!
Our world is slowly turning green and it feels nice to walk along and see the plants starting to awake for spring. We had our eyes open for winter weeds and we found some new things and some familiar things to share.
The side of our walking trail is covered in this plant with the nicely shaped leaves. I am going to watch it as the season progresses to see exactly what it is.
The California poppies are starting to grow and I can hardly wait to see their happy orange little faces in a month or so. Isn’t it interesting how it can grow right there right on the rock? Not much soil here but there are plenty of poppies sprouting up for us to enjoy.
Here is what our mullein looks like right now….all brown and the tops are covered in lots of seeds.
The Handbook of Nature Study says, “Later the capsule divides partially in quarters, opening wide enough to shake out the tiny seeds with every wandering blast. The seed, when seen through a lens is very pretty; it looks like a section of a corncob, pitted and ribbed.” (page 538)
This is the most interesting of the dried weeds that we observed. I like the way the bottom of the stalk looks like it is the skirt of the plant.
I can’t remember what this looks like in the spring or the summer….Does it have flowers? What do they look like? Now is the best part of the nature study experience. We get to watch this spot as the seasons progress and then see if we can identify it with our field guide. There is always something to learn and I am glad our Creator made us to be curious and he filled the world with interesting things to occupy our minds productively. (If you are a Bible reader: Ecclesiastes 3:10-14.)
Here is what it looks like close-up.
The top looks like this with its thin branching arms.
Our Queen Anne’s Lace looks pretty much like it did in the autumn.We had planned to pull up a specimen to observe the roots but we have snow today! We will have to wait now until we can get outside to finish our study.
I couldn’t decide on what I wanted for a journal entry this week so started a bulleted list of weeds we observed. I will add a few more as the month goes on and we see some more. I had room so I made a list of random other subjects we have come across this past week…sometimes it is just nice to have a little reminder to look back on in the years to come.
I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.
~Henry David Thoreau
By now you are more than likely tired of seeing my snowshoe photos but since the season is full of opportunities to hike out there in the snowy goodness, I will continue to share some of the best shots and stories from our wanderings.
This trip was a sisters trip and my big sis and I spent part of our weekend out in the sunshine hiking/wandering, taking photos, talking, sharing aches and pains, and nourishing our love of beautiful landscapes. We heard Steller’s jays and nuthatches as we “tramped” through the woods.The creek sounds were always in the background and every now and then the quack of a mallard was heard over the crunching of our shoes.
This particular place is known for being a bear and eagle habitat. Although I have seen bears here in the summer and fall, I have never seen an actual bear or signs of bear in the winter. There are plenty of other animal tracks around but never any bear tracks. My sister was still a little uneasy but we did not see a bear on this trip, thank goodness, or she would have never let me forget about it.
There has been no fresh snow in awhile but there were places where we really did need the snowshoes. The weather was warm and I ended up just with a fleece jacket, no gloves, and my light knit hat. My sister was trying out a new set of snowshoes which were much smaller and lighter than mine. She said they were very easy to get used to and we felt good about being out for a long walk….not totally by ourselves in the woods but still alone enough to feel peaceful and refreshed.
We wandered through the woods and only once did we need to take our snowshoes off and jump across the creek. Yes, I said jump. I didn’t feel very graceful as I made the leap across into the snowbank but there was no one else around to see me….
The aspens make such a visual treat with their beautiful trunks.
Yes, the limbs of the bare bushes are that pinky-red in real life. Amazing color along the creek for a winter scene. I was so surprised that my point and shoot was able to capture the exact look of this winter creek.
Does it get any better than this? With a little effort my sister and I made it out to the end of the creek where it spills into the lake. The snow had all melted on this side of the water and we took off our snowshoes and stood in awe of the mountains, the snow, the reflections, the sky, the peacefulness of this place. I felt like I was in some beautiful outdoor cathedral and I sent my thanks to our Grand Creator for the gift of this afternoon.
There is my sister taking some photos of her own. We share a love for the outdoors and photography and she is an amazing nature photographer. All too soon we realized the day was coming to a close and we needed to make the hike back to the car. We were tired but it was a good kind of tired.
I hope to get up to the snow at least one more time, probably with my boys if we can fit in the time.
I am not the only one that has snowshoes. Don’t miss reading another mom’s experience with her snowshoes…it will warm your heart: Pink Snowshoes by Richelle at Educating Mother.
