Family Outdoor Hour Challenge Archives

Posted on June 4, 2010 by Barb — 3 Comments

Another Snake: Kingsnake This Time

Were there always this many snakes and we just never noticed them?

I kid you not….yesterday my son and I were were in the car and one block from our house there was a dead snake in the middle of the road.

At first we thought it was a fake snake because it was so colorful. I actually *turned around* and went back so we could get out and look at it. My son was shocked! He could not believe that I was going to actually go back and look at it up close. Well, I looked at it from the car window while he got out and took a photo of it with my phone. It was not in bad shape so it didn’t seem weird to take a photo. I really just wanted to go home and make a positive identification using the photo. I will spare you the photo this time. (Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons) The one we saw was much yellower in color than this one in the photo which made it very conspicuous.

It was a kingsnake. It looked like this one: California Kingsnake. Here is a good article: California King-snake.

These are good snakes…they eat rattlesnakes.

Okay, so now in less than a week I have seen two of the common snakes from our list of snakes from our snake study. It makes me wonder whether they were always here before and I did not notice them. I have been left in no doubt this week of the value of nature study and learning about what is right in our own neighborhoods.

It is a good thing we are not studying mountain lions…..

Posted on June 1, 2010 by Barb — 10 Comments

Today’s Teachable Moment: Gopher Snake

So who said they rarely see snakes in the wild? Me? Yikes, I should have know better than that.

Today on our hike I took a little side trail because I could see some delphiniums blooming on the hillside. I was by myself and down about 20 yards from where I left Mr. A and our dog sitting in the shade.

I was busy taking photos when I looked to my left and just a few feet away was this huge snake laying half on the trail and half in the dry grass.

He was so still that I thought maybe he was dead and at first I couldn’t see his head. I hollered up to my son not to come down with the dog because there was a really big snake. He wanted to know what kind because immediately we think rattlesnake when we see a big snake.

I checked his tail and didn’t see a rattle and then I moved ever so slightly closer to see if I could locate his head. Wow! He was a big snake but I did manage to see the head and it was round and not diamond shaped so I felt fairly comfortable identifying it as something other than a rattler. I am guessing that he was at least 5 feet long. I snapped a few photos so we could take a closer look once we got home and make a positive identification. I didn’t get the whole snake in the photo and I did not take a photo of his head since I did not want to get that close to a live snake.

We had done the preparation work (you can read our entry HERE) for all the snakes on our list last week so I thought it was either a kingsnake or a gopher snake. We came home and pulled out the field guide and sure enough….gopher snake or Pituophis melanoleucus. The guide says gopher snakes can be up to 7 feet long. They eat small animals such as gophers, mice, ground squirrels, and small rabbits. They squeeze their prey until movement stops and then it swallows it whole.

I found this graphic online for our future reference:
Know Your Snakes: Differences Between Gopher Snake and Rattlesnake

I knew we wanted to do more snake study but I never dreamed a subject would come our way so quickly.

Posted on May 28, 2010 by Barb — 5 Comments

Cat Study: One of Our Favorite Subjects

These are our cats Cocoa and Espresso who in 2006 came to live with us. Yes, we can tell them apart…you look at their ears and one has white hair inside and the other does not. They also have very different personalities and habits so once you get to know them you really don’t even need to look at their ears to identify them.

It seems like we have a never-ending cat study at our house. We have two beautiful Bombay cats (we are sure that they are mixed with something else as well) that love to socialize with us during our homeschooling day. We can’t help but to see these gals up close on a regular basis.

We did do a little more research on the Bombay cat breed and we discovered that we have English Bombays and not American Bombays. It was obvious when we took a look at the differences. We know that they are mixed with something else because they have some longer fur and some white hair in a spot on their chest but they are most definitely related to the Bombay breed.

Our cats are remarkable sleepers. They spend most of their days sleeping in various parts of the house. As the photo above shows, they have always been able to find a comfortable place to sleep.

Cocoa loves to sleep on Mr. A’s bed curled up in his big fleece gecko.

Here she is sleeping on my bed. I put out a piece of fleece fabric for her to sleep on or else she will curl up on my pillow. She will sleep on her back like this for long periods of time. I think it is very strange.

Espresso is more of a “sleep where it is convenient gal”. She sleeps on kitchen chairs, curled up in a box, or laying on the back deck in the sun.

They are both big time hunters and they will watch from the inside of the window as the birds sit in the feeders. Their tails will be swishing, ears alert, eyes wide, making cat sounds as they watch.

They also like to frequent the school table and sit on papers, binders, or textbooks. No matter that we might be actually trying to work…they make themselves at home.

Our lives are full of the entertaining things that cats do and especially since we are home all the time do we enjoy having them around to keep us company and warm. We recently found one hiding in a paper bag and we left the bag out for a few days and it became the favored sleeping spot for both cats.

My husband does not consider himself a cat lover but these two feline girls have captured his heart. They will even jump into his lap for a good scratch under the chin and then they reward him with a lap full of purring, furry, sleeping cat. Cats are smart.

This was a fun challenge and my boys and I decided we could write about our cats every week, telling a new tale of their sweetness.

Instead, next time I will posting about our snake studies…..not quite such a lovable entry.

Posted on May 16, 2010 by Barb — 2 Comments

Our Apple Tree Study: Spring Time

Spring Series-Apple Tree Study

Our new apple tree’s blossoms. Photo from 4/22/10 taken by my son Mr. A.

Our study took a turn when we had a huge rainstorm and an inch of snow a few days later. Our weather has been very unstable so we had to postpone our plans to observe our own newly planted apple tree and then drive up the road from our house where there are apple orchards by the acre.

We were finally able to do both parts of the study yesterday.

First our tree….this is the first year we are observing this tree. It had blossoms some time ago but now I am assuming these are the baby apples.

The leaves are a nice texture and we found quite a few bugs crawling on the branches. My husband used the garden hose to spray them off and today they were still not back.

This particular tree has had different kinds of apples grafted onto one trunk. Gravenstein, Fuji, Red Delicious, and a Rome.

It will be interesting to watch this tree mature.

Now for our drive to the apple orchard.

The sky was amazing with its white billowy clouds. My boys actually told me to stop and take a photo….as we stopped the car we realized that there was a field of sweet smelling lupine on the other side of the road.

What a delight and a surprise to see this sight right near-by our home.

The orchards are all green and no longer full of blossoms.

It seems as if you could walk down the rows and feel the apples growing on the trees. I love apples.

Typing up this entry and viewing these photos makes me think that spring really is here. I can see it in the photos. Hooray for spring!

Just another note: I have seriously been lacking in my posting on this blog this week because of the time I am devoting to writing the Summer Series of Outdoor Hour Challenges. There is just so much to research and to pull together so we will have a wonderful adventure this summer with the challenges. I am really looking forward to sharing my new ideas with you soon.

Posted on May 7, 2010 by Barb — Leave a comment

Spring Cattails to Study

This is our third season for studying our little patch of cattails. Actually, we are watching two different patches, one patch around the corner from our house and one on our regular walking trail. They both have sprung to life over the last few weeks.

Here is our winter entry: Winter Cattails.

The first spot….

This area is alongside the road and it has been easy to watch the cattails growth as we drive by a few times a week. We actually walked over to do our observations of the cattails so we could take our time and really look at them up close. Well, so much for getting up close. The grasses are about chest high and the ground is sloppy wet. The creek is running and everything is so green! We compared these photos with the ones we took in the winter and it is amazing how different the surroundings are for our little cattail patch.

Here I zoomed in with the camera a little so you can see the cattails but as far as getting close to examine them, no way. We will have to watch and see when the water levels go down and then make an update.

The second patch is green and ankle deep in water, so muddy that none of us wanted to wade over to investigate further. We did hear some red-winged blackbirds and some robins near-by as we stopped to observe the cattail’s leaves more closely.

There are quite a few growing and it seems like there are more now than when we started observing this patch in the autumn.

Here you can see the slippery mud alongside the walking trail. One thing we noticed this time is that there is a certain smell to this area, perhaps the mud has a particular odor but even just typing about it brings the scent back to mind. It is a peculiar smell and not unpleasant. Marshy growing things….if I had to pick a way to describe it.

We were treated to a reptile sighting on this walk. This sort of reptile does not bother me as much as the two rattlesnakes we saw on our walk last weekend. Rattlesnakes are a common snake in our area but I have rarely seen them out and about as we walk. Today though, this alligator lizard stopped scurrying along so I could take his photo.

Our journals are in the works but I wanted to get this entry up before this week’s challenge posts.

Have a great week!

Posted on April 25, 2010 by Barb — 7 Comments

Our Dandelion Morning

As part of the Spring Series of Outdoor Hour Challenges, we spent a sunny morning looking for the tallest dandelion in our yard. We have quite a few this year, partly because we have left our “wild side” wild and partly because it is just a good year for dandelions.

I gave my boys a ruler and a camera as we went out the door. I challenged them to find the tallest dandelion they could see in our backyard. They knew just where to look and as our dog followed them around, they measured and took photos. I wandered around the yard looking at all the growing things and the number of bees we have in our flowers.

They tried to convince me that the dog ate the biggest one. Our dog does love it when you blow the seeds and she will try to catch the seeds in her mouth as they fly around in the air. It is actually quite funny. She will also lay in the dandelions and eat the leaves.

So here is the verdict. They found one that measured just at twelve inches high.

They brought a few flowers in to look at and I took the opportunity to draw a few things in my nature journal. I noticed in the evening that the dandelions that were in the vase had all closed up tightly. This morning in the sunshine they were open again.

Another day this week we will go out early in the morning and observe to see if the flowers are closed up and if they open up later in the sunshine.

It was a fun study for all of us and it gave us a really good excuse to be outdoors on a school day.

Posted on April 21, 2010 by Barb — 11 Comments

Bird Songs: Our New Area of Interest

Photo by my son Mr. A of Cedar waxwings in our front yard.

This is our blog entry for the Spring Series of Outdoor Hour Challenge-Bird Study #3.

I have discovered that learning about birds comes in layers.

You start noticing the birds in your yard or neighborhood.
You discover that you indeed have birds in your yard and then develop a desire to know their name.
Start to notice the colors, beaks, sizes, etc so you can identify the bird using your field guide.
Find yourself reading the field guide just for fun.
Start noticing birds as you drive around town for your daily activities. Begin to see birds everywhere and wonder what their story is. The story becomes part of the fun of birding. Does this bird live in your neighborhood or is it a visitor? What does the bird eat? How does it makes its nest? How does it fit into the habitat of your neighborhood?
Now you want to take a few special day trips to places you might see new birds. You notice a pond and you look for water birds. You visit a park with a wooded area and you go on the hunt for some new birds, perhaps a woodpecker.
You pack a compact pair of binoculars in your purse just in case you might need them.
You get a second copy of the field guide to carry in the car.
Now you want to keep track of your birds, listing those you have seen and identified.
You dream of seeing certain birds you have only studied in the field guide. It is like a treasure hunt only with birds.

Now in our family, we are at the point where we can hear lots of unidentified birds and we want to know who they are. As we hike along, many times the birds are high up in the trees and they are well hidden from sight but we can hear them loud and clear.

This is where this challenge has really challenged our family.

We chose three birds to learn the calls for this week, keeping them in mind as we go outdoors. We picked the Red-tailed hawk, the American robin, and the Oak titmouse.

We decided that the hawk we hear many times each week is not the Red-tailed hawk but the Red-shouldered hawk. We are now going to take our good binoculars with us to see if we can get a good visual of the hawk the next time we see him soaring overhead. Now that we have armed ourselves with some good visual descriptions, we feel that we can tell the two hawks apart.

The boys surprised me when they said they didn’t know the song of the robin so they now know what to listen for in our yard. I hear the robin’s song early in the morning and I will point it out to them next time I hear it. The titmouse is one that I hear before I actually see him. His flight is so fast that it is easy to miss him but if we can listen for him in the trees, we will know he is there.

We have already picked out our next three birds to learn the songs for and it will fun as the weeks go by to increase our skill at identifying birds by their calls.

I purchased these two items last year and I have not used them as much as I would like to.

The IFlyer Wand and ScanBook: I saved up for this gadget and purchased it to help us identify birds by their calls. The wand reads the bar code of the bird in the book and it plays the bird call for you to listen to. You can also purchase stickers with the bar codes to put into your own bird field guide and scan those instead of the ScanBook that comes with the wand. This gadget isn’t as easy to use as I would like and I’m not sure at this point if it was worth the money. It is definitely fun to use but very expensive.

Someone told me that you can buy an app for your iPhone that does the same thing: iBird. They thought it was a great app but since I don’t have an iPhone, I haven’t checked it out personally.

Western Birding By Ear: This set of CDs helps you systematically work through bird calls. There are three CDs to listen to and a booklet to go along with the CDs. I think in the long run these CDs will be very beneficial and make the learning of bird calls much easier.

My boys have learned to use the iFlyer after going through this challenge. The CDs are now in our car and we will be listening to them as we do our weekly driving.

I look forward to hearing about your bird studies!

Posted on April 11, 2010 by Barb — 2 Comments

Our Spring Weather Observations

We had a chance to enjoy another perfect spring afternoon hiking on our favorite trail. We were amazed that in the last week so many wildflowers have burst out in bloom.

As part of the Spring Series of Outdoor Hour Challenges, we completed our Spring Weather Challenge. It was warm at 69 degrees (per our car thermometer). There were some breezes moving but not much.

Sunrise 6:34 AM
Sunset 7:35 PM
13 hours and 1 minute of daylight
Official high temperature: 68.8 degrees F
Official low temperature: 40.8 degrees F
Breezes coming from the South.

Our weather forecast is for rain the next two days and then back up into the 50’s the rest of the week.

The chamise is blooming all up and down the foothills right now and with its sweet fragrance it fills the spring sunshine. The clouds were whispy and moving very fast.

More cirrus clouds were to be found around the bend. My son has been studying the weather for his aviation course so he is teaching me lots of things about clouds and weather predicting.

This is a new flower to us and we came home to look it up in our field guide. We think it is Blue eyed grass.

Our state flower, the California poppy, is blooming all around town. This is on the hillside next to our walking trail.

Here is our winter weather entry if you want to compare our differences: Winter Weather.

Posted on April 7, 2010 by Barb — 4 Comments

Our Year-Long Tree Study: Spring Tulip Tree

We were able to get out and enjoy our spring temperatures this afternoon, completing a tree study of our Tulip tree as part of our on-going year-long tree study for the Outdoor Hour Challenge.

Our Observations

Leaves are showing on many of the branches but there is still lots of growing that needs to happen.
The seeds from last fall are still visible on many of the branches. Hard to believe it still has that many.
We did not see any insects or birds this afternoon but this tree is a favorite of our early morning robin, the Western scrub jays, and the white-breasted nuthatch. We see them in this tree daily now.
The leaves were all very small but we did compare a few and they are the same shape.
There are lots of changes in the leaves and colors since the fall and winter. The shape of the tree is different as well because all of our freak winter snow broke off many of the branches in this tree…a few ending up on the roof of our house.
We discovered that we will not be able to use the activity on page 626 to measure the height of our tree. The tree’s shadow lands squarely on the roof of our house in the morning. I am going to ask my husband if he can help us figure out how to accomplish the task.

We came back inside with one of the leaves and my son and I both sketched it into our nature journals.

His is very simple while I took a little more time and played with my watercolor pencils and my Prismacolor pens.

We found this interesting website on our tree: Yellow poplar or Tulip Tree. This tree is not native to California, but many choose it to grow as a shade tree. We like the shade as well as the leaf shape and the flowers later in the spring.

Here are our autumn and winter blog entries for this tree.

It is not too late to get outdoors and start observing a tree. You can even start this season and continue over the next year. The best way to observe your tree is to go outside and quietly sit and look at your tree. You may be surprised and see some visitors as you sit. I am anxious to see how your family’s tree has changed since the last time you reported in.

Posted on April 5, 2010 by Barb — 4 Comments

Our (Humble) Spring Maple Tree Study

So now that we know that one of the trees in our row of sweet gums trees is actually a maple, we have a subject for this week’s maple tree challenge.

We found some information about maples online:
Maple tree identification video from About.com
How to Tap a Maple Tree

We are holding off on the exact identification until it totally leafs out. We think it may be a silver maple which is not native to our area, but we know that we did purchase it from a nursery over a decade ago. The whole situation with this tree makes me wonder if I will ever know my own backyard.

It humbles me.

We always enjoy the tree no matter what its exact species is anyway and my husband reminded me of how much I enjoy this particular tree with its beautifully shaped limbs and its pretty leaves. It also gives us much needed shade on the back of our house when summer comes.

I already shared a photo of the helicopter seeds but here is another one for this study. We did learn from our research that these are officially called samaras.

My son and I went out and really truly looked at this tree one afternoon this past week. We observed a few new things. First of all, it is ready to leaf out and the sweet gums are still in buds. Next, the samaras are not on every branch. We have looked in our field guide and then online, finding no information about why that is so.

We remember now that the leaf buds on this tree are bright red and the sweet gums are light green. My son also reminded me that this tree has a time of year that it drops sap lightly on the rocks below it. The leaves and the rocks below get all sparkly with a sticky substance.

After discussing it as a family, we decided that all these years we just thought we had two different varieties of sweet gum trees. It never occurred to us that it could be a totally different tree.

Okay, so now the really humiliating part of the entry. My son studied this maple for a whole year thinking it was a sweet gum tree.
Spring Tree Study
Fall Tree Study
Winter Tree Study

This should make all of you feel better knowing that I am just like you. I am learning every week as our family slows down to study and learn about all we have living in our backyard. The other lesson that we learned over the last week is that we actually learn more when we are wrong about something. It takes real determination to research and compare in order to dig down to the bottom of a mystery. We now know more about maples and sweet gum trees than ever before. I am positive there is still a lot more to learn on this topic.

What is the saying? The more you know, the more you realize you don’t know. I think that is how it goes. It perfectly illustrates how I feel right now.

We have been trying to spend some time outdoors every day, but we are told to expect more snow tonight. It has been a crazy spring so far!

Tag: Family Outdoor Hour Challenge