Keeping Our Sanity with Daily Nature Study

" Out in this, God's beautiful world, there is everything waiting to heal lacerated nerves, to strengthen tired muscles, to please and content the soul that is torn to shreds with duty and care....She (teacher/mother) finds, first of all, companionship with her children; and second, she finds that without planning or going on a far voyage, she has found health and strength."

Handbook of Nature Study, page 3

This week has had its ups and downs but by far the ups have outweighed the downs....thanks for the encouraging words and comments and your understanding.

This seemed like a perfect week to take a break from the Outdoor Hour Challenge writing and just get outdoors and enjoy the sunshine with my family.

We have made time to walk everyday and with each new day we observed something to let us know that spring is coming quickly.

We had a visitor in our backyard yesterday. This mourning dove stayed around long enough for us to really observe all his field marks. We saw the black stripe on the head, the spots on the wings, the black and white on the long tail, and if you click this photo and look at his feet....you will see how pink/purple they were.

In the spirit of trying to catalog the wildflowers on our daily hikes, I found this plant that is one of my particular favorites. It is actually one of a handful of wildflowers that I learned about as a child. Mule Ears look like sunflowers when they bloom.

Edit: I now think that this is not Mule Ears but is Arrowleaf Balsamroot.

Here is the beginnings of the bloom.


We have been watching this particular wildflower along the trail for a week or so now and it is popping out in blooms more everyday.

It is called Western Hound's Tongue. I think it is funny that in this post I have Mule's Ears and Hound's Tongue.....aren't those great names?

Here is a close-up of the blossom.

Here is another plant with a great name....

California Maidenhair Fern.
It is so pretty and if you look very closely, the stems are black.

Amanda had time to join us yesterday on our hike and it was great to spend an hour or so out exploring in the woods together.

As a busy young adult it is not always easy to make time to get outdoors but she said afterward that it was refreshing and encouraging to see all the signs of spring along the trail.

Here is a photo from the other day that I have to show you. The last big rainstorms washed a section of the trail away and exposed a lot of rock. Since we live in gold country, I sort of jokingly said that maybe there was some gold washed down along with the rocks.

My teen decided he was going to climb down and take a look. We didn't find any gold but we did find quite a bit of really pretty quartz.

This week has truly been saved by two things: prayer and our outdoor time. Our outdoor time is even better when we spend time together.....relationships made stronger by shared experiences.

Hope you have a great week and I will hopefully have the computer situation under control and the next Outdoor Hour Challenge next Friday.