I'll just jump to the chase; we didn't find Bigfoot. I guess we need to keep looking.
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| The Fantastic Four Bigfoot Hunters |
We drove up the American Fork Canyon and kept our eyes peeled for any signs of Bigfoot. We stopped on the side of the road and examined some milkweed to see if we could find monarch caterpillars. We were unsuccessful at finding caterpillars but we did find lots of yellow aphids. We decided that aphids are the vampires of the plant kingdom. There was one lucky ladybug who was hunting for dinner. He was going to have a full tummy!
After we returned to the car, we continued up the mountain. We got to look at some trees, rocks and fog through the binoculars. We discussed that "bi" means two and "ocular" has to do with vision. We aren't sure about the "n" in the middle of that word.
We arrived at Cascade Springs and decided to go for a walk about even though it was raining.
We followed the path and saw a lot of different plants and trees. Some of the trees we saw were the Box Elder, and the Sawtooth Maple. We also saw munkshood, yellow columbine, stinging nettle and monkey fist.
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| Boxelder leaves and trunk. |
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| I finally figured out what Boxelder looks like! |
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| I wonder if Monkshood and Columbine are related. The leaves have a similar shape. |
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| We saw a little brown bird jumping around in the water. It may or may not have been a Cassin's Finch. We need to learn more about this bird and identifying it. |
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| Monkey Flower out of season. We need to this check this plant out earlier in the summer. |
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| Stinging Nettle. I taught the kids a little stinging nettle trick; if you happen to get stung, you can strongly grab the leaves and crush them, rubbing the juice on the painful bumps and the sting will go away almost instantly. Be careful not to let another leaf brush against your hand while you're grabbing one to crush or it could be a vicious and painful cycle. Gar's response was perfect. He said something to the effect of "Heavenly Father is so cool to make the juice be the antidote!" |
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| We call this Scrub Oak and so we learned a new name for it. We also discussed what genus and species mean. We need to follow up on that discussion as I could not think of very many examples outside of homo sapien |
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| This was an interesting sign. It discussed how forest fires are important to both plants and animals. That goes against our normal thinking about destructive fires. It kind of gives a different perspective on the forest fires that are burning all over the country right now. |
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| I knew this was a maple but not that it was a Bigtooth. Now I need to find out the difference between this variety and others. |
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Watercress. Salad anyone?
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After we were soaked to the bone from the rain, we drove home listening to Rush Revere and the Patriots. That is one of our favorite audio books. We discussed the Stamp Act and talked about why the colonies didn't want to pay a tax on all paper products to King George.
Bigfoot was safe from our peeping eyes this time. Next time, maybe he won't be so lucky!
