Outdoor Hour

The girls were matching today...they both wore brown pants and gray shirts. And they even managed to match when we went outside with sweatshirts and vests. Best friends and sisters!

It's Wednesday again! Yay! It was a bit chilly today for our nature time outdoors, but it IS still January so I guess that's okay. We just bundled up and ventured out, knowing a lovely cup of tea could warm us up when we got back.

Our dining room table turned research station.

Before heading out on our walk we spent some time reading and doing some research on the wind and weather. We enjoyed reading about measuring wind speed with the Beaufort Scale, and measuring direction with a weather vane. We even had a tiny bit of actual, real wind today! According to the Beaufort Scale it was about a Force 1, which is 1-3 mph. We also created our own weather vane thanks to some directions in a library book. Now we can record wind direction on our weather chart every day.

Weather vane

For our nature walk today we decided to take pictures of the weather for today. The girls absolutely loved this and we of course ended up taking pictures of other stuff too! There is always so much to see as it seems like everything changes constantly. This week there isn't much snow on the ground so we didn't see anymore animal tracks, but we enjoyed observing dormant plants and bare tree branches and of course all of the interesting clouds and weather changes. Just in the time we were outside we had sunshine and lots of cumulus clouds, wind, and dark, heavy clouds, and more sun again.

Ellie used my iPhone to take her pictures.

Hannah had lots of fun using my Nikon for her pictures

Hannah captured some of the clouds and blue sky we enjoyed today.

Also some of the dark clouds hiding the mountains and changing over our heads.

Love this one that H took showing the sky, the brown grasses and bare trees.

Spotted leaves that caught her attention.

Some leaves still clinging to their tree.

More gray clouds moving in. Love how the trees are silhouetted here.

Some cool ice melt formation Hannah found.

And a picture of her sister taking pictures.

Ellie took this great picture of the sunshine and shadows.

Close up of a dead thistle. We see LOTS of these where we go walking. It was fascinating for the girls to see them in the winter now and observe the changes.

More sunshine which was welcome on this chilly day.

Ellie loved this dormant sage brush(?need to figure out for sure what it is). She wants to draw it in her nature journal too.

Sister taking pictures.

More sleeping trees.

Ellie's ice she found.

We had a great time even though it was chilly and our hands got icy cold from taking pictures. It is always so much fun to get outside and spend time with my girls, exploring the nature around us. The photography was a big hit, and will definitely have to be something we do again. It is fun to see the world through a different lens. Ha!

Blessings!