The Blanch Herd: Out There {June 2022}

June is such a lovely month to be outside (minus the whole pollen situation that peaks that month). We tried to make the most of it!

1 June 2022: Morning Walk Around the Loop

With fog, or at least a very low-lying cloud over the lake!

3 June 2022: Lawnmowing aka Pollen Collection

Remember what I said up top about pollen? Yeah, it was intense!

4 June 2022: Skyline South Trail

I wanted to hike on Skyline during peak mules ear season, so we made a morning of it early in June (before our birthday bowling bash).

Love to see her wearing the vest she designed
and sewed with Grandma B, using it just as she
intended!

So good to see so much water in the reservoir!

5 June 2022: Sunday Walk to the Park

The clouds were cool. 'Nuff said.

6 June 2022: Monday Night Bikes - North Fork Corrals to Environmental Center

Since we had two bigger bikes for the kids, we needed a bigger bike rack to hold them (they weren't going to fit in the back of the Sube very easily anymore). We snagged a decent and good priced rack at walmart and - wahoo! - they all fit like a glove! So we tested out the set up for our first ever Monday Night Mountain Bike ride. We parked at the corrals in North Fork Park and rode along the dirt road that ends up at the environmental center. We played some disc golf, then most of us continued on down the road to the gate while Gregg headed back to get the car and met us at the bottom. It was a beautiful evening and a fun time, even if it was a bit challenging for some of us.

Pretty country in these parts, especially at golden hour.

10 June 2022: Walk to the Lake

I never necessarily intended to create a photo record of when flowers bloom (or when it snows, or when the leaves turn, or how high the reservoir was or whatever), but just my taking a picture of something I find beautiful or amusing or noteworthy has turned out to be so helpful (or at least interesting) to me as memories pop up on my phone at certain times of the year and I can compare whatever is happening now to what was happening then. Same goes for the poppy pics. They serve as a sort of calendar. I think they were a bit late this year, and not nearly as many as there used to be (thanks to some road work in the past couple of years and maybe the drought?).

Same goes for the pics of the reservoir. Look! The water was covering the road this year, hallelujah!

I'm taking this one from a shady spot we've used when playing at the beach in the past.
Often the lake is a long walk down the hill to get to the water, but right now, it's high!
Also note the stick poked into the sand at the edge of the water. We walked down
here multiple days in a row to watch the marking sticks move higher and higher up the shore
as someone (who knows who?) planted a stick at the edge of the water every day.
Just like Christopher Robin did when The Hundred Acre Wood was flooding!

10 June 2022: Ogden Botanical Garden Roses

A tradition when June hits - we have to visit the rose garden at full bloom!

All these colors growing from one bush!

Very chrysanthemum-like coloring here.

So many petals! I love these ones.

11 June 2022: Ragnar Watchers

Megan ran the Ragnar relay with some of her friends and she got the leg that ended in Liberty, so we made sure to head over to cheer her on her last miles.

She came to our house to refill her water jug after she finished
that leg, so we got a group shot then.

11 June 2022: Evening Solo Walk

It was a lovely evening for a walk, so I took one.

13 June 2022: Rainy Day

It rained all morning for the first day of soccer camp! The kids didn't mind, and neither did I since water is so precious in the summer.

Pollen puddle.

Moody evening view from the backyard.

14 June 2022: Old Highway Trail

I snuck out for a quick walk/hike on the trail above the Old Highway beach. It was lovely. And the water is rising!!

Pelicans!

17 June 2022: Old Highway Trail

Another walk/hike, this time in the early morning hours before everyone else got up. The clouds and the light made things look so magical on this "ordinary" trail. I loved it!

Checking on the poppy situation by the park.

the highest we've seen in a few years, but definitely
not the highest it has been.

Swimming pelicans!

I mean, really! This is my morning walk!

Water level actually dropping already from its highest point this summer.

Those Creagers sure have a nice spot.

18 June 2022: Indian Trail

A new-to-us hike! We don't get those around here too often anymore, but this is one we've been meaning to try forever since we drive past it all the time in Ogden Canyon (right by the Smokey the Bear sign). It was a climb at first, but then turned into a lovely ramble. We attempted to find a geocache, but were unsuccessful.

So lush this time of year!

Don't know what this was but I wanted to document.
It was a little squishy, like full of air, sort of a blister over the leaf.

27 June 2022: Monday Night Hike - Hidden Lake

We headed to Powder Mountain for a lovely evening hike/picnic/geocache at Hidden Lake.

If I remember right, Gregg was the one who spotted
this geocache.

Oh! The paintbrush were pretty!

Be still my heart!

Hello Cache Valley!

I spy Hidden Lake from above.

28 June 2022: Morning Walk

Past the park and on to the Old Highway Trail. (I just keep ending up there every morning!) Would ya look at those clouds!!

28 June 2022: Young Women's Activity

We had a camp prep activity at Camille Hurst's backyard this evening. I was tasked with teaching the girls how to start a fire. While I have watched many a fire be started, I hadn't actually started one all by myself, let alone taught anyone how to do it, so I had to practice at home before. But every attempt went great (all that watching had paid off over the years!). And we had enough fire to make s'mores, so that seems like a success to me! We even ended the evening with a rainbow!