Outdoor Hour - Cattails in the Winter

We headed out side for a nature walk this week. Before we get rain, I figured we needed to get out.

My kids never seem to forget the things we have already studied or looked at. They love to point out the plants or things they see along the way. Sophie wanted to pick a bunch of this minor's lettuce so we could add it to our salad at dinner. Knowing that this is a trail a lot of people use to walk their dogs, I decided not to. But I was happy to see that she remembers the plant and that it is edible.
The purpose of our walk this week we headed out to look at Cattails again. We looked at them in the Fall and now we went back to the same place again to see what has changed in the last few months.
In the early autumn, the grass all around the little stream was dry. Now everything, thanks to a few good rain storms, looked green. What has changed, is that the cattail stalks, that were green are now all yellow. It isn't because of lack of water. There has been tons of water.
Picking off the cattail was pretty easy and the kids had a great time tearing them apart. This is my kids favorite part of cattails.
This time we took a moment to look at the stalk after all the seeds and fluff was pulled off. It was still soft and had lots of little hairs.
Then of course we had to go scatter those seeds some more so that there will be more cattails for next time.
They especially liked to watch the fluff float down the stream.
On the walk back we spotted some signs of Spring already. These should be popping open in a few months. We are going to have to walk back this way to see them.

What a refreshing walk. I really need to make sure we take these walks more often.