Take a Hike...with me
"Peel your eyes, everybody!"
When my little flock of children was a bit younger, and we were just starting out with formal nature study, I’d often try to spend our car ride talking about what we might see on our adventure. “Keep your eyes peeled…” was my mantra. Then, one day, my very precocious two-year-old hollered from the back seat, “Peel your eyes, everybody!” She was already anticipating what was coming. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but she knew she was supposed to be looking. And our mantra changed, because there is seriously nothing cuter than a toddler yelling “Peel your eyes” every week. Occasionally we’ll yell, “Be like a banana!” (get it?) But it’s definitely not as cute.
One of our usual nature walk locations is a little farther away, and we often have our best “peel your eyes” conversations on that drive. I thought I’d take a walk down memory lane and recall our favorite things to anticipate seeing during each season at this particular spot.
In spring, our favorite sight is obviously wildflowers. This specific trail is frequented more often than others during spring because we get a great mix of lower- and higher-elevation flowers. We’ve been hiking this area for about seven years now, and only twice have we seen a shooting star. We keep our eyes peeled for it every spring. It’s elusive at lower elevations, and when we have seen it, it’s usually a lone stem hidden away somewhere. But the times we have seen the flaming fuchsia petals arched backward from the drooping head, have only fueled our desire each spring to catch another peek. But we also keep our eyes peeled for more common flowers. A favorite is called baby blue eye and is the harbinger of wildflower season. It’s also the first wildflower I learned to identify on my own. Its violet-hued veins on creamy petals trail down into a smattering of freckles near the center of the flower (our version is more white than blue). The hillside along the trailhead of this nature walk will bloom with these first in early spring, and then we know to “peel our eyes” in the weeks that follow for the dozens of other flowers sprouting in their wake.
In summer most of our wildflowers have withered in the heat. Along with the grass. And the moms. Summer is my least favorite season for nature walks. Everything is baked and crispy. But the snakes and frogs and lizards love the summer mornings. Which means my kiddos also love summer explorations. When we aren't in the middle of a drought, the stream may still be running at the beginning of summer. I gather from my observations that there is nothing better than playing in the creek on a warm summer morning and catching tadpoles and looking under rocks for garter snakes. On the walk back to the car we listen to the quick scurrying sounds through the dry grass, which usually means a lizard is avoiding our feet.
If snakes and lizards and frogs aren’t enough to get excited about, then fall should do the trick. In October we are keeping our eyes peeled for one thing and one thing only. Tarantulas. We took one docent-led hike to learn all about tarantulas, and now we get excited every fall to spot an ill-fated male on the hunt for a little companionship. It turns out they are much more harmless than I remember being taught, as one of my friends will regularly pick them up when she sees them. They are most active before sundown as the males begin their search for a mate with high hopes. But we’ve also found them in the mornings, exhausted after a night on the prowl, dejected, but alive. While on the lookout for tarantulas, we also keep our eyes open for tarantula hawks, a beautiful bright blue wasp that likes to paralyze its victim, drag it back to its nest, and lay eggs in the body. The wasp’s young then eat the still-living tarantula when they hatch. Apparently, a sting from one of these wasps is excruciatingly painful. All those warnings as a child to avoid tarantulas should've been reserved for the wasps instead.
If you thought fall nature hikes sounded lively, wait until you hear about winter. Around here, everything starts to come alive in the winter months. Hopefully, it starts to rain, and the grass is green, and more animals start venturing out later in the day while temps don’t rise too high. Our first winter exploring this spot was a particularly rainy one. And when I stepped off the trail the first time, I looked down and saw the carpet of leaf litter start to move. I paused and as my eyes started to focus, I saw a slow and creeping movement from under the leaves. Watching where we stepped, we stooped down and found newts everywhere. All of them were crawling south, straight towards the creek. We’d stumbled upon the breeding migration of the California newt. Its orange and brown coloration makes its movement perfectly camouflaged in the fallen leaves along the creek banks. If we keep our eyes peeled, we might even see some rough-skinned newts, ensatinas, slender salamanders, and arboreal salamanders. The earth itself feels like a moving, breathing thing when you stand in the middle of a newt migration.
I haven’t had the keep-your-eyes-peeled conversation with my kids in a while. I’ve gotten lazier about prepping us for nature study, and we often use our outings as more of a social opportunity. But this morning, I got out the nature journals to see what kinds of things we journaled about in each season. It’s a good way to reflect and recall the things that excited us when we were first learning about our favorite hiking spot. I never started a book of firsts, which Charlotte Mason used in her schools, and I now wish I had. It would be a great tool for helping kids to keep their eyes peeled for favorite things in the appropriate season. Perhaps this will be the motivation I need to start one now. Because even when my kids are grown and moved away, I want to remember the advice of my two-year-old, and always hear that sweet toddler voice reminding me to “Peel My Eyes!”
Sarah Jonnalagadda 2023