Anna's nature walk

In the spirit of autumnal exploration, Anna and I went for a nature walk this morning. It was so fun! The edge of our neighbourhood borders a little wooded area, so we set off to explore fall colours and plants.

First we collected some acorns and talked about their little hats....



... and decided to try one on! We learned that acorns wear smaller hats than toddlers.




Then we looked at different kinds of stones, and found two that looked "same-same" :)






And then we found a big stick to stir the leaves with and listened to their crunchy sounds :)



And it turns out that children aren't the only ones that can learn things on nature walks. Not having grown up with the beast that is poison ivy, I haven't learned very well to watch for it when playing outside. I do know it has the characteristic three leaves, however, and half way through our walk I realised we were playing quite close to a lot of pretty red leaves - that all came in clumps of three! I've only ever seen green poison ivy in the summer so I wasn't sure what it would look like in the fall. I pulled out my iPhone and consulted google, and sure enough .... "Poison ivy leaves turn a vivid red in the fall. It is usually one of the first plants to change." (Good info here)

We scrubbed our hands, took baths and the laundry is on! So hopefully if it was in fact poison ivy that's the last we'll hear of it. Watch this space....!