On our hike I saw this little lovely. Tiny little seeds maybe? On a little oak sapling?
I've really no idea. Does anyone know?
I did have fun climbing around in the dirt so I could get up close and personal. I'm not afraid of a little dirt. I have too many sons to be afraid of a little dirt. I wish that applied to creepy crawlies. Still terrified of those.
Yes. Missing a Native. The eldest opted to stay home on this adventurous day. He has some rather largish exams coming up so whilst we were gallivanting about the country, he was being studious in the school library.
I have no idea what everyone is looking at and exclaiming over....... I don't look that funny!
The Scout Master watching the younger Natives playing in the water.
These photos are all very washed out. Grrrr.
Master Levi with his gargantuan walking stick. No need to worry about bears or moose on this trip! We have run into a momma moose before on this hike. Not 'this' hike as in on this particular hike but a few years ago. Mr. T ran into one and thought it was a horse of all things!! My son who rides every weekend thought a moose was a horse! We've teased him to no end about that one. He defends himself by saying it was it's bum and from the bum it looked like a horse!
Look! A little cabbage/lettuce patch for the fairy folk! We wanted to sit a spell and see if we could glimpse one but naughty Peter Rabbit had other things in mind.
Like finding a little seat made especially for him to perch his little perch upon.
I can see how some people think we come from monkeys......
There are days that I wonder..........
I really could be quite convinced! If I didn't know better..........
After hiking and playing around we climbed into the truck and headed further and higher up into the mountains.
So many places I wanted The SM to stop so I could take photos but daylight was waning and we had more exploring to do.
We stopped at a place called, Silver Lake. It isn't a lake at all. A rather small reservoir with fantastic rocks to climb on while waiting for our picnic dinner.
Mr. C is going through a stage where he doesn't like me to take photos of him. Punk!
Mr. T is deep in thought. Very deep in thought here. I have caught him in the act of making a sandwich.
A picnic up in the mountains. I don't know why but I am always hungrier and food always tastes better up in the mountains.
Rocks. Massive ones. A great huge pile of them. Why? I don't know but The Natives and The SM had a grand old time playing on them. Hide and Seek.
Boulders. Not rocks. Maybe we were in the land of the giants and these are their pebbles for skipping across the water! We appreciate the giants for letting us play on their pebbles.
Meanwhile........back at the ranch....... we have Mr. C who decided to play a different kind of hide and seek. Mom is seeking with the camera and Mr. C is hiding. Hmmm, Maybe if I hide behind my hand she'll go away........
If I shove my big feet in her face?
If I twist my body and pull my book up?
If I lift my book up even higher because mom is yanking on my pants now and moving my legs?
Thanks for sharing your Fall Break adventures heading "further up and further in" the beautiful area you live in. I love the photos you've captured of autumn's beauty. I must admit it is one of my favorite times of year. Even the light seems to look a little more golden...
ReplyDeleteIt looks like everyone was having a great time (even the temporarily photo-shy ones...Gotta love a little camera hide and seek with mom... lol...) :-)
I really need to take some time and wander more up that way one of these days... (Hoping of course I wouldn't get lost in the wandering...lol...might have to bribe a guide to go along with me... lol... )
Oh! Further up and further in. Isn't that from C.S. Lewis's last book in his The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe series? I remember loving that part... about the further they went in.... the more magnificent it was.
DeleteFall is my favorite time of the year. I wish it lasted as long as winter and summer do. We call it four seasons but it really isn't as fall and spring go by too fast!
No worries about getting lost. Getting lost is when the adventures begin! :D
Sorry to say, but I think those pods on the oak are some kind of bug cocoony thing.
ReplyDeleteLove your monkey boy and your hiding boy and the fact that both events ended up in laughter! Lovely, lovely laughter.
Those wee folk cabbages...so cute!
Your beautiful mountains are so different than mine....but equally beautiful.
All in all a most fulfilling trip through your camera lens and your heart. Ahhh.
Ohhh what kind of cocoony thing. I think you've just given me a challenge. An assignment. I need to know now! What are they???
DeleteI love laughter. I wish I could bottle it up and open it like a jewelry box that plays music when opened. My jewels are my children. I'd like to place them in a box where I could periodically open the box and hear their laughter.
I thought those wee cabbages were delightfully magical. I am always looking for the little things. The things close to the ground. I take forever when hiking. I'm too busy looking through my camera lens eyes. Looking for things that I want to put my camera up to and examine closer.
The Natives are all mountain goats! They trot along climbing and clamoring over rocks and up mountains. I huff and puff and eventually make it to the top. Sometimes........... Sometimes they give up on me and come back down and meet me as I've got my nose pressed to something lost in wonder...... they always find me and keep tabs on me. For that, I am most grateful.
Answer: Those cocoony things are PARASITIC WASPS! That round 'seed' looking thing is called a Gall.
DeleteI shoulda smooshed em. If I were a Naturalist... I'd get an F. I'm prejudiced against certain critters.......
Bottled up laughter would be even more potent than your EOs....that's what I think!
DeleteMaybe you better start taking video of them laughing so you can put them in your box for later....but, then again, maybe not. I bet your Natives come home to you for the ever and ever!
Laughing...I don't think I do enough of that...but, I"m getting better...at least I'm trying!
And here I thought they were chick peas/garbonzo beans. Of which I am frying a pan full for lunch right now. And have now lost my appetite for. Blasted parasatic wasps.
DeleteDonna,They better come back home!! Again and again and again. If not, I'm coming after them. If they come home, they can get away. If I come after them..... they have to sigh and roll their eyes and wonder when I'll move onto the next Native's house.
DeleteWabi, I thought they were some sort of a seed pod! Blasted parasitic wasps is right! I really do dislike wasps. We saw several of their 'homes' hanging about.
Clambouring onwards and upwards is just THE thing to do in autumn. That tree perch is perfect. Just perfect. And those boulders! And waterfallS! And, oh, you do live in a spectacular place. But mostly, what a WONDERFUL family climbing together.
ReplyDeleteAnd I once mistook a moose for a horse too. It was in our field. And I couldn't wrap my head around how such a dark-coloured horse had gotten into our field. Then I couldn't understand why it was so weirdly shaped...
On another one of our hikes we found another little perch/chair for Mr. J who has the tiniest perch of a bum. He was quite delighted that nature was so thoughtful creating him all sorts of places to sit that the rest of our perches couldn't perch upon.
DeleteWe do live in a spectacular place. I was telling The SM the other day as we were hiking through a canyon searching for and looking for old Native American Indian petroglyphs that we really do live in an amazing part of the world. The landscape is so different from just a few miles away to another few miles away. The tall mountains full of trees and a few miles south, the giant red rocks of the desert. Fantastic really. We've had fun exploring our part of the country and their is so much more to see!
I'll tell Mr. T he is not the only one to mistake a moose for a horse. It will make him feel better. On second thought, no I won't. It's just too delicious being able to tease him. :D
I could HEAR your cackle in those last two sentences. To have such variety in such a short span of distance sounds so enchanting. It looks like there are no end of things to explore right around you.
DeleteThe state of Utah truly is amazing. I don't know if there are other states that have such a variety like Utah does. There is so much to explore and see!
DeleteIsn't it weird how you can't really tell a pile of rocks from a mound of giant boulders, even in the mountains, when you haven't got the wide perspective? There's a huge lesson in that, actually - and it's kinda dramatic, when you think about it. And there are the children, scrambling over boulders - and B was, too, of his own kind. And that's what my children are doing now, each in a private pile, their own personal boulders - but the up and down are pretty much the same value for all of us. And the chance of falling, and the output of energy. But all our valleys are also personal - some wider, some deeper - and the valley almost determines the perspective. I'm with Mr. C - I feel so much more collected if I have a book shoved right in my face, and the outside perspective is blocked out.
ReplyDeleteHow did I miss this comment???
DeleteI love how you see things. Yes, B climbing boulders of his own. Some of them bigger than others. Some taking more energy than others. I just hate that all of the boulders are in different valleys. I want them all in a neat pile in my back yard.
Yes, hiding behind a book. I feel more comfortable as well.
Maybe I'm seeing things differently. The colors don't look washed out to me. They look glorious. Especially on this mid-November evening.
ReplyDeleteI think that Mr. C is really going to laugh at those photos a few years from now. OR, perhaps his wife will be the one laughing!
I loved the tiny lettuce patch for fairies and the tree with a seat in it's trunk. OF COURSE your little guy would scramble up and sit on it.
You know how it is, we see things and the camera doesn't show it the way we see it.
DeleteMr. C is a pill!!!!! I hope he laughs someday because I am doing my best to embarrass the heck out of him!
Mr. J found a little rock that looked like a little love seat made just for him. Nature is magical.