Nature Walk // Schueman Park

With a full crew we loaded up and went to Schueman Park today. This park is a unique one for us in the fact that there isn’t a playground. Something about removing that from the picture helps keep the kids involved in the walk. We all ooo’ed and aww’ed over the long tendrils reaching out at nothing and insanely wide variety of vegetation. The boys wanted to stand there and wait for the vines to grab onto their fingers.

Schueman Park is quiet and nestled away from the highway in Oakland. Offering a few BBQ pits and large grassy knolls making it a great spot to host a cookout or throw a get together. I feel it is underused for the amount of space available and potential for what could be hosted there for personal and citywide events. Most of the park is covered in shade due to the large trees present throughout as well as a full tree line heading down into the creek.

If you’re an explorer like my youngest and I and want to get down to the creek make sure you wear long socks and are ready to deal with nettles. Jamie Fowler talked about a lot of the great benefits of Nettle Tea on the foraging walk. They are in abundance all over the forest floor. Some other highly populated plants in the area include Mulberry Trees, Tree of Heaven, American Bellflower, and Bristly greenbrier to name a few. Jamie Fowler talked about a lot of the great benefits of Nettle Tea on our

On this walk today we didn’t spot too many critters or creatures. The only one we saw was a Red-Tailed Hawk. Noah spotted it through the tree line and said it looked like it had landed. After we sat and listened to it for a minute the caw didn’t sound like an adult hawk. That left our family to wonder if there was maybe a nest close by. The wooded area would be perfect for them with plenty of small creatures for hunting and a water source right there.

We did manage to identify a species of Honeysuckle that is an invasive shrub and harbors a poisonous(to humans) berry and conducted some field education on the subject matter with the boys.

Honeysuckle isn’t completely bad in the fact that it is a surefire way to attract birds to any garden. The shrub provides year round protection for nesting and with the berries ripening during the summer and maintaining until fall it provides tons of insects for any hungry passerby’s.

Keep mother nature alive and prospering, your own livelihood depends on it.

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