Red Shack Trail Archives

Posted on June 3, 2010 by Barb — 3 Comments

Quick Thoughts from our World

The ebooks are finished. Our school year is officially over. Summer has begun.

Harvesting oregano and making some bundles to dry was first on the list. We also picked another quart of strawberries, a few peas, a couple of stray carrots, and the last of the spinach.

We planted zinnias, cosmos, Shasta daisies, Ireland Bells, more cilantro, moonflowers, and lots of seedlings. We were able to get all our seedlings into the ground: pumpkin, acorn squash, zucchini, tomatoes, a variety of peppers, dill, and a variety of sunflowers. It makes me tired just thinking about all that we planted. Now the weather needs to stay warm and I need to keep my eyes on all my babies. My husband and boys were such a great help this week in the garden.

Weeding and pruning the butterfly garden was next on the list.

Here is another photo. If you click over to Flickr for either of these photos, I have made notes telling you what we have planted there.

One last angle of the butterfly garden.

Checking the garden beds and seeing what is growing is always a fun task this time of year. We have a few big mulleins growing along the fence.

Our baby Western scrub jay is flying now and he regularly sits outside our window waiting for his mother.

Moving from our garden now to our other adventures.

Several long hikes this past week…one hike where we saw the snake and some that were not so exciting. Here is the predominant wildflower on our hiking trail right now, Purple Chinese Houses.

We also went on a long bike ride and the boys had a blast.

My oldest son and I shared some photo moments at the lake when we stopped for a break.

Sand angels and Canadian geese….sounds good to me, except for the sand in the shoes.

I had to stop my bike and take a photo of this phlox alongside the trail. It was just too pretty to pass by.

So I think that catches me up for the last week or so in our world. I love this time of year. We have two Outdoor Hour Challenges to finish up but they will be posted soon. I have emailed out all the orders for ebooks that I have received so if you ordered and did not receive your files, please email me and let me know. I am really looking forward to starting the summer series of challenges with our family.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Posted on May 17, 2010 by Barb — 5 Comments

More Bees than Usual?

Has anyone else noticed that there are a lot of bees this year? It seems to me that our garden is just alive with bees and perhaps we have added enough flowering plants to attract more bees or there really are more bees like I am imagining.

In our hiking around the countryside, I have noticed more wildflowers this year as well. The clover is everywhere and perhaps with the abundance of flowers, there is a relationship with the number of bees.

Always more questions to answer….

Posted on May 11, 2010 by Barb — 4 Comments

Hike to the River: Spring Wildflowers

Friday we took a long afternoon hike to the river near our house. This is our usual trail but we went the entire distance to see how high the river is with some of the spring runoff from the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The wildflowers are amazing right now…here are a few favorites.

This was really the star of the wildflowers on this particular hike, mustang clover. This flower is blanketing the hillsides. What a show!

Here is a photo of it along the trail.

The other wildflower making its glorious appearance is the California poppy.

We made it to the bottom of the river canyon and realized our beach is completely covered in water right now. We had to be content to sit on the rocks and watch the water rush by.

On the way back up, we stopped for a break in the shade. The insects were buzzing and we even saw our first mosquitoes of the season.

Here is a new to me wildflower on this trail, purple monkeyflower. There was a patch growing right along the trail on a moist bank.

I also saw for the very first time on this trail some pearly everlasting.

Two new wildflowers to add to our running list for this trail.

Hope you enjoyed seeing our outing. We definitely had a wonderful time on this spring afternoon.

Posted on April 27, 2010 by Barb — 5 Comments

Evening Walk

Last Friday, it was a perfect evening for a hike. We took advantage of the longer daylight hours and the warm spring air to hike our familiar trail.

We spotted some Purple Chinese houses right off the bat as we began our way down the canyon.

I had my eye out for some Fairy lanterns and I found many that were just getting ready to bloom. I spotted this one blooming along a side path.

The Golden brodiaea is blooming right now too!

My son spotted a few Larkspurs just starting to bloom.

Also there were some California poppies.

We found another big cluster of Mule’s ears blooming in our meadow.

Now wasn’t that worth the effort to get out and take a walk after dinner???

If you would like to see some photos from our Arizona desert trip, pop over to my other blog and you can view them in the Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival entry!

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 March 17, 2010 by Barb — 2 Comments

Spring Walk: Wildflowers, Ferns, Holes, and Pines

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.

Posted on March 7, 2010 by Barb — 2 Comments

Early Spring Wildflowers Part 2: Little Flowers

Yesterday we noticed many little wildflowers starting to bloom as we hiked. Treasures around every corner. Treasures better captured with my camera and not to be picked.

Wildflowers are a feast to our eyes and I appreciate that if we leave them in their natural place that others will be able to enjoy them as well. Most wildflowers do not last very long as picked flowers anyway. Last year I saw a young family picking oodles of poppies along the trail. I don’t think they realized that poppies once picked don’t last very long, especially if you are picking them and dumping them into little buckets for your kids to carry. We occasionally pick a single wildflower to press and preserve in our nature journals. We pick only if there is an abundance and we do not take the whole plant. Rarely do I pick any wildflowers unless they are on our own property or my dad’s property, never at a National Park.

“Some flowers are so abundant that they can be picked in moderation if the roots are not disturbed, if plenty of flowers are left for seed, and if the plant itself is not taken with the flower.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 460

I think this is still good advice today.

We are just beginning to see the fennel blooming along the edges in the sunny patches.

Same with the Fiddlenecks…they are just popping open with their bright orange-yellow in the sunny spots.

I think this was the Miner’s Lettuce blooming…I have to go back and check.

I never did identify this one last year. I am going to take my field guide with me on my next hike and see if I can figure it out this season. It is very small and it blankets the edges of the trail in the shady sections. I seem to remember that we thought it might be Spring Beauty.

Today we were going to hike in another county, but it had to be postponed. My hubby wants to work in the garden anyway and plant a few of the early spring veggies.

One last photo from the other day when the clouds and sky were so very beautiful.

Enjoy your day!

Posted on March 2, 2010 by Barb — 3 Comments

Early Spring Wildflowers Part 1

Last year we had a great time keeping track of all our early spring wildflowers. It became a sort of treasure hunt for our family as we hiked every week. Although none of us felt much like getting outdoors for a walk yesterday, except for perhaps our dog, we kicked ourselves out the door and were rewarded with some beautiful wildflowers to look at as we hiked.

The manzanita is blooming now and technically it is a flowering bush…I still think the buds are very pretty and this one with the bright red bud caught my eye.

The Miner’s lettuce is starting to bloom as well.

There is a special spot in the canyon that we can hike to that has a slope where as the seasons progress it has different wildflowers. Right now it is starting to bloom with this Popcorn flower.

The saxifrage is starting to bloom now and it is interesting with its red stems.

How about this Houndstongue? Wow! It is so very pretty. Just like it shows in the photo, some of the blooms are almost blue and some are purple.

Okay, so this one isn’t a photo of a wildflower but he was hopping all over the meadow where we were taking photos. He was a very spirited grasshopper….let’s just say I took about ten photos trying to get him inside the frame. 🙂

We were very glad that we got out and took a hike yesterday. The sun was warm and the flowers cheered us all up. I hope they cheer you up as well.

Posted on February 8, 2010 by Barb — 3 Comments

The Beginnings of a Robin Study

“Most of us think we know the robin well, but very few of us know definitely the habits of this, our commonest bird. The object of this lesson is to form in the pupils a habit of careful observation, and to enable them to read for themselves the interesting story of this little life which is lived every year before their eyes. Moreover, a robin notebook, if well kept, is a treasure for any child; and the close observation necessary for this lesson trains the pupils to note in a comprehending way the habits of other birds. It is the very best preparation for bird study of the right sort.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 57

What started off as a hike after the rain had stopped, quickly turned into an exciting weekend of robin watching. Heading down our regular hiking trail, we immediately saw a sight that made us stop in our tracks. Up over our heads in huge groups were groups of birds flying, some stopping to perch in the tall pines above us. Some of the birds were just flying very fast all in one direction. I did not have my binoculars on this afternoon so we had to use the camera to see at first what kind of birds they were. Robins! Flocks and flocks of robins!

We were amazed at the numbers of robins and I tried to capture a few photos, but I had my little camera that does not have an adequate zoom. The photo above is the only photo that you see the robins.

None of us had experienced this large of a flock of robins before. We realized exactly what is in the quote above from the Handbook of Nature Study. How could we have never noticed the robins migrating/flocking before? Where are they coming from? Where are they going? We had so many questions in our minds as we finished our hike.

This experience was repeated several times over the course of our weekend. We even had them flocking and flying overhead yesterday morning at our house. The neighborhood was alive with robins.

This is how our robin study started this weekend. We are going to use the suggestions for progressive robin study in the Handbook of Nature Study and spend some time this spring learning about this common neighborhood bird. You can read the lessons starting on page 61.

“For third or higher grades the pupils may have individual notebooks in which each one may write his own answers to the questions of the successive series……The cover or first page should show the picture of the robin colored by the pupil, and may contain other illustrative drawings, and any poems or other literature pertinent to the subject.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 61

The Handbook of Nature Study contains lessons that follow the spring habits of the robin and it will take us a few months to finish our study.

We found the following links helpful:
Winter Robins
What Happens to All the Robins?
Making Sense of Robin Migration This article has some interesting information stating that the robins only start singing when they have reached their territory. Many of the robins we observed over the weekend were singing…so I guess they are home. More info HERE.
Robin Migration Journal Pages I can’t believe what you can find on the internet with very little effort. I was reading this website and realized they have a journal you can print out and use to keep track of the robin migration for this year. Awesome! They also have more generic notebook pages to go with any study HERE.

I will keep you posted on the progfess of our robin study. Don’t forget that this coming weekend is the Great Backyard Bird Count. Even if you can only devote 15-20 minutes of bird watching in your neighborhood this coming weekend, you can participate in this important birding event. You do not need to be an expert in bird identification either. Report the birds you do know!

I will share our bird tallies as we make our observations.

Posted on October 15, 2009 by Barb — 2 Comments

Autumn Afternoon Walk-Surprising Discovery

Just another beautiful oak day with a beautiful sky.

Here we go down the trail. The rain stopped a few hours earlier and we decided to take advantage of the break in the storm to hike down the hill and see what we could see. Little did we know that right after I took this photo we would see something that would make us stop dead in our tracks.

There in the middle of the trail were scattered deer bones and one of the hooves.

A little further down the trail was the biggest pile of bear scat I have ever seen. Yikes. (No photos of that I promise.)

We have been hiking this trail for a very long time and we have never seen either of these things before.

We did a quick consultation and decided to finish our hike down the hill but on the return back up the hill, going past the pile of bones, I started to get a little nervous. I was sort of glad to get back to where we had parked the car…if you know what I mean.

I am not usually spooked by this sort of stuff but it was a big pile of bones and a huge pile of scat. It looked fairly fresh but maybe it was because of the recent rain….or not.

We might hike somewhere else for awhile.

Tag: Red Shack Trail