So for my August Something Old, Something New challenge I decided to take up nature journaling. Last week, I saw an advertisement for a Nature Journaling Hike being offered by the Parks & Recreation Dept, so I signed up.
Our instructor told us that nature journaling is about observation, not necessarily art, but I couldn't resist getting out my paints and adding a little color to my drawing. Then we were supposed to identify the plant, which is so easy to do these days with a camera and an app on your phone. But the last thing we were supposed to do was write a haiku poem to describe what we were looking at. Good grief, I think the last time I wrote a poem was for Maude Rogers English class in high school. Luckily a haiku poem is fairly easy - only 3 lines with 5 syllables, 7 syllables, and 5 syllables. I was going to copy off the 10-year-old boy standing next to me, but he was writing about a purple flower. It didn't fit with my picture. (The blue writing around the outside is my attempt at a poem.)
It's been really hot around here, but I went down early to Castle Rock on Monday for a bike ride. First, I stopped off at the Oo-de-Lally coffee shop. You can tell it's women-owned by all the pink on the building, plus their menu is much more varied than a regular coffee shop. I had the Coconutty mocha and avocado toast. Yum!
Then I rode the Settler's Gulch Trail. It went through this little park with lots of different seating areas, so I stopped and did one of my nature sketches on the way back. I could have probably filled up the entire book with just this park, but it was starting to get really hot.
The one thing about living in Colorado is that we have sun most days, but in the afternoons, we can get some sudden storms. We had a hailstorm back in June, which was pretty strong. But now half my neighbors are getting new roofs put on. It seems a little extreme to me, given that our houses are less than 5 years old; but I guess if they and their insurance companies are willing to shell out $10K apiece (roof deductibles are very high here), more power to them. It sure keeps the roofers in business.
