Wasps Nest
When we were out hiking at Knob Noster State Park we came across an old wasp nest laying on the ground. This is a paper wasp nest, which is characterized by open combs for brood rearing.
Hoerman's House
My life day to day
Archive for the tag “outdoors”
Deer Tracks
Found this perfect deer track in the mud. It is the print of a doe. We looked all over to see if we could find those of a buck for comparison. No luck.
Hen of the Woods
Also known as Maitake mushroom, grifola fondosa, sheep’s head or ram’s head. It is an edible mushroom, that I hear is quite tasty. I would love to try it sometime. They grow at the base of oak trees or stumps and are a pore fungus (polypore) and lack gills.
Wooly Bear
This is a wooly bear caterpillar. I grew up calling them wooly worms. This is the larval form of the Isabella Tiger Moth. This caterpillar, according to legend, forecasts the coming winter weather. Again I defer to the Old Farmers Almanac, (http://www.almanac.com/content/predicting-winter-weather-woolly-bear-caterpillars), “the wider that middle brown section is (i.e., the more brown segments there are), the milder the coming winter will be. Conversely, a narrow brown band is said to predict a harsh winter. ” So, it is the wooly worm vs the persimmon seed in weather prediction. I am voting for the wooly worm 🙂
Fawn Mushroom
Yep, another day of fungus. As I said, we saw a ton of different mushrooms on our hike last Friday. This is a fawn mushroom….I think. According to the Missouri Department of Conservation the fawn mushroom is edible, but eater beware, it has many lookalikes that are poisonous.
Puffball Mushroom
I believe this is a puffball, but I am not sure what kind exactly. Being in a state park we weren’t able to pick the mushroom to investigate it further, and I can’t find anything that looks like it on Missouri Department of conservation website.
Acorn
While Glen and I were at Knob Noster State Park hiking the trails we saw lots of neat things. There were a lot of oak trees that have dropped a lot of acorns. This one particular acorn caught our eye. It was cracked open so we could see the nut inside, which was reddish in color. I have never seen an acorn with red meat and I am not able to find anywhere on the “all knowing internet” as to why it would be red. We did get a lot of rain last week and maybe it had been soaking in some muddy water and the tannins in the nut made it turn red…..that is my best guess.
Discovery
Took a walk around our property a few days ago and discovered these wheels. Need to think of something clever to do with them. It would be easier if I had any artistic or gardening ability at all. Will have to take a look around on pinterest 🙂
Fly Over
Living where we do, we often times have aircraft from Whiteman Airforce Base flying over our house.
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