What-What?! Week of October 21st

Last weekend we went hiking at Deering Wildflower Acres, and saw a lot of fungus.

Shelf fungus of some kind.  These were actually very pretty.

Mouse-eye view

Teeny-tiny guys

Lots of mushrooms, even in the trees!

I am still always surprised by how much Oz does not like hiking.  He likes walking, he likes being outside, but for whatever reason, he does not like hiking.

These ones had a really waxy texture -- kind of like the rind on parmesan cheese.  Yeah, I poked 'em.

There were a bunch that had these sawtooth edges.

These shrooms were papery.

I CAN SEE YOU!

Coral fungus, which is very cool.

This one is the perfect umbrella for a mouse or a snail or something.

BONUS!  This is my son reading a book.  You see how he's not holding himself up with his arms?  That's because he needs his arms to keep his shirt out of his face.  Well, at least he's reading.

What-What?! Week of April 29th

Since the weather was nice, we headed out to Deering Wild Flower Acres last weekend and enjoyed a nice hike.  This park is out in country in Marysville, and was totally empty.

Not too many pictures from the trip; spent most of the time just enjoying the sunshine.  We hiked down by the pond and saw a bunch of ducks, and also saw a deer on the trail as well (!!!).

There were tons of trillium blooming all over the place.

 

Walking the trail

The Weekly What-What?! Week of May 15th

So we've actually gone hiking kind of a lot.  But neither are places I'm sure we'll go back to again.

Eagle Trail

Osric will be your tour guide!

Eagle Trail is up in Arlington, but quite close to us still.  It's a pretty small trail with a playground on one side.  Unfortunately, the day we went was quite hot, and there is literally no shade anywhere near the playground or trail.

There were literally a million yellow flowers.

 Pretty flowers.

 It's hard to see, but there were a lot of frogs here.

Another view of the creek.

Deering Wild Flower Acres

This place is kind of a hidden gem in Marysville.  It's a smaller park, but nicely forested with a lot of old growth.  There were a distressing amount of small flying bugs, and some places where the trail was a bit overgrown, but overall it was nice.  It was odd going into the forest here, because it's so obvious that we're not in California anymore; there was a huge amount of ferns.  Just everywhere, ferns!

It started raining after we left the house.  This is the second time in two weeks that something like this has happened to us (last time was heading for the park), and we decided just to roll with it.

Determined that these were salmonberries.  Some of the bushes were taller than the husband.

Lots and lots of moss and lichen on everything, too.

 It's hard to tell from this picture, but the large leaved plant here was absolutely massive.  The leaves were easily longer than my forearm.

Shelf fungus.

We saw lots of these slugs, too.  Including in the middle of the trail.

The pond there isn't accessible via the trail, but was quite lovely to look at from afar.  There was a waterbird of some type nesting here, too.

Osric was scared the entire time we were there, and insisted on holding either my or the husband's hand.

A perfect little mushroom.