Nature Study {Early Fall 2014}

We were able to get out and play around a little last week. We hit our usual spot on Tuesday afternoon for some nature study. It was a little hot! I wish we had gone out in the morning instead. That weather didn't last as we had rain the rest of the week and now it's cold!

The boys started off with some fishing. Tyler caught the most.

I brought out our Morning Basket and did some reading after fishing. 

We took a quick little walk down to the "lodge" and used a recently mowed path that went down the lake dam. Surprisingly it was filled with some nature. We saw a animal trail and Caleb followed it and it led to the overflow pipe from the lake. This trail was being used to get water. I'm including the picture I took of it but I guess it's one of those "you had to be there" things as it doesn't show well in the picture but it was a clearly marked path in real life. ; ) While examining that path we saw a wooly bear worm and we have been seeing a lot of those lately. 

 

The boys and I split after that and they went to go check out a dry creek bed and I took the main path back to the lake to do some reading. I think they only made it to the hay bales and climbed around on those.

On the way back, I discovered a path, that I love to use, had been mowed! It was almost waist tall during the summer and we hadn't been on it since early spring. It was just too hot to explore it though and I'm hoping to go back this week. It is along a fence with forest on the other side. We always discovered fascinating things on this path and I love seeing our favorite discoveries during different seasons.

I enjoyed about 30 minutes alone time for reading before the boys made it back to the lake. It was peaceful yet hard to stay focused on reading with all the sounds of nature around you.

We heard lots of birds (but saw hardly any) and mostly the sound of walnuts dropping. There was a tree across the lake that would drop several every time the wind blew. It sounded like gun shots. Caleb is excited to go back and start picking them up. 

A big fish caught our attention for a long time as it was splashing about. I've never seen fishing lines go out so fast but it was too far away and not interested in small grasshoppers.

The trees are thinking about changing and we are hoping to see how they held up to the storms we had on Wednesday and Thursday. I'm hoping to spend a whole day out at the family farm next week! It's fun but sometimes the sounds of nature make doing math difficult.