Butterflies

Since geocaching gets you out into nature, we have opportunities to see things many others do not. Homeschooling drives this statement further as we can explore outdoors during the daytime. Many people are not able to do this, and we are thankful that we can.

Early springtime here has brought first sightings of many heralds of the season. Members of the Iowa Native Plants list have reported hearing frogs (peepers and chorus frogs) and butterflies. The boys and I saw commas on March 17. I am not sure if there were four or five commas, but seeing them lifts your spirit this time of year. Harlan Ratcliff mentions other butterfly sightings (as well as my sighting) at his website, Poweshiek Skipper. This photo comes from his website.

For the other heralds of spring, we've checked a nearby pond where we've heard and seen frogs, but haven't heard a thing for two weeks. Our plan is to check again tomorrow, for a third week. We remember that the past two years have had some "peeping" but it wasn't strong until late April. So strong that you need to shout in order to be heard.

Galls

We found an entire bush covered in galls on the way to the Fairy Door. I am unable to link to the 'owner' of the waypoint -- his blog has become "by invitation only." It is also Seamus' Cache, GC18Y0C. I was pretty happy to spot the galls after two or three failed attempts earlier this month.

We smirk now, every time we see a redcedar growing under a telephone wire -- you have to read _Discover Nature in Winter_ to understand. I think our relationship with that tree will increase as time passes because we read about it.

According to the same book, "Gall insects account for an enormous amount of the protein that birds, bats, squirrels, chipmunks, mice, and other animals use for food."

100 Species Challenge #42

Specimen #42 Black Knot Fungus

Apiosporina morbosa

Photo by me, Ft. Des Moines Park

Occurs on plum and cherry trees. Native to North America. You might be able to see the horizontal lenticels (breathing holes. See _Discover Nature in Winter_.) on the branch in the upper right.

I have not read anything that says this organism has a use for humans. We see this fungus fairly often in all of our walks all over the state. It is hard and looks black and dry. The form is irregular.

Find #192

Ft. Des Moines Park has a special place in my heart, as it was the place where our homeschool journey really took off. Recent years have been a struggle when considering all of the talk about changing the park.

Today, the boys and I searched for a geocache at the park. We saw commas flying (and resting) in a nice vibrant orange, checked on one of the ruins and found a badger sett, and generally had a nice time. This is a great time of year to hike.

It is difficult to understand the size of a sett until you see one. The holes are just too big to be anything else. Everyone was too chicken to stand near the hole for scale. I think the boys were remembering _Incident at Hawk's Hill_. We've seen much larger ones at Southwoods Park.

100 Species Challenge #41

Specimen #41 Eastern Redcedar

Juniperus virginiana

photo by me, taken in West Des Moines
March 2009

This is the tree discussed at length in Discover Nature in Winter. It is not really a cedar, but a juniper. One new thing that I learned about this tree from my own research is that male trees are one of the first trees to flower and that you can cause the tree to "smoke" by gently swatting the branches. (see Great Plains Nature Center in Witchita, KS for details).

Of course, the ethnobotany database at U Mich tells us that natives used this plant for everything. This tree has more listings in the database than any species I've found. I want to get closer once the ground dries out more, see if this is male or female and look for bagworm sacks. I need to be in the area anyway, as I work my way to GC1N83A Woman's Best Friend and 200 finds.

Find #191 -- Sap flow

Seen on the way back from GC1J0VQ Twin Cottonwood Colonel's Offset on March 5. The sap is flowing. The warm days and cold nights of the past few weeks (but definitely not this week!) work to pump the sap up and down the tree. In the early days of this pumping, the sugar in the roots and bottom of the tree are carried in high concentration to the limbs. The sugar is converted to starch later in the season. Sap collected at this time gives "woody" tasting syrup. We had some when we tapped my in-laws tree. Ick.

Wet streaks running down the trees were a common sight when I took this photo. You can also see that this particular branch has a "buddy" directly opposite -- maples and box elders have this pattern. You can tap both for sap.

Iowa is on the southwestern edge of maple syrup country. It is not an industry here as it is in other states. I have heard that Cedar Rapids, Kossuth County, and Cedar Falls all have Maple Syrup Festivals. I also heard of one in Warren County, but haven't found info on it. We attended a group maple tapping class years ago near Cedar Rapids and loved it. We find group classes easy to schedule and more focused and educational than public festivals. Ours was given by the staff of Indian Creek Nature Center.

100 Species Challenge #40

Specimen #40 Common Milkweed

Asclepias syriaca

Photo by me, March 2009.
Raccoon River Nature Park

The "milk" in the name has to refer to the latex, or juice, that comes from the broken stem of this plant. Milkweed is the host plant for monarch butterflies. If you want to see butterflies, you want this "weed."

As always, the Native American uses are listed in the University of Michigan, Dearborn, database. It reports that natives used the plant as medicine (mainly for women, but also for others), for food, for thread and bowstrings, for glue, and for chewing gum (Mom's cousin Mike told me this when I was younger).

The article here has very interesting facts about the milkweed. It is too long to copy here. And from 2binthewild:

Historical Lore: Despite it's toxicity the very young shoots and leaves and the newly formed seedpods can be eaten if boiled in two or three waters discarding these to remove the toxins and bitterness before cooking. The young shoots are sometimes referred to as Wild Asparagus. There are accounts of sugar being made by pressing fresh flowers and cooking down the juice.

The silky down of the seeds has been used to fill bedding and life jackets and was once thought to have a future as a commercial fiber. The fiber from the stems was also used much like Indian Hemp, Apocynum cannabinum.

Medical Uses: The down of the seed has been used to dress wounds and the latex like sap applied to various skin eruptions. There are several accounts of the root along with the root of Jack in the Pulpit, Arisaema triphyllum being used by Native American women to prevent conception. A root tea has been used by various tribes as a diuretic, expectarant and for any number of medical conditions including respiratory conditions, joint pain and digestive problems. Warning:This plant, especially the root is considered toxic!

Find #191 and Nature

My next big milestone would be 200 finds. If I were to put a date to hit the milestone on, I would pick March 21. That is in 17 days and falls on the first day of spring. Nine more finds.

I got closer to 200 today as I picked up find #191 GC1J0VQ Twin Cottonwood Colonels' Offset. This might be my first offset cache find. An offset cache can be a few things, and in this case it involves finding one container, and it is not at the coordinates listed. Instead, it is in the vicinity of the coordinates. You have to use your geo-sense. Sometimes you must solve a puzzle or find another container with different coords to get the final location of the container.

Because we recently read about insects in winter, we searched for evidence of insects. I always need to keep things fresh and new to keep a familiar place from getting boring. Books has been good that way. We did not spot any galls or scales or larvae that were described in our book. But we did find worm wood. "N" of GAIN was peeling bark off a fallen stick and uncovered the tracks of some larvae. After inspection, he and "I" of GAIN found some holes -- either the mom's entry hole or a baby's exit hole. I also found worm wood near the cache. I don't know that I would have had access to this worm wood once everything leafed out. This was in a low, boggy area where the kids had fun breaking the remains of ice sheets.

I find a lot of value to hiking in the winter. I see more things and go more places without underbrush. But there is more. For example, the sheets of ice in and near the river. Click on the pictures so you can see the details. The birds' nests. This one, and another one that I photographed were found a little higher than my knee. I have a bird nest ID book that I hope to use. Having your hand in the photo is nice to have a sense of scale when you look things up in the reference books.The seed pods (there is a chapter on winter weeds that I did not read aloud). The low volume of foot traffic -- big bonus! The many migrating birds, their noise, and their scat. Gotta keep on your toes with all the scat. Sometimes we get to see other animals and their tracks. Today the water was very high, so not much mud bank was visible for tracking.