Please feel free to complete one or both of the challenges as you have the opportunity. We would all enjoy seeing your entries and even if it is at a later date, please come back to this entry and add your link.
Evergreens on the Lake’s Edge
Don’t forget to check the Winter Wednesday Squidoo page for more information for #4 and #5 challenges to go along with this week’s study.
I forgot to mention last week with the winter weather challenge that my daughter has a Weather Lapbook Kit that you can purchase if you want to spend some extra time learning about your weather. Check it out on her blog Hearts and Trees.
Our study of pine cones started way back when I was writing the Autumn Series ebook. We gathered a few pine cones to use in the experiments suggested. We had fun soaking the cones in a bucket of water and then setting them in the sun to observe them as they dried and opened up again. Simple things sometimes make the deepest impressions and honestly, none of us had really put all the pieces together until doing the experiments. I know I took photos but they are lost somewhere on my hard drive. Could that be a sign of taking too many photos? I bet a lot of you can relate to my desire to document as much as I can about our world and that leads to lots of images to save and enjoy.
Our unofficial theme as we worked through this study became something like this:
Pine cones don’t just hold still, they are a living thing created for a specific purpose.
What else pushed this pine cone study up another notch?
We have had sort of an on-going study of the female and male cones of the pines in our area.
We studied pine cones back in February of 2008 as part of the Winter Wednesday studies: Cones and a Woodpecker. We also studied pines as part of the Winter Series back in February 2010. This time though we are really trying to concentrate on the cones.
We extended our study of female and male cones.
Male cones with the pollen.
This is the photo that sort of started it all so long ago. We wondered if these were “baby pine cones”. Well, it turns out they are not and only after completing a study of what gymnosperms are in our biology study did things start to fall into place. There are male and female cones on the tree. Females are usually at the top and males at the bottom. The males have the pollen that is wind driven up to meet up with the female cones. How about a simple video that even I can understand? Here you go!
Next we wondered why the female cones are sticky and then we guessed it had to do something with capturing the pollen…but that is whole other subject.
This guy wanted to be included in our pine cone study this week. He was so very happy that I put out some extra walnuts for him when I was filling the birdfeeders and he climbed up the tree to look in the living room window at us.
“Thanks a lot”, he said as he swished his big fluffy tail and then dropped to the ground and off to eat some more.
There were also some bird friends that made an appearance but I will save those for another post.
There is always something to learn about in our world and these challenges have helped us focus on things that we never dream of making into a complete study all on their own. I love it.
Today we went on a drive up in the mountains and would you believe there was snow! I spotted some freshly fallen pinecones and it was a perfect introduction to this week’s challenge. The snowy landscape reminded me that we will soon be finished with the Autumn Series and it will be time for a new season to start. The Autumn Series of Outdoor Hour Challenges has greatly added to our family’s knowledge of everyday things around us and I hope they have helped your family too. Next week will be our last autumn challenge and a nice giveaway so make sure to pop over to the blog next Friday to read all about it. Autumn Series #9 Pine Cones (You may also like to use this challenge: Pine Cones.)
“Their foliage is evergreen but is shed gradually. The pollen-bearing and the seed-producing flowers are separate on the tree. The seeds are winged and are developed in cones.” Handbook of Nature Study, page 674
Inside Preparation Work:
Read pages 670-675 in the Handbook of Nature Study (Lesson 185). This section talks about the pine tree and gives the background for this challenge. Pay attention to questions 5 and 6 in this lesson covering the pine cone.
Compare A Tree with Cones and A Tree Without Cones
Compare needles and leaves, including their arrangement on the branches, shapes, and colors.
Compare the trunks and bark, including the shape of the tree. Does the main trunk go straight up or branch out? How low do the branches start? Is there a crown?
Outdoor Hour Time:
Take fifteen minutes outdoors this week to explore your yard or neighborhood looking for a pine tree and pine cones. Remember how to identify a pine tree and use some of the things you read about in the Handbook to help your child learn a little about the pine tree. You could point out the difference between an evergreen and a deciduous tree, how the pine tree’s leaves are needles, the distinct shape of a pine tree, and the cones. Collect at least one cone to bring indoors for observations in the follow-up activity.
Follow-Up Activity:
Use a hand lens to look closely at your pine cone. Take note of its shape, size, color, and patterns. The Handbook of Nature Study suggests the following sketches in your nature journal:
Bundle of needles, showing the sheath and its attachment to the twig.
The cone.
The cone scale.
The seed (under the scales)
You can use the notebook page provided with the Autumn ebook, a blank page in your nature journal, or a blank notebook page.
Additional activity: Soak your cone in water. Check your cone every 15 minutes to see what happens. Now let the cone dry. This sometimes will loosen the seeds inside and you can take a closer look at their shapes and structure. Try this activity again and soak only half your cone in water and see what happens. You can try this additional activity: Pine Cone Science Experiment.
If you would like to own this ebook, it is part of the Ultimate Naturalist Library for members. You can find more details on how to get your own membership here: Join Us!
The glories of spring are bursting out all around in our neck of the woods. The other day I mentioned that I could smell the difference in the air as we hiked. Well, today I noticed that I can hear the difference in the seasons….the woods are filled with birds and insect buzzings. The bees and other flying gnat sort of insects were flying in and out of the meadow as we stopped to observe the flowers. What a welcome sound!
Our meadow view is changing each time we hike this way now. The popcorn flowers are still blooming along with some Sierra Shooting Stars and if you look carefully about center of this photo you will notice a big hole that someone is digging. We are stumped over who could have made it.
Speaking of holes, this is one right in the middle of the pathway. It isn’t as large as the other hole, but our dog loves to stick her nose down there and sniff every time we pass by here.
Here is yet another hole we noticed freshly dug on the side of the trail. This one is not as neat and tidy as the other hole and you can see all the broken rocks and dirt that have been excavated out of the hole. I am assuming two different creatures dug these holes since they are made so differently.
Sometimes we wish we could set up a camera to capture the activity after we leave each day. My boys are always so curious about these holes and we have never really seen anything that we think might be actually digging them. We can venture guesses, but if we had a camera rigged up we might confirm our ideas.
The only creatures besides birds that we saw on our hike today were a Gray squirrel and an Alligator lizard and we know neither of those critters made these holes.
Here they are! Sierra Shooting Stars….there are so many of these blooming right now that some areas are just polka-dotted with pink. It must be spring.
We will watch these Mule’s Ears for a long time before they actually bloom with a sunflower shaped flower. Can you guess why they call them Mule’s Ears?
We have been noticing all the new growth on the ferns on the sides of the canyon as we walk down.
Here is the backside of the fern. Isn’t it interesting? We are determined to spend some time this week learning more about ferns.
The Maidenhair ferns are so beautiful right now. Notice the black stems?
This is what a fern looks like as it unfurls its fronds. They are all curled up like this to begin with and then they slowly unroll and flatten out. Fascinating and amazing at the same time!
Wow! The pines along the trail are all popping out with these red growths on the ends of the branches. We are going to research what part of the plant this is…the new needles, the cones, something else? My boys think they are the baby cones. I’m not sure. Time to investigate.
Edit 4/28/10: These are pollen cones. These are the male cones and they contain the pollen to fertilize the seeds which are on the female pine cone. Now we know.
We are not even sure what kind of pine tree this is. Look at the length of those needles!
The only other thing worth mentioning is that our black lab had FIVE ticks on her when we got back to the car. It is definitely tick season and we will start to make appropriate adjustments to our hiking routine, long pants for us and a thorough going over the dog’s fur before we head home each day. If you catch the ticks before they burrow in, you can just flick them off easily. They are actually fairly easy to spot and we rarely have trouble with them actually biting us or the dog. She gets regular flea and tick protection applied and it seems to work well.
We are off on an adventure today to another county. I relish a new place to hike and since we are taking a few weeks off as part of our “spring break”, the boys are eager to get outside in the sunshine. The predicted high today is around 70 degrees. Yahoo! So we are off to pack a lunch and fill up our water bottles to spend a day being refreshed by a new territory to discover.
Yesterday we were able to take a hike out in the snow at our favorite spot. It felt like spring and the sun warmed my neck in a welcome way. I realized I can smell the forest again. This is the first time I noted that during winter there are far less fragrances in the air. Yesterday we smelled the piney woods fragrance of the evergreens in the warming sun. It smelled delicious.
We tried to focus on finding signs of mammals on our hike as part of the Winter Series Challenge for mammals.
The squirrels have been busy munching on cones.
Isn’t this just the most wonderful cone you have seen in a long time?
The snow is melting a little on this familiar hike. The beaver dam is still visible with all the leaves gone from the trees and bushes.
Here you can see the snow pulling away from the creek water and exposing the grasses underneath. It feels like spring here for the first time.
I am thinking these are dog tracks but perhaps coyote since we have seen them in this area before.
Now these I am pretty sure are rabbit tracks…or perhaps snowshoe hare tracks.
We spotted this trail of tracks to the left of the snowy log and if you look carefully you can see them disappear in the distance. I have no idea who made them but they were fun to see and to talk about.
Here are some more tracks down by an icy spot on the creek.
We came home and decided to look up and learn about a mammal from our field guide. There are quite a few to choose from that live in this particular area, but we chose the Douglas squirrel (or Chickaree). We often hear squirrels in the trees and now we know that in this particular area, the only tree squirrel is the Douglas squirrel. They have a chattering sound that is distinct, making it easier to identify even if we don’t actually see them in the trees. Our mammal field guide says that they are active all year long, but they still store a winter cache of cones. We also learned that the piles of leftovers where a squirrel eats are called middens. There is an actual name for those piles we see under trees!
“Nature has made him master forester and committed most of her coniferous crops to his paws. Probably over fifty percent of all the cones ripened on the Sierra are cut off and handled by the Douglas alone, and of those of the Big Trees perhaps ninety percent pass through his hands.”
John Muir on Douglas squirrels, The Mountains of California.
Isn’t that interesting? I love when we take a few minutes to learn a little more about something in our nature study that really is meaningful and will help us understand our local environment better.
This was a great challenge for us this time around.
“There is something majestic about the pines, which even the most unimpressionable feel.” Handbook of Nature Study, page 670
We have plenty of pine trees to study in our area and because they are so common we often don’t take the time to really look at them. This week as part of the Winter Series of Challenges, we tried to focus on two different kinds of pines that we have along our walking trail in two different spots.
The first is the Ponderosa pine and it is very common in our neighborhood. We also enjoy seeing them when we visit Yosemite.
These are really tall pines that spread out their limbs high up on the top.
Quite a few limbs had fallen down in the last storm we experienced, making observation of the limbs much easier. Here you can see how the bundles of needles are attached to the limb.
Ponderosa Pine trunks resemble puzzle pieces and have actually very pretty.
Here is another tree that has moss growing in between the bark pieces.
Now for the other kind of pine….
The needles on this pine are almost blue-gray in comparison to the Ponderosa Pine. This limb was down from the winter storm as well and we got to take a really good look at it up close.
This was interesting to see. I am assuming this is where the new cones will develop on the limb.
“The appearance of the unique unripe cone is another convincing evidence that mathematics is the basis of the beautiful. The pattern of the overlapping scales is intricate and yet regular-to appreciate it one needs to try to sketch it.” Handbook of Nature Study, page 672
Here are some cones. We are not sure and will have to go back and look at the tree itself to identify it but the boys are thinking that it is either a Jeffrey pine or a Gray pine.
I attempted last summer to sketch and paint some cones into my nature journal and it is very true that when you take the time to sketch something you notice all the patterns and details much more than you would normally. I encourage you to give it a try with your children.
We have studied the pines in our backyard before and you can read about that study HERE.
“At least one pine tree should be studied in the field. Any species will do, but the white pine is the most interesting.” Handbook of Nature Study, page 674
I think if you live in the West, the sugar pine is also very interesting, especially if you have a big cone to study.
This White-headed Woodpecker was busy, busy, busy. We had a great time watching him climb down and around this pine. It turns out he eats pine cones as well….learned something new.
We were on the lookout for different cones as we took our walk in a different habitat that I posted more about here in this entry, Another Glorious Winter Walk. I commented in that entry about the way we have come to appreciate that the cones fall and are available in great numbers during this snowy, cold part of the year. There are birds and mammals that are still active during this season and they use these cones as the staple of their diet. What a great design by a loving Creator.
Here are two new to us cones that we gathered on this particular walk.
We are familiar with larger cones but these were ones we haven’t noticed before. We think the bigger one is from a White Fir but we have no idea what the other one is at all.
The cone below comes from our regular hiking spot and we see them in great numbers. We think the cone is from a Douglas Fir.
We are going to keep track of our collection in our nature journals and write about each one as we find it.
The top right cone is from our Giant Sequoia in our backyard.
We all have a better appreciation for the role that cones play not only in the life cycle of the tree but also as a vital part of the food web in our forests.
We had another chance to take a walk up in the high country yesterday. The boys were snowboarding but we preferred to take a slower approach to our day. We took two hours to tramp around in the woods and see what we could find.
Here was something we found interesting. It looks as if an animal scratched the bark off this Jeffrey pine to get at something underneath…insects? If you look closely you can see the chunk of bark sticking out from under the snow.
Here is a close-up.
Lots of prints in the snow…..dogs and otherwise. We aren’t sure about these. They seem too close together to be a dog and there are no marks for the claws like dogs have.
We think these are squirrel tracks.
Some squirrels had a feast on this stump that we came across as we crunched through the snow. I have come to appreciate that there are animals that depend on this food source in the middle of winter. As we stopped at one point along our walk, a huge cone came crashing down just a few feet from us. As you look around the forest floor, you see cones just about everywhere in various stages of being eaten.
Somehow we lost the trail as we wandered around looking at various interesting things. Yes, that is my hubby looking for a way back to the trail. He assured me he knew which way to go. 🙂
If you have to be lost, can you imagine a more peaceful place? It was quiet and sunny and warm and we knew generally that we needed to head towards that mountain to get back to the main trail.
We eventually found our way back and it was a really good thing because I was getting tired and hungry. We saw so many other things but I will share those in another post.
Today ended up with a nature study of squirrels at my dad’s house. We had gone over to visit him this afternoon and somehow it was mentioned that we were studying squirrels this week. His eyes lit up and he took us out for a little walk on the backside of his property. He has been up there cutting wood and he had something to share with us.
This is what he wanted us to see up on the hill next to his woodpile. There was a whole area that was piled high with shredded pinecones. All of the reddish material that you see in this photo is the remnants of a squirrel feast. The squirrels have been very busy eating up in the trees and letting the litter fall to the ground in great heaps.
Here in the center, probably easier to see if you click the photo, are some of the many, many pinecones stripped of their tasty seeds.
Here is a closer shot of another cone.
Can you believe how big this pile is? They are busy squirrels.
Here one of the seeds from the cone after the squirrel has finished with it.
Now for a few more mammal signs from our walk.
We also saw these “signs” from some mule deer that live in this area. Just last week we saw seven deer walking down to my dad’s pond late in the afternoon. They seemed not to care that we were watching in awe of their beauty.
Then right down the hill from where we were, we saw these tell-tale signs of a busy gopher. You could not walk easily on this slope because the ground was just full of holes and tunnels.
Here is another view of one of the holes. My dad was thinking about making a new garden in this area but I told him he better think twice….deer and gophers don’t mix very well with a vegetable garden. Even though it is a perfect spot for growing with lots of sunlight, he would need to fence it like his other garden area….a very tall fence.
What a great way to study squirrels. My dad thinks of his property as a sort of nature study laboratory for our family. He will call us over if he sees something interesting and I love that about him. My dad and I did not spend much time together when I was a child because he was always working but now that he is retired, he and I share our love of all things that have to do with the great outdoors. He has not always been a fan of homeschooling but I think he now has changed his mind and is eager to help us out with our nature study.
There is much to be said for a walk in the woods in the snow….no trails to follow and no one else to distract you. The crunch, crunch, crunch of the snow under your feet and the bite in the air that reminds you that it is winter. I know these woods well but something about the whiteness or the stillness captures me and draws me to go deeper and farther and find something new each time. You know by the tracks that someone has been there before you….human types and mammal types and probably some rodents too. That is okay since all they left behind are some prints and dents in the snow and you can choose to follow or you can choose to meander. We did a little of both.
We were alert to the many different kinds of tracks in the snow and it was fun trying to guess who they belonged to. It didn’t really matter if we were correct or not because it was fun to imagine who the creatures were and what they were up to. Tracks inspired talk of bears, foxes, rabbits, mice, coyotes, and beavers. It is a fun game to play as you walk through the snowy woods.
This was the most surprising find of the day…a beaver dam in the creek. We have seen evidence of a beaver here before with trees gnawed on and sometimes even a tree cut down but this dam was magnificent. Be sure to click the image to get a better look. You can really see it clearly now that the leaves are gone from the trees and bushes. This is almost the same spot that we saw a bear last fall when the salmon were spawning in this creek.
Have you ever seen something so colorful as this lichen? It really stands out against all the winter drab. Just beautiful.
I never fail to look up as we hike along and this was what I was given for the effort, a brilliant blue sky with fast moving clouds overhead. The trees were perfectly silhouetted as you looked across the horizon.
We had our eyes out for interesting things to discover and here are some little cones we found hanging on a bush.
Reflections have a way of creating a different dimension to a landscape. The stillness of the water made me feel peaceful and I took a few moments to say a little prayer of thanks to the one who created all these wonderful things for us to enjoy. What a gift…what a gift to enjoy as a family.
I told you on this afternoon we had the place to ourselves but there had been others before us. This area leads down to the lake but right through an eagle habitat and we decided to steer clear…are the eagles still here or do they migrate? I know, so many questions to answer. These tracks are probably all covered over by now since a storm blew in overnight.
This short video shows the creek where it is moving fast over the rocks. There were birds wading around in the water above this spot but we saw no real signs of life right here on the bridge.
Just so you know it wasn’t all peaceful and idyllic on this walk, one last photo of what happens when a teenage son nails his dad with a big snowball….a little of what my family affectionately calls “snow tussling“.
Boys will be boys. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
