Explore Outdoors ~ funky fungi

 Still finding things to do from my beginning-of-the-month list... though I don't always accomplish them. For example: I've had no luck finding glow-in-the-dark mushrooms. That might have to do with the fact that I fall asleep before they start glowing... or that I'm just not in the right location. But I have found lots of cool mushrooms that don't glow! 

 

 What funky fungi do you see around your neighborhood?

Explore Outdoors ~ Finding our Colors

One of the things on my list of Things To Do in Fall (posted last week) is to watch the maple trees turn red. Or gold...  So that's what I've been doing this past week and I've noticed something. For sure, there's a "peak season" when most of the leaves will be at their most brilliant, but there's a long period of time when just a few are closing down their chlorophyll factories and putting on their fall colors. 

 

Watching them slowly change as the earth turns towards winter reminds me that we all change in our own time. Some of us, like the trees around me, are the first to turn red, orange, gold. Some of us are stragglers, the last ones to paint our leaves and join the party. And in the end, it doesn't matter because we all get there.

 

How are the leaves changing where you live?

 

Explore Outdoors ~ Things to do This Season

 Fall is here! How do I know? Things are falling all around: acorns, locust pods, chestnuts, maple leaves...

 

Here are just a few things to do this season: 

• watch maples turn red
• collect acorns
• pick apples
• find glow-in-the-dark mushrooms
• follow woolly bear caterpillars
• map monarch migration
• make leaf prints
• hunt for insect galls
• do bark rubbings
• collect flower seeds
• make a compost pile
• take a sock walk
• rake leaves into a pile and jump in
• take a night walk
• make applesauce
• discover where ladybugs hide

What will you do today?

Explore Outdoors This Summer

Summer is the perfect time to play outside! To string up a hammock and read books! To build sandcastles and ... 

 

watch fireflies
explore mud puddles
watch mud wasps build their nests
dance in the rain
watch a spider weave her web
listen to bird songs    
follow a bumblebee
look for worms
pick blueberries
ride a bike
look under stones
look for dragonfly larvae in streams
smell the earth
write haiku
hang T-shirts on clothesline to dry
get to know a moth
watch for bats
listen for hummingbirds

Archimedes Notebook is taking a break for the summer. You'll find my nature posts and 1-minute book reviews over on my facebook page this summer ~ picture books, middle grade, young adult, adult, graphic novels, fiction, nonfiction... because, Summer Reading.

 

Have Fun & See You in September October*! 

*we are moving... so book reviews and posts will happen once I get settled

Explore Outdoors ~ Seeds of Flight

 I find dandelion puffballs fascinating. The seed heads look like a constellation of stars. Then, as they are blown by the wind, it begins to look downright scraggly. What amazes me is how dainty the fiber parachutes look, and how sturdy the little seeds appear. 

 

 

 

If you've ever wondered how far a dandelion seed can travel, the best time to find out is when they go to seed. Pick a dandelion seed head (no one will yell at you for that!), mark a launch zone, and pull off a few seeds with their parachutes. Then hold them up as high as you can and let go. Follow one (or more) and put a marker down where they land. Then measure the distance. Sometimes they fly so far you have to count "giant steps"...

 

Check out the dandelion seeds in your yard... 

 

Explore Outdoors ~early spring

 

 This year spring seems to be slow in coming. Sure, we've had rain and the occasional sunny day. But it's been such a cold winter, and the last couple weeks have felt cold and gray.

 

Still, there's a bit of seasonal change happening in the garden. The spear-like leaves of the garlics have been up for a couple weeks, as have the irises. Pear and plum blossoms have added sprinkles of color to the landscape, and some kinds of maples have already let their samaras fall to the earth.

 

The first flowers blooming in  my garden - and in my lawn - are violets and dandelions. I love the contrast of purple with cheery yellow.

 

I'm not the only one - plenty of tiny bees were out in the dandelions!

 

What colors do you see blooming around your neighborhood this week?
 

 

Explore Outdoors ~ flower watching

 Spring comes in its own time, sometimes in a flurry of flowering and sometimes a slow opening of a bud. While visiting Boston, I walked around the neighborhood every day just to watch this magnolia wake up from winter. 

This Earth Day, what's blooming in your neighborhood?

April 1

April 6

April 11

April 14

 

Explore Outdoors ~ April Showers

 It's been a rainy spring here in the northeast - and some mornings are still on the cold side. (Snow, anyone?) But spring flowers are shaking off the raindrops and holding their faces to the sun.

 

What spring flowers are blooming in your neighborhood? 

 

Explore Outdoors ~ First Spring Rain

 Spring officially started this past weekend, and I've been waiting for sunshine and warmer weather for so long! So of course, it rained. And so, of course, I went walking outside between showers  ... 

What do you see when you go outside after rain?

Explore Outdoors ~ the last acorn

 

While walking around a park in Salt Lake City a couple weeks ago, I noticed all the scrubby oaks had empty acorn caps attached at the ends of the twigs. It makes sense - jays and other animals would have snacked on the yummy nuts all winter.

 

But why did the acorns fall without their caps on?

 

 

The oaks are getting ready for spring, even as this particular tree holds onto a few leaves and this one last acorn.

 

 

 

This week as you walk around your neighborhood, look at the trees. Are any of them still holding tight to last year's leaves or nuts?  

Explore Outdoors ~ More Galls!

 Last week I was hiking in Wasatch Hollow, a small nature preserve tucked behind a neighborhood in Salt Lake City. It felt like spring was nudging winter out, and we listened to the sparrows and a cooper's hawk. I'd noticed some interesting galls on the oak twigs and at the tips of the rose bushes. These are, as I understand it, galls caused by wasps. 

 

 

 

This one is called a mossy rose gall - and it does sort of look like moss growing at the end, doesn't it?

 

Now, before flower and leaf buds burst open, is the perfect time to see galls on bushes and trees. 

 

Can you find any galls in your neighborhood?

 

Explore Outdoors ~ Squirrel Snacks

 

I've read that rosehips make great winter snacks for rabbits and squirrels. Bears, too, though I don't expect we'll see any down at the County Courthouse gardens!

Rosehips are full of vitamin C, and they may be a great source of food when other stuff is scarce. But getting to them ... that's a prickly proposition.

If there are any rosehips in your neighborhood, do you ever see squirrels or birds eating them?

Explore Outdoors ~ Three Ways of Looking at a Tree

 This week take your camera or a sketch pad outdoors with you and spend a few moments looking at trees. It should be a bit warmer, so you can actually spend some time observing things in nature!

Look at a tree from a distance.

What do you notice about its shape?

What do you notice about the way its branches come off the trunk?

Get closer.

What do you notice about the bark?

About the twigs?

About buds?

What do you notice about tree shadows?

Explore Outdoors ~ how snow sticks

 

Walking through the woods on a snowy afternoon I noticed the differences in how snow stuck to things. Tree trunks, for example. 

 

Some trees had thick scaly bark, and falling snow accumulated in the crevices around them. Trees with smoother bark had hardly any. But, given the wind, some had stuck to the tree trunks anyway.

 

 Winter weeds, on the other hand, ended up with Snow Hats!

 

Next Time it Snows: take a walk around your neighborhood and notice where the snow ends up on trees and plants. 

 

Further observation: does where and how snow sticks to trees and winter weeds vary with the water content of the snow? Powdery snow forms in cold, dry air so it doesn't have much moisture. Flakes that form when the temperature is near freezing will have more moisture. That makes them stickier - great for making snowballs - but also heavier.

Explore Outdoors ~ Lichens!

 Lichens are small and easy to overlook, but they are amazing. These tiny symbiotic communities of fungi and algae and cyanobacteria can weather the cold temperatures and dry air of winter. How do they do it?

 

 

 

They go dormant. Some have anti-freeze chemicals in their cells to keep from - well, freezing and bursting open. Their superpower: they can pick up with photosynthesis once the weather warms up and the moisture returns. Find out more about lichens here. 

 

Go Lichen Looking around your neighborhood. 

Check tree trunks and branches, rocks, stone walls - I've even found lichens growing on park benches! 

 

Explore Outdoors ~ a prickly tree!

 

Sometimes when you get up close to a tree, you decide that maybe you don't want to shake it's hands! What sort of prickly trees do you have where you live?

Explore Outdoors ~ Home, from a leaf's point of view

 The other day I got to wondering: what does a fallen leaf think? So I got down to the level of an oak leaf and looked at the world from its point of view. What was it looking at? 

Home! Or at least the home it used to have before the big wind storm... 

 

 

 

What do you discover when you look at the world from the vantage point of the leaves (or flowers) in your yard?

Explore Outdoors ~ one last look at garden spiders

 My garden is a great habitat for spiders. I pile dried grass and straw on the beds to help keep them from drying out - and spiders love to hide in the mulch. I grow flowers between the tomatoes and peppers, and spiders love the web-building opportunities tall stems provide. And some plants have big leaves that create a shade for spiders looking for hiding spots. Here are a couple end-of-season spider pictures.

 

 

Explore Outdoors ~ Smell the Leaves

Last week I was scuffling through the fallen leaves (on a country road in Vermont) - listening to the rustle and crunch - and I noticed that the air smelled sweet. Maybe it was all the sugar maple leaves?

 

 

This week pay attention to the leaves that have fallen:

• what do they sound like?
• what do they smell like?

 

Explore Outdoors ~ Caterpillars in the Carrots!

 One day I noticed that someone had been chewing on the carrots. The green tops, that is - and they had nibbled them down to the stems! At first, I thought it might have been a rabbit. But no ... a rabbit would have bitten off entire stems. This was a more dainty diner.

 

I looked and looked and nearly gave up. But then I saw the culprit!

 

 A black swallowtail caterpillar! Notice how the color helps it blend in with the shadows of the carrot leaves. I wanted to get up-close and meet it face-to-face.

 

 

 

This week, get to know a bug up-close and personal!