Nature Walk

Today for part of our science, Younger Son and I went on a "nature walk" down by the arena and fairgrounds and back.


We saw:


Cottonwood trees rustling in the breeze.
The canyon.
The red dirt in the arena.
Walnuts.
Stickers.
Red ant dens.
Red ants carrying things, getting ready for winter.
An abandoned chest under the bridge.
(I did NOT let him check it out!)
Stagnant water. (It rained night before last.)
At least 3 kinds of dragonflies.
A pothole.
A turtle that moved VERY FAST up a gravel driveway!
Two loose, yapping dogs that made us test our dog weapons.


I brought back a handful of walnuts in the hull for Younger Son to experiment with to see if he could open them, and to see what they looked like on the inside. Those are our "dog weapons" we took with us - he had a golf club and I had a big, heavy iron rod. Any dog that comes at me is going to have a big, long-lasting headache.


>>WHANG!!!!<<




Younger Son trying to open the walnuts.




He initially used pliers. I suggested a hammer.




But he did get the hull broken with the pliers.




The walnut from inside the hull.




Then he got the hammer out.




"The Great Walnut Experiment."




Whack!!! That worked, too.




He got the hulls off of all three walnuts, here are two of them with part of the broken hulls. I told him that the "juice" would stain. He said something not long after that about the "green goo" on his hands!




Walnuts and hulls. Maybe the resident squirrel will come get them and add to his storage for the winter.