Topsy-Turvy Seasons

This winter has been very mild in the Baltimore area. I have only seen it snow twice and it never stuck.  Not that I am complaining, but it would be nice to have a proper winter.  I miss making a snow person or a fort out of snow for protection during a snowball fight.

Currently it is supposed to be late winter. However, one look outside it would reveal a different story.  There are daffodils popping up, cherry trees blooming, and temperature up in the mid-70s.  It's like spring decided to come early.  Either that or winter is playing hide and seek.  I know that other places in the country either got more than normal amounts of snow, or much less.  What about where you are? Did you have any topsy-turvy seasons in your area?

No matter if you have 2 feet of snow that is still hanging around or it feels like it is practically summer out you should still go outside and have a good time.  I walked along the roof of my office to get a few extra moments in the beautiful weather. Hope to do more walking around outdoors, maybe even up to Federal Hill Park during a lunch break.  A picnic at the park would be great way to spend it.  Meet Me Outdoors.

Exploring Chapel Hill, NC

In need of a vacation I decided to travel to a different state and explore one if its small towns.  I ended up going to Chapel Hill, NC which started in partner with the University of Northern Carolina at Chapel Hill.  I spent most of my first day walking around the college campus.  What I like most about the campus is there is a lot of green space.  Unlike the city where almost everywhere you look is concrete, this campus had lots of lawn space and patches of forest among the buildings. 

Can you see all 7 squirrels? Some you can only see their tail.

I came across some interesting finds as I walked and took some pictures.  This first one on the right is one of my favorites.  If you look carefully enough you will see 7 gray squirrels. They blend in well with the patchy green lawn. This blending in with the surroundings is called camouflage.  I didn't notice them at first as I was walking I heard some chewing sounds and when I looked carefully saw all these squirrels munching on acorns.  So I took a picture of the whole bunch and then of the two squirrels nearest to me.  They didn't seem to mind that I was there, but I did keep my distance so I wouldn't disturb their meal.

Dinner time for squirrels.

I also came across some interesting plants along my walk.  Not sure what half of them are but they rather colorful considering it was end of December.   While North Carolina has a warmer climate than where I live now, but not by much.  I still enjoyed looking at the different plant-life and looking for critters that were still out and about. Below are the various plants I saw as I wondered about Chapel Hill.

Now that it is winter time there were lots of bushes with berries on them.  These bright colored berries are to attract birds who eat them.  The pit or seed of the berry dispersed by the birds.   

I guess the birds aren't the only ones who find them to be attractive, because I took many pictures of berries on my walk, not just red but also blue colored ones.  They reminded me of grapes because they are in large bunches but the leaves are not the right shape for grape leaves.  I was not about to taste a unknown berry since you never know if it is poisonous or not, so I saved them for the birds and other animals to enjoy.

Hikes like this one are great to do as a fun exploration around town, but if you want to have a goal or ideas of ways to make the walk more interactive check out the Exploration page.  I made this into a Photo Safari for me.  The Rainbow Hunt is great activity for autumn.  Now that it is winter maybe you can do some tracking in the snow and be an Animal Track Detective.

Next time you travel see if there are some nature spots to explore.  Bundle up and Meet Me Outdoors.

Pick-Your-Own at Baugher's

Last week I went to a Pick-Your-Own farm that was near me called Baugher's Orchard and Farm.  I originally wanted to do apple picking but that season is over here so I went pumkin picking which was just as fun.  There were lots of families and groups of people of all ages taking part in the adventure of finding a pumpkin to call their own.

It starts with a hayride out to the fields, once there you are set off to find your pumpkin.  There were a variety of pumpkins: big, small, orange, green, white even tan colored.  (The farm's market had some oddly shaped pumpkins even a multi-colored one.) Interestingly enough, a pumpkin is a fruit as it is the part of the plant that holds the seeds like an apple or tomato. They had some trivia cards up for while you wait for the hay ride to take you out there.  Thought I'd share the wisdom.  Another interesting fact is pumpkins are 90% water.  Cool stuff.

I went with some friends to the farm to share in the adventure.  The day before we were going to go it snowed, I still wanted to go and a couple of them were willing to join me.

While most of the pumpkins were a little buried under a thin layer of snow, I was set on finding a perfect pumpkin. You can see the snow in most of these pictures, if not the mud that followed its melting.

By the time we got there, most of the good pumpkins of the big and orange variety that people typically associate with, and use for Halloween carving were picked.  Left behind were some that were broken and some small decorative type pumpkins.  I ended up finding a part of the patch with some small white and orange pumpkins which I thought would be great table decorations for the holidays so I picked it out and brushed off the mud.  As there were a bunch of these in the area my friend grabbed one of his own as you can see in the picture on the right.  We also found some tiny orange ones that looked just as festive.

The adventurer in me wanted to explore more of the pumpkin patch so I got a few more pictures of what I found.  Glad I wore my mud friendly shoes because there certainly was a lot of it as we walked through the patch.

There were lots of families there and one way that Baugher's made the patch even more exciting was setting up a simple slide of large tubing and some hay bales that you can see of the distance of this photo on the left.  When we got closer we saw there was a bit of a mud puddle at the bottom and some carefully placed pumpkins so the slider won't land in the mud.  Needless to say, as big of a mud lover as I am, I was not about to slide down that. It was cold out, and cold and wet don't go well together. But I did see that some adventurous kids did go down, hopefully stopping at the bottom before getting to the mud part. Below is part of the patch that had a bunch of the large orange pumpkins that are great for carving.

Also at Baugher's was a petting zoo.  Most of the animals were typical farm animals like pigs, chickens, sheep, goats and turkeys, though we did come across a lama.  The lama was nice enough to pose for a picture.

After the trip to the pumpkin patch and the petting zoo on the farm we stopped at the market to buy some more fresh from the farm treats.  I got some apples, acorn squash and a spaghetti squash.  I still need to figure out what to do with those, so on the hunt for recipes.  My friends picked out some dried fruit packages and a pie from the market. 

There are lots of Pick-Your-Own farms out there so no matter where you are you can join in the fun.  All you got to do is wait for the fruit or veggie to be in season for picking then go for it.  Some have for strawberry, cherry, peach and apple picking but you have to come at the right time of the year.  For example if you want to go to pick strawberries you would need to go in the spring time, for peaches go in the summer time, apple season is near the end of summer through the early parts of fall.  Each farm will tell you when to come for the pick-your-own items, and some will have markets with the items fresh from the farm that they pick for you.

While the picking season my be over for my area of the world it could still be open for you.  Or perhaps it's just getting started.

Enjoy some farm fresh produce, Meet Me Outdoors.

Revisiting some favorite parks

The weather has been so nice lately I just had to get out of the house and revisit a few of my favorite parks that are here.  I have even taken a stroll around the neighborhood near where I work in Baltimore.  Ended up back at Federal Hill Park, walking up from the back area is much easier than climbing up the stairs on the side by the harbor.  I can now see why it was such a great place for a look out to get a good view of the harbor and incoming ships.  Of course they didn't have the big buildings surrounding the harbor as there is now.  I am glad I made Federal Hill part of the B'more Outdoors SCVNGR trek.  It makes going there even more adventurous as it I get to see other peoples perspectives of the park along with my own.  I hope you get a chance to play along if you are in the Baltimore area, there is a link on the right-hand side of this page that will take you there to see all that you can do. 

Another place that I revisited recently was Patterson Park, which is also a stop on the B'more Outdoors trek.  A fun trivia question must be answered to get the points there.  I have always looked at Patterson Park on a map and can see it is big, but it is not until I get there that I can appreciate how much open green space that is there.  Each time I have been there I seem to find myself looking at it from a whole new location than the time prior.  There were lots of families around, children of all ages, even some walking their dogs.  Let me tell you I think each dog that walked by was a totally different breed, and different sizes too, some small and some big, young and old.  This time I was there to see the lake (pond?) that is in the center of the park.  Seemed to be a whole flock of ducks there.  I recognized some as mallards and others looked similar to mallards but something was different about them. I could tell the female mallards from the male ones as the males have the great iridescent green heads and the females have just a splash of blue on their wings, but there were a few odd ducklings out there as well.  My guess, was that some were blended with another type of duck to give them the interesting patterning, turns out I might be right.  I went to WhatBird and entered what I remembered as the pattern and look of the ducks I saw.  It just seemed like these ducks related to mallards but not a mallard, the America Black Duck might just be the duck I was looking for. 
In general they seems to look like female mallards but with a twist.  Of course I don't think the pictures I have shows enough detail.  According to WhatBird sometimes mallards and the American black duck hybridize so what I saw that was mallard-like but odd, could have been a hybrid.

I really enjoyed my time at Patterson Park.  I think the last time I was there was is spring time, so it was just getting warmer out after a chilly winter.  So from baby ducks to a full grown flock sure seems to be a nice way to experience the seasons.  I didn't have my camera with me the last time I was there but this recent time I got to see the lake and had to take a few while I was there.  This wider shot is still just part of the lake there I couldn't quite capture all of it, perhaps next time I will try to do a panorama shot.  If you look closely at this one, across the water are some of the ducks from earlier but they decided to be a little farther away from the small crowd that was forming on my side of the water. There were a few other water birds along the far side but of course they flew away before I could take a picture of them.  Something to look forward to next time.

I hope you are taking time to go back to your favorite parks and even just to walk around the neighborhood to observe the changing of the seasons as we get farther into autumn.  Perhaps there are some fall festivals you can explore.  Meet Me Outdoors.

Hot days and cooling rains

All across the States there has been reports that this summer so far (we are only half way done) has been filled with days with record breaking heat.  My earlier post 'Wow! It is hot outside!' includes some ideas to stay cool on such hot days.  I have since spent entire afternoons outside when it was very hot out. For example I went to outdoor festival called Artscape, where they had misting cooling stations scattered about so people can have some relief.  Another day I took a walking tour of the Naval Academy in Annapolis with my family, where we sometimes were indoors but other times it was walking across the yard resting under a few shade trees as we learned about the different locations. On both occasions I had a water bottle that I filled up to stay hydrated, had sunblock and a hat to protect me from the Sun's rays. 

I noticed that with the heat wave lots of trees started dropping leaves because there was a small drought in the area.  Once the rain came the trees and plants perked up a bit soaking up all the water that they could.  I am amazed how much a little rain can do to refresh everything and making it green again.  I am sure the animals were happy as well to get a bit of cooling rain.  Last week I was looking out my window and saw a squirrel digging a small hole under a bush so that it could hide low in the shade of the plant.  I tried to take a picture but the animal was so well camouflaged as I looked through the window but it didn't come out well enough.  I was happy to see that even the squirrels find a way to stay cool when it is super hot outside in the summer time. I hope the little guy was happy when it rained as much as I was.  Have you noticed any changes like I have with the weather?

You don't have to go far to enjoy the great outdoors, and on some of these super hot days a small excursion to your backyard or near by park is all that is needed.  The Maryland Science Center has a whole weekend dedicated to this type of adventure called Backyard Science Days filled with animal encounters and hands-on activities for visitors to take part in. This year it is happening on the weekend of August 12 -13 in the afternoon. If you are in the area and are looking for something fun to do you should come check it out.

I hope you can join me in enjoying the nice weather we have as the summer continues.  Stay cool, Meet Me Outdoors.