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 February 18th

So, first:

Inches of snow fell last night -- maybe around 5 inches or so?  We're supposed to get another 1-3 inches before noon as well...  There went all the shopping we were going to do today. :P

We've spent the last five days with the husband's younger brother visiting us.  We sent him back to the Bay Area yesterday afternoon, and did a bunch of stuff while he was here.

One of the things we did was go hiking again at Lord Hill park; we'd been meaning to do this for quite a while, and since it wasn't too wet that day, we decided to go for it.

One of the main features of the park is big trees with holes in the middle:

Thumbs up!

"Uncle Johnny, you're so silly!"

You'll recognize this picture from the last time we were here -- I took an almost identical one then, too.

Lots of ferns, as usual.

 

This tree is being dismantled by wood peckers.

Trees growing out of other trees -- lots of this too!

Osric was pretty grumpy by this point in the hike, and decided that this tree branch was stupid.  As far as I can tell, he just doesn't like hiking very much.

This portion was pretty muddy in parts.

Reading the map.

Walkin' with Uncle Johnny.

I have lots more photos from our trip to the Funko store, which I will post next week. :)

What-What?! Week of November 12th

Yesterday, we headed out in the rain for a hike at the Saint Edward State Park in Kirkland.  The park borders Lake Washington, with trails leading down to the edge of the lake.  It was way more up and down than I had anticipated, and by the time we had finished hiking back up the hill to get to the car, we were all very worn out.

There were tons of trees with moss and these fern-things on them.

The trees were giant and very gnarly -- the growth in this forest dates back a century, so lots of older growth to look at.

This big mushroom was the only of it's kind that we saw.  All the other ones were little and white/tan or a shelf fungus.

Crazy roots were everywhere.  There were times these made for some slick walking, though.

Normally when you see a tree stump, the center is hollow.  This is the opposite of that.  Pretty interesting.

Saw tons of these mushrooms.

This is a tree that had started growing on top of the trunk of another tree, with the roots going down around it.  The tree itself is actually very tall -- it stretched up a good 20 feet or so.

In this picture, you can see all the roots from the trees -- this is probably the most we saw in one area that were along the surface.

Little stream heading for Lake Washington.

The view across Lake Washington was beautiful, especially with all the trees in different colors on the opposite bank.

Saint Edward State Park borders (or is part of? Not sure) a historic seminary.  This building is still in use by a local university, and was constructed in 1931.

It was nice to get out and see some nature, though by the end the kids were definitely done.

What-What?! Week of June 11th

Old Robe Canyon Trail

On Memorial Day weekend, we went hiking through part of Robe Canyon; this scenic location up in the mountains once housed a railroad and settlement servicing the Monte Cristo mine, now abandoned for over 100 years.  We didn't go too far into the canyon, because the trail conditions were a little dicey in places -- we hit this point where we needed to climb across several large downed trees to go on, and since we'd been hiking for a while already, we turned back.  Farther on from where we stopped, you can walk along the original railroad ties, and through some of the tunnels dug for the trains.

"Mom, are you coming?" -- This is at the top of the trail.  From here, you go down several switchbacks into the canyon itself.

Moss and lichen on everything, of course.  The standard for a Washington hike. xP

Where it was sunny, the forest was beautiful.

There were lots of downed trees everywhere throughout here -- some across the trail, others, like this one, just to either side of it.

Perfectly healthy looking, red-colored water next to the trail.  With the mining history here, I would not go splashing around in this stuff.

This is called Scouring Rush, which is actually a spore-type plant.

The Stillaguamish river runs next to a large portion of the trail.  In one or two places, this was pretty stressful because the trail is very narrow.

 

This was a nice lookout spot on the river bank.

Snack time!

Ozzy brought this toy truck with us.

Remains of the railroad.

Not exactly sure what this was from -- could be the remains of someone's house?

This is where we turned back.

This is the trailhead.  It is literally just off the Mountain Loop Highway -- there is nothing other than this sign there.  No facilities, no ranger shack, nothing.