Nature Adventure Class - Week 4

As most of you know, my MooseBoots journey is bleassed with the company of Wendy and the girls.  Sometimes, in spite of the fact that I know how amazing they all are, I am surprised.  They are incredible and teach me more often than I say.

We attended our weekly nature adventure class.  It was a beautiful fall day ... clear and warm.  We started by making puppets.  It is often a good idea to start by focusing the kids on a craft activity.  The task was to draw, and color, a character on a piece of paper.  The kids drew and colored ... and drew and colored some more.  Where is the nature adventure, you ask?  We were outside.  Of course, we all lead by example ... so, here's my friendly White Tiger companion.

Our new friends, and we, then went out into the woods.  There was a puppet sized debris hut all prepared for the "bad weather" that had been predicted (in spite of the blazing blue sky).  We were shown how it was built and then bidden to create one for our very fragile, thin companions.  There was a torrential rain coming quickly from the west, east, north, or south depending on the location, relative to the nearby stream, of the applicable shelter.  Little Fire Faery and I worked together, our friends huddling together for warmth.  We built the shell and overlaid the ribs with bark from a nearby fallen birch tree.  Then, we piled on huge quantities of leaves to keep the "rain" out and the warmth in.  Big little sister worked on her own, while Precious worked with Wendy.  No sooner had any shelter been finished and the rain began ... it was raining, in very localized patterns, buckets (or pitchers) directly on each.  After the cold night, each puppet crept out of its shelter and we assessed how they weathered the storm(s).

Afterwards, an incredible, unexplainable thing happened.  The kids, working together completely unprompted, started assembling a large shelter for themselves.  There was no fighting, crying, whining, etc. just good, old fashioned teamwork.  Did I mention that these kids are all homeschooled?  Mike, in his years of wisdom, did not want to interrupt such a spontaneous endeavor, in spite of the plan to work on debris huts next time.

Unfortunately, we had other things to do ... like more awareness games.  There on the forest floor rested a blanket neatly folded in half, hiding an assortment of natural treasures.  We quickly divided into two teams and were shown the items ... Wendy counted 15.  Then, we scattered to find the same items in the surrounding forest.  We found the beech leaf, but mistook the birch leaf for another.  We gathered fir instead of hemlock.  We found sticks, roots, fungus, and sarsasparilla.  It is amazing how litle time 30s is when trying to memorize 15 items ... certainly not enough to assign a few to each teammate.  I am pretty sure the team Wendy and I were on won ... rotten kids and their near perfect memories.

Alas, during the frantic pace, Mike "fell into the frozen stream".  We needed to light a fire and quick ... 15 minutes and he was a "Mike-sickle".  We scurried, gathering fuel for the fire.  Alas, the forest we were in (wink, wink) did not grow any birch trees.  No birch bark for the fire???  Luckily as we returned to camp, I gathered some dry goldenrod heads (thanks, Tom Brown, for the story).  The kids had built a wonderful tee-pee fire into which they stuffed the goldenrod.  Little Fire Faery (how appropriate) was assigned the fire lighting again, obviously because her success the last time.  With two minutes to spare, Mike was saved.  Whew!

Sometimes, it is good to remember to have fun along the way.  We adults tend to overthink and over-analyze.  The kids ... not so much.  It was a great moment to savor on my MooseBoots path.  Image what a tiny shift in priority can do!  No, really, imagine.  Enjoy!

Outdoor Skills Class - October 2010

I often feel a bit frustrated by the spasmodic nature of this, my MooseBoot journey.  The frantic stop and start and stop again nature of life as a human on this planet in this culture.  I, too, catch myself entering the trap of the "I want to do this now and forget the journey". mentality.  The truth is that the destination is not really that important ... how you get there is.

We recently attended out monthly outdoors skills class.  The bigger girls got a bit of extra instruction ... they spent the night prior out with some others in the group at the Wigwam site.  They did very well and had a blast.  Wendy and I were so proud.  When we got there, the six kids who spent the night out acted out the night for us ... dinner, fox walking in the dark, gathering water, etc.

As has recently been the case, there was a finely honed gem of learning that occured and quite a bit of "practice the old stuff".  This class started with wandering around the forest looking for a spring.  And ... we found one.  We each tasted the sweet, cool, clear water fresh from the spring.  Then, we talked about how we knew it was a spring ... water was flowing away from a spot with no visible source upstream and how there was a very deep hole at the source.  We had a discussion about drink water without purifying it first ... that it is safer to boil it if there is any doubt about its "holding of microscopic creepy crawlies and industrial waste."  This spring was clean.  So, we learned a song and sang.

Afterwards, we wandered a bit more to find a suitable shelter building area.  The kids discussed what we needed to find.  Then, the group broke up.  Some kids built shelters on their own, some built fairy houses, and some make a fire and applesauce over it.  I must admit that I had to step back and let Big, Little Sister direct the build.  She did a great job.  Little Fire Faery, to my horror, was teamed up with two of the youngest members of the group (5-6 year olds) who did not listen very well.  She did a great job too of
guiding them as much as they would be guided.  Precious and a few others about her age built their own small shelter.

The group all gathered later to inspect the shelters and then to enjoy the fresh, hot applesauce.  It was so relaxing to just be in the woods, away from work, part of life.  We then packed up to go back and help at the farm for a bit.  Unfortunately, my escape was not complete and I had to return to work afterwards (it was no doubt all done on my terms).

While this pace may not be as fast I like, I do try to enjoy the scenery along the road.  My life is so rich and full of good things that I really need to slow it and enjoy.  Afterall, what is the rush?  This is my MooseBoots path and I should savor each step on it.

Nature Adventure Class - Week 3

My travel down this MooseBoots path has accelerated a bit with the addition of this weekly class.  The nice part is that, while we may cover similar material to that in the monthly Outdoors Skills Class, having a different teacher with a different perspective tends to fill in gaps that I was completely unaware of.  Of course, there is the added benefit of practicing these skills/abilities more often.  This week, in lieu of going into the woods, we went to the beach for some work on tracking.

I will admit that I was very excited about this class.  I have been creeping forward in developing this particular talent.  And, the beach is an incredible place for working on tracks.  We started by talking about the ways animals move and trying to imitate them.  So, as rabbits, we bounded over the sand.  As cats, we stalked across the sand.  And, as raccoons, we waddled forward leaving behind our tracks.  I became apparent to me that I had obviously been trying to learn this the wrong way previously.  I had been trying to learn it from Tom Brown's Field Guide To Nature Observation and Tracking, a very well written and enlightening book, which I highly recommend spending some time with.  Sometimes you have to act and move to really learn something.  The play brought home the essence of each animal and its tracks.

The kids, being kids at the beach, had a really difficult time concentrating on the lessons at hand.  So, we played a game ... otter tag.  We divided into two teams, each wit a "head" and a "tail".  All other team members followed the head linked together.  The object was to get the other otter's tail, a bandanna placed into the last person's pocket. 

After a few rounds, we got back to "work".  We played a game called track the porcupine.  As coyotes, we were really hungry and needed to track and find the porcupine, a log with nails sticking out of it that was dragged around the beach and hidden.  This was better received as we had to bay our way running down dinner.

Afterwards, we played a few other awareness games ... Bat and Moth, a nature based version of Marco Polo played in a circle in the sand, and Mother Moose, a sort of inverted Monkey in the Middle game where the group tried to steal the baby moose from the guardian mother moose (anyone tagged forces the group players to move out of the circle and begin again).

Then, we went on a bird hunt.  We all stalked, fox walked, very quietly to see if we could find birds in the bushes.  There were tracks everywhere, but no birds.  Perhaps, we were not so quiet when we were 10 feet away before we started to "hunt".  We hunted for quite a while, but eventually the kids gave up.  In stead we worked on baiting the birds.  We sat quietly and tossed bread to the seagulls to see how close we could entice them to come.  When the bread was gone, we all got up and chased the birds, some of who were clever enough to skirt us and get the remaining bread crumbs.

Finally, we ended with story telling.  Each kid told a story about the piece of treasure he/she had gathered on the beach.  I had a story in mind, but was not prepared to tell it.  I have been researching Algonquin legends with the intent of telling them to my kids by the fire side.

It was a fantastic time.  I was able, in spite of last minute work pressure, to relax and enjoy the opportunity.  My MooseBoots path, as I have said, has become clearer and attendance at these classes with Wendy and the girls is far more important to my future than work is.  I did return to work afterwards to finish anything that needed finishing.  I do not know exactly what the future holds, but whatever it is it will certainly be on my terms.