In our area there are a lot of crabapple trees being planted, and as you can see many of the apples are left on the trees. Even though this variety of crabapple doesn't produce edible fruit for people, birds do come eat them. Also, the blossoms in spring STINK!! I remember feeling sick anytime I get a whiff, so I don't know why anyone wants to plant them.
The kids and I talked at length about these trees at our community park. The park is at the edge of the community and gets the full force of the winds blowing from the mountains, as is evident from their bowing.
This is a close up picture of a juniper tree. You can see all the berries (seeds) hanging from the branches. My son fondly remembers having wars with his uncle by picking off the berries and throwing them at each other, so his sister and I were pelted throughout our hike.
The kids loved this unique tree. To the left and right you can see the dead tree limbs from a time when most of the tree died, but as you can see from the growth in the middle its not dead yet. Which reminds me of an interesting discussion on NPR yesterday about scientists naming fruit fly genes after weird things, and one gene was called I.N.D.Y, I'm Not Dead Yet from the Monty Python scene of the body collector calling our "Bring out your dead" and one man placed on the wagon calls out "I'm not dead yet!". Apparently the gene helps the fruit flies live, thus the name. The discussion was about the weird names are being changed because they may be offensive if/once they are discovered in humans and told to patients. Anyways, sorry for the long tangent.
And, of course, the kids favorite thing about trees is getting to climb on them!!
In our area there are a lot of crabapple trees being planted, and as you can see many of the apples are left on the trees. Even though this variety of crabapple doesn't produce edible fruit for people, birds do come eat them. Also, the blossoms in spring STINK!! I remember feeling sick anytime I get a whiff, so I don't know why anyone wants to plant them. 
The kids and I talked at length about these trees at our community park. The park is at the edge of the community and gets the full force of the winds blowing from the mountains, as is evident from their bowing.
This is a close up picture of a juniper tree. You can see all the berries (seeds) hanging from the branches. My son fondly remembers having wars with his uncle by picking off the berries and throwing them at each other, so his sister and I were pelted throughout our hike.
The kids loved this unique tree. To the left and right you can see the dead tree limbs from a time when most of the tree died, but as you can see from the growth in the middle its not dead yet. Which reminds me of an interesting discussion on NPR yesterday about scientists naming fruit fly genes after weird things, and one gene was called I.N.D.Y, I'm Not Dead Yet from the Monty Python scene of the body collector calling our "Bring out your dead" and one man placed on the wagon calls out "I'm not dead yet!". Apparently the gene helps the fruit flies live, thus the name. The discussion was about the weird names are being changed because they may be offensive if/once they are discovered in humans and told to patients. Anyways, sorry for the long tangent.
And, of course, the kids favorite thing about trees is getting to climb on them!!
Nice pictures. I really like the tall, thin ones.
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You have a really nice start to your homeschooling nature blog! Wonderful pictures. What fun hikes!
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