Nature Study as We Go About Our Everyday Life

This week we had some new and interesting things come our way for nature study. We seem to find things. We saw this field of wildflowers along the bike trail in our local area. The field was so pretty in the early morning light and I couldn't resist taking a few photos.


Common Madia


I even got a photo with a bee in it as part of our insect study this week.

My son found this moth in the bathroom and called me in to get a photo of the "pretty moth" on the wall. Cool.

We visited the pond this week and we brought home some water, plants, and some fish. This snail came along for the ride.

This is something else new for me...not sure what it is. The fruit looks sort of like a cherry. Isn't it frustrating when you just don't know what you want to know? I will try to figure it out and come back and edit. This was in the parking lot where I was waiting for the boys.
Edit: Thanks everyone....rose hips! The bush is so big and I didn't realize it was a rose but I am sure that everyone is right....rose hips. Thanks again.


The cutest thing we saw this week was a squirrel eating walnuts from our tree. He had such a long bushy tail and he didn't mind that we watched him as he nibbled. There are plenty of nuts for everyone. My son discovered the squirrel while he was in the backyard working on a project.

We had a lot of incidental nature study this week. I love that when it happens.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Crane Flat Meadow: Yosemite National Park

Just another example of a simple nature journal for you to see. This is one with doodling...sometimes you just need to doodle in your nature journal and see what happens.



Remember to have fun when you journal. You can make it as simple or as fancy as you wish. No wrong answers.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Yosemite Insects...Just a Few to Share.

Here is my entry sharing a few of the insect photos we took while we were at Yosemite National Park a few weeks ago. There is an amazing amount of insects to observe in the various habitats that we visited. This bee is on a coneflower in a marshy meadow area.

The insect was hanging underneath the cow parsnip flower that I was attempting to photograph. I noticed him as I was standing very close to the plant. I wasn't sure what kind of insect he was but I love the way he is hanging underneath the blossom.


This was the trip where I learned to distinguish between a dragonfly and a damselfly. A dragonfly's wings are out when he lands and a damselfly has his wings back. This is a damselfly. We saw hundreds of these Circumpolar Bluets on a hike to Lukens Lake. This is smallish lake at about 8000 ft in elevation. The area where we saw these damselflies was a marshy edge to the lake. ( I added an image of my nature notebooking page for the damselfly.)



Ah, this giant dragonfly was so fast that we could hardly get a photo of him. Click on the photo to zoom in a bit on his gorgeous wings. There was another kind of dragonfly, a big blue one, at this lake too but it *never* sat still long enough for a photo. Again this was taken at Lukens Lake at Yosemite National Park.

Here is a skipper of some sort on a hike to Westfalls Meadow. I have learned to recognize this general variety of butterfly but the specific.....too many to tell. :)


I was busy trying to get a photo of a flower and then I realized that there was a ladybug on the leaf. It was the biggest ladybug I have ever seen and so very red.

This is where we realized that in the mushy mud along the meadow's edge we could see bear's tracks. Yes, lots of bear's tracks all along the way as we hiked. They did not look fresh so we just kept telling ourselves that the bear had come through a long time ago.

Here is an example of the footprint we saw all along this section of the trail. Really big.

Okay, I can't tell you how long I tried to identify this butterfly using my field guide and the internet. Nothing seemed right so I will just call this the "happy butterfly" since it was happy doing its thing with its mate. They were so big and pretty.

Just another buzzing bee in the wildflowers.....

Last but not least....a Pacific Treefrog. I don't have any other amphibians to post this with so it will go on my insect post.

Hope you enjoyed seeing a few insects from the week....and hearing about the bear and seeing the frog.

We definitely had fun hiking out into the wilderness to see all these things.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Waterfall on a Hot Summer Day

It was a hot summer afternoon and we were willing to take the hike to get to the waterfall. We have been here before and the waterfall and the views are worth the effort. This is one of those hikes that you start off with a well marked trail and then it seems as if the signs disappear. Normally a trail will be marked with a sign like the one above but what happens when you reach a spot that looks like this?



You look a little closer and a little higher up. Here I will zoom in for you.



If you click the photo you will find the little diamond shaped trail marker.


Our reward was this fantastic waterfall. It is so big it won't fit in one frame of the camera. The boys spent a lot of time climbing up and down the granite and then they eventually took their shoes off and waded in a bit.


I immediately took my hiking shoes and socks off and had my feet soaking in the ice cold snow water. I even dipped my head in and let my hair get wet. Why is hubby so wet?



He decided to go all the way in! Not for very long though....it took his breath away.


One wildflower photo....not many left on this hike at this time of the summer.

One interesting photo....look at his feet! He was hiking on the same trail as we were with no shoes on. I could hardly believe it.


Great afternoon, even if I did get cranky and hot. I am not always the cheerful nature study girl. :)

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Yosemite Trip: Just What I Needed

We spent the last week camping in Yosemite National Park and it is just what this weary mom needed. Time in the fresh air and time spent with just the family can recharge your spirits like nothing else can.

The weather was perfect and we spent every day out doing something in the sunshine. I think Amanda and I identified at least forty wildflowers. We saw a bear cub and several new birds for our bird lists. The butterflies were out in force and we took two new hikes into the high country that were fantastic. We took time to look for moths and we were amazed at the variety that we observed just around the lantern at the picnic table.

So get ready for the next week or two....I will be posting lots of photos, stories, and some of my nature journal pages.

I found a new alpine meadow that I could have sat for hours just gazing at its beauty and I will share it's secrets with you in another post. We were the only humans in that meadow and it was an awesome experience in the high country. I wish everyone who reads my blog could have such an outdoor experience at some time in their life.

Anyway, I am back to real life and will be sharing lots with you as the days go on.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Pumpkins, Sunflowers, Chicory, Queen Anne's Lace and More

Early morning ramblings through my garden......


Our pumpkins are growing several inches per day now and they are blooming with such a vibrant orange color. I love the shape of this blossom and the ants love the taste apparently.


Look at that vine go! I can't even remember what kind of pumpkins we planted but we are enjoying the vines and blossoms in the meantime.


The sunflowers are all popping open, a few each day. This one has so much pollen that it is spilling out onto the adjacent leaf. Look at it all.



Here is our wildflower of the week, chicory. Melissa at In the Sparrow's Nest shared her chicory last week and it reminded me to go out and take a photo of ours.


Our neighbor has a whole yard full of Queen Anne's Lace and I went over early this morning to take a few photos. So pretty and delicate.


Here is a photo of what his yard looks like......pity he will soon come and mow it all down because he thinks it is "weeds". I will enjoy it while it lasts.

That is just a quick look at what is going on in the garden this morning. We are going to start our nature journal page challenge this week and get a few done.

Don't forget to come to the blog and look in the sidebar for the Outdoor Hour Photo of the Week! Also if you are interested in a Summer Nature Walk notebooking page, you can find it here on my daughter's blog.

I also am going to try to post this week about how to identify insects using the internet and a field guide if you are interested.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Outdoor Hour Challenge #20 Our Summer Tree Study

We have had hot smoky weather for the past two weeks with all the fires burning in our area. It is very unusual for the wildfires to start so early but my husband says that the fuel in the forests is so dry that it doesn't take much to get it going. We had several dry lightning storms and two weeks ago we had extremely high winds. All these factors together make for extreme fire danger.

We have been enjoying our outdoor time both in the garden and out on hikes in our local area. First of all though, here is my son's summer tree study.His tree doesn't look that much different from our last study. There are lots of green leaves which my son thinks are darker than they were in the spring but it is hard to tell. Here is a close up of the leaves.


This time he measured around the trunk and found it to be 28 inches in circumference.
This is what he noticed had changed the most about the tree. It had these sprouts coming up from the bottom of the trunk. We usually snap these off as they sprout but my son wants to leave them just to see how they grow.


A few days ago we went on a hike at Lake Tahoe which is about an hour from our house. Here are some photos from that hike.

Ignore the crooked horizon line and enjoy the beautiful cloud and the water :)

The lupine was in full bloom.....and it is my favorite color.


Zillions of pinecones on the forest floor should provide lots of food for the critters.


My three favorite boys in the universe standing on the bridge overlooking Taylor Creek. No salmon this time but in a few months this place will be teeming with spawning Kokanee salmon.


The end of the hike winds around in this meadow through a grove of aspens. Just beautiful.

Another great week outdoors in our home territory.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Channel Islands National Park

How can you live in a state your whole entire life and not know about a fascinating, secluded, national park right at your doorstep? Off the coast of California is the least visited national park in the United States, Channel Islands National Park.

We were trying to think of something new and interesting to do during our few days we had down the coast and this came up and we decided to take a chance and go out to the islands. We caught this boat in Ventura, California early in the morning.

As we started out of the harbor, we saw this whole flock of pelicans sitting on the rocks of the jetty. If you have never seen a pelican close up....they are huge and wonderful to watch as they fly.

We chose to go to the largest of the Channel Islands to do some day hiking. Santa Cruz Island is about an hour's trip by boat from the coast.

As we cruised out to the island, we were happy to learn that a park naturalist was on board and would be giving a talk once we got to the island. The naturalist came around and introduced himself to our family and I told him that we were taking the trip to the island as a way to build interest in marine biology since we were going to be studying it this school year. He was so thrilled to have interested listeners and he gave us his special whale lecture as we rode along on the boat. He knew his whales and we were interested to know that we could actually see whales during their migration from the island at certain times of the year. (I see another "field trip" later in the year.)

Once on the island I realized that it was a wildflower paradise. Check out the size of these morning glories, unique to the islands.

How about this beauty of a flower....I haven't identified it yet.

And this is the remnants of a wild cucumber. See the seed inside?

We hiked about five miles from one part of the island to another. We started at Scorpion Ranch and then went to Scorpion Point and then went over to Potato Harbor.

Look at the color of that water and I wish you could have audio from this place. We could hear sea lions barking from the rocks at the entrance to the harbor.

There were many sea birds but the one bird that I never got tired of seeing was the raven. Their flight is so graceful and lovely to watch. Here is one raven that actually stayed in my camera's line of vision long enough to get captured.

Back at the cove on the dock where we waited for the boat to pick us up at the end of the afternoon, we were interested in watching the kelp as it swayed in the water. It was truly like an underwater ballet.

You can also see if you look closely in this photo, purple sea urchins under the water....lots of them.


Then at just as the boat was due to pick us up, this sea lion came to give us a show.

This was a fantastic place for nature study and you can camp on the island...a little primitive but Santa Cruz Island has potable water. I highly recommend a visit to the Channel Islands National Park if you are ever in California.

We are going to go back and spend a few days sometime in the next year. I would love to go whale watching and sea kayaking.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom