Family Outdoor Hour Challenge Archives

Posted on May 25, 2009 by Barb — 3 Comments

Cascade Falls: Getting Away From the Crowds

This weekend we took an afternoon trip to hike up to a waterfall. If you read my post about nature study in ripples, we were rippling out about an hour’s drive from our house and then hiking up one mile into the Desolation Wilderness.

The challenge on this afternoon was to find a place to park. We actually had planned on hiking to a different waterfall a few miles down the road but there were no parking places. Not only were there no spaces left, but all available space alongside the narrow highway was filled. We were disappointed but determined. I love the age of cell phones. We found a place where we had cell coverage and phoned Amanda. She had opted to stay home on this particular afternoon and she was happy to look up an alternate hike for us in the area. She picked a good one and we were able to find a space at the trailhead of this hike after waiting a few minutes for someone to leave.

Here we are hiking down the trail. We were so surprised after seeing all the cars at the parking area that we did not see but a handful of people on the trail with us. Sigh, fresh air and space.

This was our goal, a series of cascading waterfalls. This part of the trail is along a steep ridge with very uneven rocks to hike up. You do not want to lose your concentration on this part of the trail.

The thing about hiking in the high country over big slabs of granite is that sometimes you have to be very observant in order to know which way to go. Someone was very helpful and left this line of rocks that pointed the way to the next section of the trail. We could hear the waterfall by this point so we knew the general direction but it was nice to have confirmation.

Success! Here we are at the top of the waterfall. Springtime is such a great time for waterfalls. My hubby and I sat on a log and just soaked in the sounds and the sights while all three of our sons scrambled and hopped and climbed up over the boulders and up the waterfall.

This photo was accompanied by me hollering a stream of warnings.

“Don’t fall in the water.”
“You don’t have extra shoes.”
“Rocks are slippery when they are wet.”
My personal favorite, “If you fall in, I’m not coming in after you.”

Someone always has to go higher than someone else. No names mentioned.

Something that happens in the high country at this time of year are afternoon thundershowers. We had checked the weather before leaving for the hike and it had warned of possible thunderstorms moving in late in the afternoon. We kept our eye on the horizon as we hiked and the clouds did build up a little at one point but no storm on this afternoon.

The lichen on the rocks was so beautiful. The color really stands out on the granite.

This is a really bad photo (taken into the sun) of my boys climbing up a dead tree. This area looks as if it received quite few lightning strikes in the past because of all the single burned trees. It is very exposed and on the east side of the mountain and I really would not want to be up here during a storm. The boys enjoyed the view from up their tree and wanted me to take a photo of them.

At this elevation and at this time of year, there are not too many wildflowers. We did see this one growing in the cracks of the granite in a few places. The splash of green with the white and yellow flowers amidst all the grayness was a delight.

Here is one of the trail markers. For some reason we didn’t find this one very helpful, although we knew we had not strayed too far off the trail.

We had a great afternoon and were home in time to grill some burgers. I will confess that I was not in the mood to hike on this afternoon and wanted to stay home but the boys wanted to “do something”. I know they are just wanting to get out when they suggest a hike because they know that I rarely turn down an opportunity to hit the trail.

Thanks boys for encouraging me to get outside and experiencing this amazing spot so close to home.

Posted on May 19, 2009 by Barb — Leave a comment

Black Birds: Our Family Outdoor Hour Challenge

We have had our eyes out for black birds of all kinds. We have a short list of black birds that we observed for this week’s bird challenge:
American crow
Red-winged blackbirds
Turkey vultures
Brewer’s blackbirds
Ravens

The most abundant black bird we observed for this challenge was the Brewer’s blackbird.

Our field guide says that it has a “distinctive yellow eye”. It is very easy to identify.

blackbird

Here is a short video of a red-winged blackbird eating some sort of seeds washed up alongside the river. You do hear him at the end of the video.

We all decided that the turkey vulture, although it is as ugly as can be, is the best flier of the bunch. They soar and soar and soar on a good day. We often see groups of six or eight turkey vultures all gliding and soaring over our house.

Crows and ravens are the noisiest bunch of the black birds we observed. You always hear them coming before you see them. My son observed that they are also the most obviously useful birds of the bunch. When we were at Yosemite last week we saw a pair of ravens cleaning up a dead squirrel off the road….gross but useful.

Our favorite black bird we learned about this week was certainly the red-winged blackbird. We had the opportunity to see quite a few and it has quickly become a favorite bird because of its flash of red as it flies. Now that we can identify its call, we hear him more often as we hike in different areas.

We realized during our hiking adventures last week that birdsong usually fills the air as we go along. If you stop and listen, you will usually hear some sort of bird singing you a tune. We had an especially happy bird on this day.

We made a joint journal entry later back at Curry Village. Someone forget to bring the boys’ nature journals…oops. I started the entry with the Steller’s jay and Mr. B sketched the ground squirrel after that. I was trying my best to notice with each bird the color and shape of their eye. The Steller’s jay has a very black eye and beak.

So that was our black birds challenge this week. We will continue to look for starlings since they do come to our yard on occasion.

Great bird week for our family.

Posted on May 6, 2009 by Barb — 3 Comments

North and South Forks of the River

One of our Spring Break days was filled with a delightful hike in the river canyon. The weather could not have been better for this trip. You can see at the top of the photo the really tall bridge that they built when they thought they were going to dam this area and fill the whole canyon with water. This area would have been flooded with water and this beautiful stretch of the river would have been gone forever. I know there are reasons for dams but for now, I am really glad that they haven’t built it so we all can enjoy this natural beauty.

The boys opted to ride bikes this day and my hubby and I walked. I am just now feeling confident to give the boys the freedom to take off on their own. I know we live in a different world than I grew up in, and it seems sad that I have to think twice about allowing them to have an adventure on their without worrying that something bad might happen. It feels better to allow a little more freedom gradually and build up my confidence and trust that they will make good decisions.

This particular hike along the confluence and then the North Fork of the American River starts off fairly level. It is then what we like to refer to the up, down, up, down kind of trail.

You hike up out of the canyon to the top of a small dam that holds back water to form a lake. You actually hike above the dam and then you hike back down again. This means when you turn around to go back you repeat the up, down, up, down process over again in reverse.

Here the trail comes out of the woods and out into the open at the spillway. If you look closely, you will see a rainbow above the mist.

This shows the lake behind the dam. This lake is a beautiful lake that we have spent quite a bit of time boating on as well as camping up at the upper end. You have to boat in all your stuff since there is no road access. It is quiet and peaceful and in the summertime the water is cool and clear. The boys made it up to the lake quite a bit faster than we did since they were on bikes. They spent some time exploring the boat ramp and the little marina.

They got tired of waiting at one point and here is where we met them on the road to the dam. We met only one other couple hiking and one other bike rider so we felt like we had the trail to ourselves which is nice.

The hike back down from the lake was very enjoyable and the trail meanders along the side of the river. The wildflowers were blooming in masses and we would take a break every now and then to just enjoy the experience quietly.

The sound of the river was pleasant and we heard lots of birds as well.

You might not believe me but we live about 30 minutes from this place and we have never hiked here before. I am always amazed that we have missed out on so many beautiful places just because I am too lazy to research new areas to hike.

I found a book that includes local hikes of all types and I am determined to find new and interesting places to try more frequently.

Here is a place we took a picnic lunch to this past Monday. We had rain all weekend but when the rain stopped late Monday morning, I prepared some sandwiches and drinks and loaded the car. It is the first time we hiked down to the river here although we drive by many times a week. We never knew there was a trail alongside the river, but now that we know about it, we will be here frequently to enjoy the water.

We took a short hike and found a great place on the shore that had rocks perfect for sitting on and watching the water flow by. This is a shot from my rock as I enjoyed my sandwich.

The river was really high and normally you can walk out to these rocks but not today. 🙂

This is a prime place for kayakers and in the summertime they boat this stretch of the river en masse.

If anyone is interested, this is the South Fork of the American River. The hike at the beginning of the post is the North Fork. Both hikes are on the same river but above where they meet at Folsom Lake.

I think I have one more hike to catch up on from our Spring Break romps but then I will have a treat for you next week…..Yosemite again. Can you hardly wait?

Posted on May 6, 2009 by Barb — 3 Comments

Wednesday Flower Study #7: Mullein

Mullein-Handbook of Nature Study page 537-539

“This felt on the mullein is beautiful when looked at through the microscope; it consists of a fretwork of little, white, sharp spikes…..I soon discovered another means by which the mullein resists drought, when I tried to dig up the plant with a stick; I followed its taproot down far enough to understand that it was a subsoiler and reached below most other plants for moisture and food.”
HNS, page 537

This is the first time I have left the mullein in the flower bed. I am curious to see just how large it will get and I am anxious for the boys to study the flower stalk once it starts to blossom.

I think I am beginning to see the value of learning about a plant *before* it blooms so we will be vigilantly watching its progress. We read through the information in the Handbook of Nature Study. We had already experienced the long tap root when we were pulling it out of the pathway a few days ago. I would say that the root was about two feet long and at the top it looked like the shape of a carrot. The plants we left in the bed are growing like crazy!

That was our flower this week, now you can pick your flower and see if you can be prepared for your next flower study. 🙂 We have three more flowers we want to study before we finish with Wednesday Flower Study day. You can join us any time you want to, with any flower you want to. You do not need to study the same flower we are if you don’t want to.

Posted on May 1, 2009 by Barb — 6 Comments

Hummingbird Study: Our Outdoor Hour Challenge

This week we were on the lookout for hummingbirds as part of the Outdoor Hour Challenge: Hummingbirds nature study. We haven’t had too many hummingbirds yet in our feeders, a few here and there that we have noticed. Summertime is hummingbird time in our backyard and we have several hummingbirds that perch on the tree behind our picnic table and in the evenings we see them sitting there watching us eat our dinner. There isn’t much information in the Handbook of Nature Study on hummingbirds but it is enough to answer a few of our questions.

The hummingbirds we have in our yard are Anna’s Hummingbirds and they are very pretty. They are green and pink and very fast flyers. They will soar way up high in the air and then suddenly swoop down.

The Handbook of Nature Study says, “Hummingbirds are not supposed to sing, but to use their voices for squeaking when angry or frightened.” We often hear the male Anna’s Hummingbird before we see him. He will fly up high in the air and then swoop down and make a chirping sound. They also make a sound as they sit on the branches of the tree…cuing us to look for his distinctive silhouette.

We found this video and now we are anxious to observe our hummingbirds to see if we think it is their tail that chirps.

There is always something new to learn.

I am fascinated with hummingbirds and our last trip to the desert was memorable because we visited a hummingbird aviary at the museum. I posted then about the hummingbirds.

Isn’t he gorgeous?

This one was not shy at all and we spent a long time watching him fly and sip.

Here is a hummingbird nest that we collected a number of years ago. I am in awe whenever I look at the way it is constructed.

Can you imagine how small the eggs are inside this miniature sized nest? Amazing stuff.

One last thing to share from this week’s Outdoor Hour time with the boys. We came across a very bold Spotted Towhee that let me come up fairly close and take a video of him singing his song. Enjoy.

Hope you enjoyed reading about our Outdoor Hour this week and our continued study of hummingbirds as well as any other bird that crosses our path.

Posted on April 23, 2009 by Barb — 10 Comments

Spring Wildflowers #9: Catch-Up Post

I have been feeling sort of guilty about all the wildflower posts on this blog but after much deliberation, I came to the conclusion that recording things that are important to me is at the heart of why I keep a blog. My goal this spring has been to observe as many of the local wildflowers as I can and try to keep a record of when they started blooming and then identify them as I can with my field guide. This blog is part of my nature journal…a digital version of my paper journal.

In addition to recording my wildflowers on the blog, I have tried to keep current with our Wednesday Flower Study posts and the Outdoor Hour bird challenges. I slipped in a post about our great natural bridge hike last week and I have a backlog of posts to make about our other hikes.

Even though every post doesn’t exactly reference the Handbook of Nature Study, I still feel like I am staying “on topic” and helping to encourage other families to get outdoors and explore their own neighborhood. With the exception of the first photo of me taking photos of flowers, all the other photos are within a 25 minute driving distance from my house.

“It may not be practical for every family, but when mothers understand the good that a measure can do, they will often work miracles to provide it. A twenty minute trip with a picnic lunch can make a day in the country accessible to almost anyone, but why do it just one day? Why not do it lots of days? Or even every nice day?”
Charlotte Mason in Modern English, volume one, page 44

So here are April 14th’s flowers from our regular hiking trail.

Sweet fennel

I have decided that yellow sunflower shaped flowers are really hard to identify. I need to start carrying my book with me on hikes and not relying on my photos to help make an identification.

This is something rather beautiful and we only have seen it one place in all our travels. I can’t find a identification for it but it sort of looks like Purple fritillary…not quite sure.

We think this is a Woodland star.

April 15th’s flowers from Cronan Ranch and the American River Confluence
(These are both new hikes to our family and we ended up going back to both places over the next few days to explore some more.)

Lupine. This is the year of lupine in our area. It is glorious and abundant everywhere you go. In a lot of places it is a mix of lupine and poppies and the blue and gold combination is stunning.

White fairy lanterns

Mustard

Purple dead nettle

April 16th at Cronan Ranch again…

Lupines…right alongside the river. Yellow bush lupine and blue pod lupine.

Baby blue eyes

Back to the American River Confluence on 4/17/09

The plant and flower look like Miner’s lettuce but I have never seen the heart shaped buds before. Anyone know what this is?

We think these are Ground iris. We saw quite a few of them along the slope on the river side of the trail.

I think that is all of the outstanding new wildflowers that we observed and enjoyed over the last week’s hikes. I have a few more to share but I will post about those when I write about each individual hike.

I have developed a huge case of spring allergies. I have not been out for my usual walk in three days and I am getting antsy to break out and enjoy the spring. I am hoping that my allergy medicine kicks in soon and I can get out and explore some more of our local area.

Posted on April 22, 2009 by Barb — 7 Comments

Wednesday Flower Study #5-Pink Petunias

Confession: My petunias are from the garden nursery. I don’t really much like petunias but they are a happy spring flower that has brightened up our front and back decks with their cheerful blooms. My eldest son helped me pick the color and I am surprised that he picked pink because he usually picks much richer primary colors in flowers.

I don’t blog much about my oldest son because he is a very busy twenty-one year old young man who has a full-time job as a computer programmer and goes to college in the evenings. When he isn’t working or at school, he is sequestered away working on complicated homework or his various artistic ventures. Usually on the weekends, he spends his Sundays with us and for our family that means worshiping together and then spending some family time at home in the yard or outside hiking or walking the dog. My oldest is always up for a little time on the trail. He lives and works in a very technological world but he is still connected to the outdoors and feels the need to be refreshed by the sky, trees, and birds. We have some of our best talks as we share our outdoor time.

Anyway, back to our weekly flower study.

As always, we found something interesting in the Handbook of Nature Study about our subject. The story of our modern petunias is interesting and we talked about colors of petunias that we have seen in our area. We also learned that petunias are in the nightshade family. The petunia gives off its perfume at nightfall, perhaps to attract the hummingbird moths to feast on its nectar.

“With their long feeding tubes the hummingbird moths have little difficulty in securing the nectar, but bees also will work industriously in the petunias. They will scramble into the blossoms and, apparently complaining with high-pitched buzzing because of the tight fit, rifle the nectar-wells, that seem to be better adapted to insects of quite different build.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 583

The lesson suggests that each child have their own flower for observation and that they have access to a petunia bed to observe the habits of the plant. We will be adding a few more petunias to our flower garden so we can observe all the interesting tidbits contained in the Handbook of Nature Study.

There are lots of suggestions for sketches in this lesson. We will be adding to our journals as the spring and summer go by. I found a coloring page for petunias if you would like one for your nature journal.

So now it is your turn to pick a garden flower and pull out the Handbook of Nature Study and see what you can learn this week. We will be moving on to buttercups this week. We have been observing them on our hikes for a few weeks now and it is high time that we take a few minutes to really study them. You can pick any flower you have in your yard or that you have access to and can observe up close. Even if you don’t do a formal study…take a few minutes this week to share a flower with your child. After all, it is spring now!

https://naturestudyhomeschool.com/2009/07/new-outdoor-hour-challenge-ebook-garden_27.html

Posted on April 17, 2009 by Barb — 6 Comments

Spring Wildflowers-Part 8 Natural Bridge

We had the opportunity to take a drive to a new hiking spot. We live in a pretty special area of California and we can drive an hour or so and find the best adventures. We live in what people affectionately call Gold Country……our house is about 8 miles from where they discovered gold in California and the Gold Rush began.

This time though, we headed about fifty miles south of our house to a place in Calaveras County where there is a natural rock bridge over the river. This well-kept secret location was shared with me by a fellow homeschooler. I tried to Google it and came up with very vague directions but we were determined to try to find this spot.

During that Google search, I found this wonderful account of the place from 1862, complete with illustrations.
Scenes of Wonder and Curiosity in California

Back to the wildflowers…..

We finally found the parking area for the trail and we filled the backpack up with water and a few snacks. Immediately I knew this was going to be a great wildflower hike because the first stretch bordered a little meadow with this view. Purple/blue flowers are Harvest brodiaea. (click to see the flowers better)

Here is the trail as it cuts across a fairly steep section of the hillside. The trail is the dirt path on the top right of the photo. Do you see my boys on the trail? They left us in the dust in a hurry to see the destination. We could hear the river rushing down below but instead of hurrying, my husband and I took our time and also a few photographs. Well, maybe a lot of photos!

It was a fairly easy three quarters of a mile hike down the hillside to the water and along the way it wound through buckeye, red bud, and oaks. On each sunny hillside, we found an abundance of wildflowers. Breathtaking beauty like this doesn’t come along everyday and we found ourselves marveling at the vivid colors of the flowers. It is at times like these that you feel impelled to stop and say a little prayer of thanks to our loving Creator….what a garden he has made for us to enjoy.

Purple Chinese Houses

Poppies and Goldfields

Once down to the bottom of the ravine, we found what we had come to see….the natural bridge which looked more like a cave or a tunnel.

The boys decided to wade out into the middle of the mouth of the tunnel and see if they could see the light at the other end. The water was really cold and they moved rather quickly through the shallow water.

It is nearly impossible to give you a really good idea of what the natural bridge is like but this photo shows you a little of the stalactite formations on the ceiling of the bridge. There was water raining down inside and in one area it looked like a cascading waterfall inside.

Here is a close-up of the ceiling showing the stalactite formations. All those lessons in geology paid off and we had some great conversation about how we think this bridge was formed. We talked about limestone and calcium carbonate and springs. We talked about erosion and ground water and water tables. We talked about the difference between stalactites and stalagmites.

We made plans to come back this summer with a headlamp and perhaps a little inflatable raft.

My husband and I had a very relaxing time at the river and the boys had fun exploring the limestone/marble pools and trying to jump across the watery stretches. They were already wet from wading in the tunnel so a little more water fun was okay by me.

Here is another pretty flower we found as we hiked back up the trail. I don’t know what it is called yet but I am going to keep on working on identifying it.

Here is one that was blooming along one whole section of the trail. Mustang clover.

Isn’t this the best photo? I love how it shows the shape of the plant growing. I am pretty sure this is Caterpillar scorpionweed….what a name!

This is a white variety of lupine growing at the parking spot.

Okay….this one makes me laugh. It is called Pineapple weed. The description says that this plant is not a native plant to California but I see it just about everywhere right now.

I know….how many wildflowers can I cram into this one post? Believe me, there are plenty more but they will have to wait for another time.

I hope you enjoyed viewing some glimpses into our day. I started this post on Monday….we have had some new adventures since this one and I can’t wait to share those too.

Posted on April 16, 2009 by Barb — 1 Comment

Birds Everywhere: Family Outdoor Hour Challenge

We have been trying to observe birds and their wing shapes and tail shapes over the last few days. The weather has been sunny and cool so the hiking has been fantastic.

We watched two turkey vultures soaring right over our head yesterday…we say their wingtips and the way their feathers spread out as they glide on the wind.

We had the chance to see this pair of barn swallows at the flower farm and even though you can’t see it very well in the photos, their tails are very unique.

As we are working through these challenges, our family is starting to be able to notice more quickly the shapes and sizes of birds and I am sure it is because we are paying closer attention and we now have more vocabulary to express what we are seeing.

We also had a chance to observe some red-winged blackbirdsand to see their beautiful colors as they flew near us. This one has his back to the camera but you can see his pretty red spots.

Yesterday we had a chance to observe goldfinches in a thistle feeder. They are such pretty birds.

“Goldfinches are seen at their best in late summer or September, when they appear in flocks wherever the thistle seeds are found in abundance.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 57

We had quite a few goldfinches in our garden last fall because we left our huge sunflower plants intact until just about all the seeds had been eaten. It amazed us that they could land on the head of a sunflower and it wouldn’t even bend over in the least. They must be light birds. They also are fun to watch when they hang upside down in the feeders.

This was a finch at the Living Desert Museum in Palm Springs, CA from February.

My son pointed out the beautiful clouds overhead as we wandered around the local flower farm. There is a vineyard next the the farm and it was a perfect picture looking out in the distance.

Here is the pretty sky over the vineyard and it made the lilacs ever so purple….sigh.

Another pretty sky photo from our week….this time you can see that this big oak has not put on its leaves for the season yet.

We also had a chance to observe some crab apple blossoms. These must be drawn in the nature journal!

So even though we didn’t see many goldfinches or a single meadowlark, we were happy to see some birds to check out their wing and tail shapes. The barn swallow was also a new bird for us so that was exciting too.

We have done the reading up on yellow birds so the next time we are out and the opportunity arises, we will be ready for the challenge.

Posted on April 7, 2009 by Barb — 4 Comments

Western Scrub Jays and Steller’s Jay: Our Outdoor Hour Study

For the most part these are pesky birds, chasing other little birds out of our feeders. They also are very noisy and their voice is more like a squawk than a song. 🙂

We often put out peanuts on our deck railing for them in the winter and they rally around and gather them up and store them in little holes in the garden. They do the same thing with walnuts and acorns so often times we find little walnut trees and oaks growing in our potted plants and in our flower beds.

They can be carnivorous as well. We had a dead skink in our backyard last year that we were observing and before we knew it, a scrub-jay swooped down and flew away with it. We saw him sitting on top of our neighbors roof pecking away at its snack. (I referenced the link to the entry that tells that story below.)

Last spring we had a nest of baby scrub-jays that we could observe from a bedroom window. We watched the babies as they hatched and then as they started to stick up their open beaks for mama and daddy to put something into it to eat. They were quite helpless. Here is an entry with a couple of photos: Scrub-jay nest. My son was able to get the above close-up of the baby Scrub-jay as it perched in the bushes in our front yard. Click the photo to get a good look at the baby feathers on his belly.

We have watched mama Scrub-jay teach her baby to fly in our front yard. It was painful to watch but the baby did eventually fly away after much coaxing from mama and papa. Here is the baby when it was learning to fly. It could sort of flap from the tree to the bush but then it was afraid to go anywhere else. The mama would fly back and forth in an attempt to demonstrate how to fly.

Look at that beak! We know why he has such a big pointy beak….he uses it to eat and peck and dig.

Here is a scrub-jay in the Mojave dessert. We were having a picnic and he flew down and grabbed my son’s sandwich roll and then he flew away with it….he stopped here and was pecking at the bread.

We also live where there are Steller’s jays and they are much more majestic in appearance than the scrub-jays. They have a crest on their heads and are a deeper, richer blue overall. They too are little pests. You can not have a picnic without one trying to grab something from your plate. They can be quite aggressive. They are very common in Yosemite National Park and you know the minute you open your picnic basket that they will come flying it to check out your selection.

Here is a video I shared before of a white-headed woodpecker in the forest. That is interesting enough but for this entry you might want to watch and see at about 1:00 the Steller’s jay that joins our picnic. I had put a couple of Cheez-its on the ground for him and he perches in the tree and cocks his head to look at us. Listen to the sound of his wings as he flies down to the ground to pick up the cracker. This is typical Steller’s jay behavior at a picnic. Bold and brave.

We do have Western bluebirds in our yard occasionally but not enough to really good a good look at them. We have observed their nesting and protecting behavior one time when we were out on a country road and there were some nesting boxes along the fence. It was spectacular to observe and their colors were brilliantly blue.

Scrub-jays are some of our favorite bird nature study subjects…..

Tag: Family Outdoor Hour Challenge