Fallen Sequoia - 1500 Year Old Tree Falls

Sequoia Tree Falls: These trees are so beautiful and it is hard to imagine one coming down...what an event that must of have been! The video gives you an idea of just how large these trees are in real life.




But even with one of the big trees falling, we know that the forest will recover and this will make way for a new giant to grow in its place.

I can hardly wait for my next Big Tree experience!

Photo Clean-Up: Summer's End 2009

This is not a meaty post but one to catch up on all the stuff going on around here that didn't seem to fit into any other post.....we will call it a photo potpourri.

Sequoia cone with seeds that we found on our deck this week. Last year was the first year we noticed cones from our tree and there are quite a few more this year.


My passion flower is blooming for the very first time ever. What a spectacular flower!


Cabbage moth on my broccoli. Can I just say that the caterpillars of this particular moth are eating all the leaves off the broccoli?


But on the positive side the peas are coming up and growing every day now....fall gardening has started.


There are still squash blossoms and bees in the garden as well.


These are a variety of asters that we planted from seed and they are so very pretty right now.



Zinnias, coneflowers and cosmos still in abundance as we reach the end of the summer cutting garden.



Walking at dusk last week with the moon rising on one side and the sun setting on the other...awesome.

I am getting warmed up to the idea that summer is over and that autumn is coming on quickly.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Catch Up Week for the Outdoor Hour Challenge and Giant Sequoias Again

There will be no new Outdoor Hour Challenge this week but your family can take the opportunity to pick a challenge from the last few weeks to complete and post about.

How about the Seasonal Tree Observation in Challenge #36 or the Weather Observations in either Challenge #39 or #40?

These are some of the easier challenges that are great to complete during autumn so when we get to winter and spring you can compare the changes if any.

If you didn't complete the first five challenges, why not pick one of those to work on this week?

Your family can look down the list of challenges in the right sidebar of the Handbook of Nature Study blog to choose one that fits your area and needs.

We will be starting a short flowerless plants study next week, December 5th. I have already started collecting photos of flowerless plants in our area and I am amazed how many we have found so far.

Here is one fungus we saw today on a hike.

Can you see how it grew up with the leaves on top? Really interesting! I took so many more photos to share but I will wait until the flowerless plant challenges. Suspense is always a good thing.

Here are a few more shots from today for you too enjoy.

We were still looking for clouds...look at that sky and the few puffy clouds.

Later in the afternoon, the clouds came in and made it a little cool under the sequoias. These trees are so tall and we always have fun trying to capture them in a photo.

This photo my son took and I think it really shows how tall these giants are.

How about this giant sugar pine cone? The hike we took had a mix of all kinds of trees....pines, sequoias, and lots of deciduous trees too.

How can you help but become refreshed both physically and spiritually after a hike where the trees tower over you and there are interesting things around every corner if you take the time to look for them?

Have a great weekend.
Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Climbing Trees-No Weather to Speak Of

Still no "weather" to report from our house. The windows and doors are still wide open and the sky is clear. We have forecasts of some rain maybe this week so we are going to wait until then to take a weather study.

In the meantime, the boys and their father decided today was the day to climb a tree. We have one really big tree in our yard that is fairly easy to climb because the limbs are close together and there are so many of them. They took a ladder to get started but then climbed up from there.

This was the first time that I have noticed cones on the ground under this tree.

I grabbed the tree identification book and here is what we came up with.

Here is what we used to identify the tree....leaflet and cone.

It looks as if we have a Giant Sequoia in our backyard, right next to our deck.

This is my best attempt to take a complete photo of the tree showing our deck at the bottom. It is a really tall tree.

"The seed cones are 4-7 cm long and mature in 18-20 months, though they typically remain green and closed for up to 20 years; each cone has 30-50 spirally arranged scales, with several seeds on each scale giving an average of 230 seeds per cone." and "Young trees start to bear cones at the age of 12 years."
Wikipedia on the Sequoia

So what started out as tree climbing ended up with identifying our very own Giant Sequoia in our backyard. It was growing here when we moved in 21 years ago and I assume it was planted by the previous owner. It does provide great shade on our deck during the hot summer afternoons and the birds and our backyard squirrel like to use it for protection.

This tree has been hit by lightning once a long time ago in a really big storm. It sounded like something exploded in our backyard during the thunder storm and we went outside to see what it was and we saw a long black line on the trunk of the tree and it was smoking at the base. It was very memorable.

What an afternoon.
Barb-Harmony Art Mom