Storytelling on our nature walk

When I was in Banff in April I had the opportunity to take lots of nature walks. On these walks I started thinking about the 'stories' that nature had to tell, and I started wondering how I could use stories to share the experience of nature with my children. It would be easy enough to make up a little story about the squirrel tracks in the snow,

or the mountain crocus pushing its way through the snow to be the first flower in the spring,

or how the mountains came to be, with their majestic lines showing the layers and layers of sediment pushed up from deep within the earth.

I came home and we quickly got back into the routine of life and I forgot about the nature stories.

This week I was reminded again from a number of sources that I should try out this idea of making up my own nature story. I recently got a few books from the library about storytelling. Basically, your story needs a main character, and that character has a problem. They have a few adventures trying to solve the problem and then the problem is solved.

So, on our walk today I gave it a shot. We walked by a small pine tree and I began to make up a story about a pine seed. The little pine seed wanted to grow into a big pine tree like its mother, but it was trapped inside a pine cone. It couldn't get out, because the cone was closed too tightly. Winter covered it with snow. In the spring the rain washed it into a river and it was carried downstream. Finally it washed up on shore. Then a squirrel carried it high, high up into a tree. He began peeling back the sections and eating the seeds inside. He was just about to eat the little pine seed when he was startled and dropped it on the ground. The little seed sprouted, grew roots and became a tiny pine tree. Soon it grew into the small pine tree we had passed by, and one day it hoped to become as big as its mother.

The kids loved the story, and were begging me for more, but I thought one story per walk would be more than enough.

It is tempting to stuff my kids full of endless nature facts, but telling a simple story seemed to resonate with them on a different level. I enjoyed it as well, pausing in places and letting them fill in parts of the story as we went along. No one knew quite where the story would take us as we walked along the shady path.

Halfway through summer

We're almost at the halfway point in summer. Much to my horror I have realized that my little ones have been out riding their bikes about 3 times this year. Also to my horror, is the fact that my 6 year old cannot ride his bike without training wheels. I had a similar moment in March where I realized we had not been tobogganing yet, despite having the snowiest winter ever.

I'm not sure what age kids typically learn to ride their bikes without training wheels, but every now and then we see a little kid who is certainly not much more than 4 years old, whizzing by on his bike.

So, I set out to remedy this situation. The Nuthatch, however, was not particularly interested in figuring out how to ride his bike. He would try for a few minutes and give up. So, contrary to all my parenting instincts I offered to give him a dime for every time he rode up and down a section of our street.

Money is his current obsession. He is collecting a small pile of change on his bunk bed, not so he can buy anything in particular, but just for the sake of collecting it. There have been many learning opportunities with this particular interest, unlike his previous obsession with pizza. We have learned how to make change, all about the different coins, and about the security features on the bills.

He perked right up when I mentioned giving him money, as I sunk into despair at the thought of paying my child to ride his bike and the precedent I was setting for future parenting isssues. He was greatly motivated however and has improved immensely in the past few days.

After the bike riding he scurried upstairs with his dimes, and returned with ten of them to convert into a dollar. And then he scurried back upstairs with his dollar and returned with two of them to exchange for a two dollar coin. There was more scurrying and he reappeared with five dollars in coins asking for a 5 dollar bill. I didn't know he had quite that much money squirreled away up there.

Adventures in camping

There has been a cyclical discussion going on between my husband and I for the last few years. It goes something like this:

Person A: "We should buy a tent trailer."

Person B: "Where will we put it?"

Person A: "Ok, maybe we should buy a cottage."

Person B: "Egads! Look how much they cost. We don't have that kind of money."

Person A: "Maybe we should just camp in our tent. I think we need a car carrier for the roof of the van to hold all of the stuff."

Person B: "Maybe we should buy a tent trailer."

Well, a few weeks ago, we finally ended the discussion and bought ourselves a tent trailer. We managed to stuff it into our garage somehow. We suspected that it would take us an hour to squish it in there every time, but the first time my amazing husband parked it in about 10 minutes. We thought that might have been a fluke, but he did it again the following weekend and has now earned the title of "Grand Parking Master".

Our first camping trip went very well. I had a week to pack everything we needed. The weather was good. We had a nice campsite. We swam. We hiked. We got along great.

We were so excited by our initial success that we resolved to go again the following weekend. We decided to go somewhere else, to a campground we had fond memories of visiting 10 years ago.

The day before we were set to depart we checked the weather. Rain, rain, and then more rain. And then we checked our route. We thought it was going to be a 3 hour drive, but it was really a 4 hour drive. We decided not to go.

The next morning I took the kids to a museum since there were thundershowers in the forecast. As we drove there we looked at the beautiful, cloudless blue sky. We had a terrible time at the museum and then came home, as the sun still shone on a perfect summer day. At about 2 pm my husband calls me and says, "Let's go camping! Can you pack in 2 hours?"

So, I packed up all our stuff. When you pack on the spur of the moment like that you know you will forget things. You just hope they aren't too important. Like the Chickadee's shoes, for example. Or Bluejay's size 6 diapers.

Somewhere along the drive I realized that the Chickadee had no shoes, so we stopped at a Walmart before heading off into the wilderness. We did not realize the lack of size 6 diapers until we reached the campsite, so I stuffed him into Chickadee's size 4 diapers when he went to bed. That didn't work so well, as we discovered the wet spot the next morning.

When we arrived at our campsite, we wondered where our fond memories of this place came from. I think we were newlyweds, and the rose-coloured glasses we looked at each other with were also used to view the rest of the world. Our campsite was about 2 feet away from the campsite next to us. We set up the trailer in the dark and the rain and went to sleep.

The next day there was rain. Rain, rain, and then more rain. We drove around and saw a few sights. The forecast for the next two days was rain. Rain, rain, and then more rain. We decided to give up and go home. We packed up the trailer and drove home in the rain. Of course, when we got home we were greeted with beautiful sunshine the next day, but we won't think about that too much.

So, this is all I have to show from that trip. A very, very dirty car. Sigh.

Pick your own

When I was newly married I eagerly looked at my backyard and imagined all the gardening that I would do. Frankly, I was a little disappointed, as we live in the suburbs and have the standard postage stamp sized backyard, which I felt was not nearly enough for the vast landscapes of green that I would cultivate. I have a university degree in Biology, and I also took several courses specifically on plants (mostly to avoid the overcrowded courses full of wanna be medical students). I felt that this specialized knowledge would automatically translate into the greenest of green thumbs.

Sadly, that was not the case. After several years of watching my plants die and mentally calculating how much money these dead plants were costing me, I came to the humbling realization that growing plants takes experience, not book knowledge. Eight years later, I am happy with my yard. At the beginning I was not nearly patient enough to wait the time it would take for my plants to take hold, grow, and fill in all those bare patches.

My yard is also quite shady. We do not have much room for a vegetable garden, and even if we did, the plants wouldn't get enough sunlight to do very well. I am attempting this year to grow a few things, but I suspect that at the end of the growing season we might have enough food for one meal.

Green beans in my backyard

In replacement for the vast vegetable garden that is not going to grow in my yard we have started visiting a large pick your own farm once a week. When you pick your own you are sure that you are eating locally. It really couldn't get much better (ok, maybe if it was organic). We had a lovely time this morning picking green and yellow beans, snow peas, potatoes and raspberries. I want the kids to know that beans grow on small bushes, peas grow on vines, and you find potatoes in the ground!

We didn't do very well with the 'No eating' rule!

Backyard blackjack (umm...math practice)

Nuthatch was telling me about an episode where Bugs Bunny was playing cards and kept saying "Hit me!" when a little lightbulb went off in my foggy mind. Blackjack! Think of the adding practice! (think of the gambling)

So, here we are, in the backyard (I'm trying to squeeze in as much outdoor time as I can) practicing adding numbers to 21. The addictive nature of this game has us practicing for quite awhile (think of the gambling). Of course there wasn't any betting involved, yet there was a nagging voice at the corners of my conscience.

The jury is still out as to whether today is a good mom day for finding a clever way to practice our math, or a bad mom day for teaching a 6 year old how to gamble.