Live Oak Trail

If you live in Orange County and haven't taken a drive through Live Oak Trail, you're missing out. It starts on one end at Cook's Corner which is on El Toro Road on one side, Santiago Canyon Road on the other. (Santiago Canyon starts right by Irvine Park) On the other end of Live Oak Trail is Trabuco Canyon Road which turns into Plano Trabuco Drive and takes you right into Rancho Santa Margarita and the 241.


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With cross streets with names like "Hunca Munca" and "Honkey Dory", horse stables, grazing cows, beautiful wildflowers and over-arching oaks along the way, it's a fun Spring drive for the whole family.

O'Neill Regional Park is right along the way so you can stop by and take the kids up and around Edna Spaulding Trail. Parking is $3 on weekdays, $5 on weekends and you'll want to avoid hot days. The hike can get pretty miserable, but on a cool day in the Spring, it's wildflower heaven.

Coulter's Matilija Poppy (AKA The Fried Egg Flower)

California Everlasting - smells wonderful






















Golden Yarrow along the trail.





















And don't forget to stop by the Trabuco General Store on your way home. There's a lot to look around at...

and they have old fashioned sodas and cucumber chili popsicles! I didn't have the nerve to try it this time, but now I'm kind of wishing I had just to say I did.

So grab your kids and hurry on out before the wildflowers and chili pops are all gone!

Fossils in the Creek

If you live locally, you're going to love me for this post.

This past month, the Lord, in all His wisdom and grace has providentially, pointed us to the most fantastic little nature outing! You will never believe this place exists in OC.

And the best part is that there are NO RANGERS to tell your kids what they can't touch!! (No offense, I like the good kind of rangers, just not this kind.)

So the schedule was adjusted and our CM nature study group headed there this past week. What's so great about it?

Well... there's a creek, with rocks, and trees...






A creek side Eucalyptus grove that feels like a forest to a little person...



I can hear the non-natives snickering now, but alas, this and Gum Grove are about as close to a forest as our kids will get without heading into the foothills.




A hollow Sycamore tree with mangled roots for climbing...



and steps inside heading all the way up if you're the dangerous type...

(to get up these you have to rest your entire weight on them at one point, and they're old, so if you go, and your man knows about these things, bring him with you, have him check how sturdy they are, then let me know. Being that I have 3 lives completely dependent on mine, I opted against it. I did get confirmation this past week that a young adult recently climbed up it, so do what you will.)



these boys thought it was the perfect place to have their lunch...



They found this dead skunk - surprisingly, it didn't smell bad... yet.



another found these frog eggs. See the tadpoles ready to hatch?




There was a recitation - look at that smile of joy as he shared a fun poem with friends. A beautiful thing.




And there are oh so many kinds of rocks in the creek...




While we don't study rocks until YR4 with Ambleside, it's never too early to put them in touch with 'things'...




Nature teaches so gently, so gradually, so persistently, that he is never overdone, but goes on gathering little stores of knowledge about whatever comes before him. ~Charlotte Mason



A Child learns from 'Things.'--We older people, partly because of our maturer intellect, partly because of our defective education, get most of our knowledge through the medium of words. We set the child to learn in the same way, and find him dull and slow. Why? Because it is only with a few words in common use that he associates a definite meaning; all the rest are no more to him than the vocables of a foreign tongue. But set him face to face with a thing, and he is twenty times as quick as you are in knowledge about it; knowledge of things flies to the mind of a child as steel filings to magnet. ~Charlotte Mason







And this never gets old does it?



But wait, it get's better... there are fossils in the creek!!










and even better...

A complete whale skull, seen in this picture below, was discovered in this very creek just a few years ago.




So in case you're local and want to go, here are directions to the locations we went to:

For the hollow tree, enter the creek trail by the circle at the end of Manalastas and head Southwest (to the left). It takes you, in less than 5 minutes, through a small grove of Orange Trees and the tree is on the right side, not completely obvious so have the kids look for it. There's a cliff here so it's harrowing for the little ones. My suggestion: Take them down to the creek to putz around instead of trying to keep them away - one of ours came very close but for the grace of God. Just northeast of here, before the bridge is where the whale fossil was found.

The grove of Eucalyptus trees creek side with tons of rocks and a tree fort with a bee hive can be found by entering the trail here and heading Southwest. The area is a bit seedier with graffiti, broken bottles, and foul mouthed teenagers hanging out after school (at least it was like that when we went) so you may just want to find a better spot heading Northeast of Trabuco or make sure you go during school hours.

Happy exploring!

Oh, and this can happen too so bring a first aid kit!

Rancho Mission Viejo

More interesting finds from our ventures outdoors this week.

Today's pictures are from a hike we took up into the hills from the parking lot at Remington Senior Apartments, right by the fire station. There's a trail across from the fire station that heads down into the cover of some very, very large, climbable oak trees.




You'll see paths and hills carved into the trail by dirt-bikers. The kids love running up and down them.




The trail winds through the oaks then comes out into the sunshine for a bit of an uphill climb. One section is really steep, but gets you up to the ridge for some really beautiful views.






Here's what we saw...

Ground Pink



Lupine



Splendid Mariposa Lily as it looked on our way up the hill



The same lily as the sun was setting on the way down - it closed




Wishbone Bush



Wild Cucumber



Salamander - found this guy while digging with a stick through the fallen oak leaves in the shade. I thought it was an earth worm and was about to show it to my 2 year old when I noticed its head looked different and it had legs.



Horehound - I see this everywhere now. You can boil the leaves to make a sore throat remedy. You can also make horehound candy with it.



The next pictures are from earlier in the week at the tidepools in Laguna Beach.

Unidentified caterpillar on deerweed



I believe this is some kind of coralline algae - pretty



goose neck barnacles, they look like crab claws





And last but not least, a bit of a poem from our studies this week...

Mother-my-love, if you'll give me your hand,
And go where I ask you to wander,
I will lead you away to a beautiful land
The Dreamland that's waiting out yonder.

~from Child and Mother by Eugene Field

A Conspiracy at the Mudflats

My daughter pointed out that the water level was noticeably higher when we arrived at the Newport Mudflats on Thursday. It is one of the few remaining estuaries in California, and I had read that several times, but it wasn't until today that I actually learned what that really meant.



After some searching, I found a lab manual from Fullerton College discussing the ecology of this area and here are some interesting things it says about this area:

...an estuary is an embayment along the coast of an ocean, with a generally steady supply of freshwater washed down from rivers. An estuary is a sort of mixing zone where water from the sea and water from the land meet each other.

The water environments in Upper Newport Bay are always changing. For example, during a flood tide (when the tide is coming in), sea water pushes into the bay, raises the water level and salinity, and changes the water temperature. During ebb tide, sea water retreats, the water level and salinity are lowered, and water temperature changes again. Tides strongly influence activity in the estuary. Each day, the bay experiences two high tides and two low tides.

The zone where these two water resources meet and mix is called the Null Zone. It consists of brackish water — less salty than sea water, and more salty than freshwater.

You can read the rest of the manual here. So interesting to read after knowing it first.

There were many shorebirds - I recognized willets, there were probably sandpipers, dowitchers, and godwits as well.



And here is a 'conspiracy' of black skimmers - the only bird in the US with a bigger lower mandible than upper. They drag their lower bills through the water to catch small fish.





Mudsnails...




We found a bunch of these Bermuda Sorrel - aka Bermuda Buttercup, African Woodsorrel, Sourgrass by the head of the trail where we park. The kids love the sour taste of their stems.