New Kids in the Woods
It isn't as though my children have been sequestered inside for their entire lives. But being suburban dwellers has sort of limited any immediate outdooring to suburban settings.
Sure, we've been camping up at The Island and a few other places, and have wandered some local parks, and have even camped in the yard a time or two. We've had campfires in the ring by the house and cooked hot dogs and s'mores over open flame. But my kiddos have little experience hanging out in "real" outdoor settings. Off of trails. Without bathrooms nearby. Where getting lost could be a legitimate concern for a kid.
We all have backpacks with lots of gear. I've set them up with supplies they'd need to just head off and camp for awhile in anticipation for camping trips that have surfaced from time to time.
So on October 26th, we grabbed our packs and headed to a local WMA, the Gordon W. Yeager North West unit. It's out by Quarry Hill Nature Center, and easily overlooked if you don't know what you're looking at. I've driven past it and other WMA's more times than I can count and they never really registered in my head. But now, as potential hunting areas, they're on our radar.
It was a bit misty/rainy when we arrived, but we didn't have more than an hour or two to spend, and we all agreed to give it a go.
We strapped our packs to our back and headed off to see what we could find.
As it was a few days before, we saw lots and lots of birds. The kiddos had a great time "hiking", and quickly found hiking sticks. It was mildly hilly, but nothing severe, and we found lots of neat places while exploring.
The kids, naturally, decided that going through things would be more fun than going around them, so we often split up as they headed through weeds and saplings and stuff that I opted to take the easy way around.
This led to many excellent learning opportunities! Like some places have more burrs than others! And some fabrics were burr magnets and some were impervious to picking them up! It was wonderful to hear them unconsciously acknowledge that the suggestions I had given them before the adventure were probably the right way to go. My girl wanted to wear jeans the next time, and the Boyo thought that maybe boots would work better than his old sneakers.
Sure, we've been camping up at The Island and a few other places, and have wandered some local parks, and have even camped in the yard a time or two. We've had campfires in the ring by the house and cooked hot dogs and s'mores over open flame. But my kiddos have little experience hanging out in "real" outdoor settings. Off of trails. Without bathrooms nearby. Where getting lost could be a legitimate concern for a kid.
We all have backpacks with lots of gear. I've set them up with supplies they'd need to just head off and camp for awhile in anticipation for camping trips that have surfaced from time to time.
So on October 26th, we grabbed our packs and headed to a local WMA, the Gordon W. Yeager North West unit. It's out by Quarry Hill Nature Center, and easily overlooked if you don't know what you're looking at. I've driven past it and other WMA's more times than I can count and they never really registered in my head. But now, as potential hunting areas, they're on our radar.
It was a bit misty/rainy when we arrived, but we didn't have more than an hour or two to spend, and we all agreed to give it a go.
We strapped our packs to our back and headed off to see what we could find.
As it was a few days before, we saw lots and lots of birds. The kiddos had a great time "hiking", and quickly found hiking sticks. It was mildly hilly, but nothing severe, and we found lots of neat places while exploring.
The kids, naturally, decided that going through things would be more fun than going around them, so we often split up as they headed through weeds and saplings and stuff that I opted to take the easy way around.
This led to many excellent learning opportunities! Like some places have more burrs than others! And some fabrics were burr magnets and some were impervious to picking them up! It was wonderful to hear them unconsciously acknowledge that the suggestions I had given them before the adventure were probably the right way to go. My girl wanted to wear jeans the next time, and the Boyo thought that maybe boots would work better than his old sneakers.
But neither the wet nor the burrs diminished our spirits.
What did bug all three of us was how much trash we came across. Beer and pop cans, food and candy wrappers, and mounds of spent shotgun shells all showed the human footprint. We decided to add garbage bags to our packs so that next time we could do some cleaning.
We had a great talk about the fact that we ALL own public land, and we are ALL responsible to keep it in good shape. Lots of people don't seem to have any respect for public lands. It should be common practice for people to pick up their own trash, especially on public land.
Finding deer beds as we hiked out lifted our spirits again, and I even found a nice bipod shooting stick leaning against a tree. We left the woods with our pockets full of trash and excited about our next trip to the woods.
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