Outdoor Hour, Challenge #1 (getting started)

I have finally decided upon joining the Outdoor Hour Challenge found HERE 

I enjoy looking at all of Quinn's entries HERE and though I am way behind I really wanted to teach my boys to love their mountains and not just whack it up with sticks! (hehe)  So I am jumping in though late I may be!

Today's challenge was to take a nature walk and just let the kids explore and have them share with you what they saw that they found interesting. I thought my kids would enjoy this study, but I was little prepared for how much. Their enthusiasm actually stunned and delighted me, they ran to me or called to us with thousands of tiny treasures...  I am also very excited because my husband is also thrilled about this new study and is doing it with us. It is even more fun to wander our woods with him along!

This spider was actually tiny, smaller than my pinky fingernail. Rocks are a HUGE favorite with my boys, and I saw probably about a hundred amazing ones today! 

There are many different types of moss and lichen, I think I actually found this one in the Handbook of Nature study, I think it is: Awned Hair-Cap Moss

During our walk a rock got kicked off of this anthill. This colony seemed rather sluggish to me, they seemed confused and didn't gather up their larva but all just ran in different directions. Perhaps because it froze here last night?

Above to the left is a Barrel Cactus, a perfect one at that! The plant to the right is unknown to me, I'm anxious to see if I can figure out what it is.

Below is a Gamble Oak, you know, I have lived in this area all of my life and I don't recall ever seeing the odd strings growing on them. I'm really excited for that part of this study, to notice the details I hadn't seen before! 

The borrow of a small animal, our guess was either deer mice or something of that sort although we didn't find a single sign of scat we did find LOTS of dirt tossed out of the hole and tons of eaten pinion seed shells and acorn shells.

This rock formation was REALLY neat, especially because you could pick it right up and it looked almost like a sandwich, each line you see is actually a separate slice of rock.

Unidentified wildflowers, the leaves have a silvery hue.

See how this rock sparkles in the sun!

Another type of lichen, this one is always found on the rocks around here.

This fellow was certainly the highlight of our walk, and when I was trying to take his picture he ran right up onto Caleb's foot!  He is a Western Fence Lizard, Caleb catches these guys ALL the time, at times they can give quite a nip!

Cool wood

Caleb found a Roly Poly

I have collected these little fellows all my life, however I never knew!! Their proper name is an Armadilididae and they are a form of wood lice and are members of the group Isopoda

~My kids are already asking if we can go ahead and do challenge 2~