Bluebell Nature Walk - Spotter Sheets

Pictures From 15th May 2013::



































Most years we try to mark something special about each season - something that lets us know where we are in this journey around the sun. For spring we usually take the time to visit a local wood famed for its carpet of bluebells - it's always a real treat and never fails to take our breath away, you could never get bored of just staring at it all.

Last year I was trialing the spotter sheets you see above, and plenty of people wondered if they'd become available at some point ... well, in a round about way they are - they are in the first issue of the magazine, and you can print it out as many times as you like for your babes (free for personal use). It is a simple tick sheet, or the child can colour the item once they've found it too. I like spotter sheets on hand just in case activity needs to be a bit focused. Free exploration is our usual gig, but when we're on topic then spotter sheets can keep them focused. Or (as the case here) they were prohibited from free play and exploring due to having to keep to the paths whilst the bluebells were out - almost a torture for them. Spotter sheets and a clip board are a pay off for that.

If you have used these sheets already - let us know how they went - and any photos would be appreciated to the flickr group - I really want to see TEND out foraging in the wild. How did these sheets (and the other content) work for you?

We hope you have as much fun out there exploring as we normally do. There is so much to keep little minds awed and forever asking questions!

How We Rocked the Launch of TEND

My babes are my biggest fans, my cheer leading squad, my rock. They are the ones who cheered me on and took an interest in this magazine long before anybody else; they take an interest now and delight every time anyone says anything nice about it. They hope for the best with it, they ask about it, they understand when mama's got to work on it. In fact, they've been absolute rock stars about the whole deal. And in the last few frantic weeks when they've hardly seen me, they've understood and never complained.

So how else to celebrate the launch of the magazine, than by unplugging and getting out of Dodge and giving myself to my children in the very place we love the most - the forest. And that's just what we did.






The car door opened and I didn't really see them for a few hours as they bounced from one corner and hidey hole to the next; old haunts revisited - yes! the bivouac is still standing - let's add a little bit more! New things were found, treasures brought back before bounding off to the horizon again ("this twig would look good in 'Tend', mummy").







It was just what we needed, it was just what we always need and what we look forward to the most - space to roam, fresh air and sunshine, things to investigate and treasures to find. And for me, those trees always manage to weave some magic of their own. The further off track we went, the more content I felt.

We need these spaces and these moments more than anything else. When the human-made noises and worries are left far behind it is then that we find a way back to ourselves, we hear those small, quiet voices often drowned out by worries and demands, we find our centre and manage to anchor ourselves again in a world that pulls us this way and that. It worries me that as we rush headlong into a world ever more virtual and sedentary that those small voices will be lost forever and we will forget what it means to be human at all. I hope, if nothing else, my children will always remember these moments and have the sense to forge similar for themselves when they are older.











And I hope that you too find a place in nature that calls to that quiet within and show your babes how to find it too. I've found nothing else that comes close to replacing it.


{P.S. please do visit Heather today at Beauty That Moves for a chance to win a copy of the magazine!}

All Too Soon They Stretch Their Wings and Leave

Each morning, before their own breakfast, they would rush to check on their charges. All accounted for. Present and correct, and look how they've grown!

Pen and pencils would come out directly after breakfast to chart the meteoric growth of a creature no bigger than an eyelash to finger thick monsters.

Soon the monsters are hanging from a chrysalis and the excitement mounts. Morning checks turn into twenty four hour peeks. Just in case.

The morning the first butterfly emerges there is a chorus of shouts and tally hoes! from the boys. We all troop in to marvel at her transformation. But wait, there - peeking from the bottom of another cocoon - a butterfly emerges before us. It catches us all by surprise and there is much cooing. One by one the cocoons give up their secrets and we are rewarded with five butterflies waiting patiently for their moment to shine. We watch how they eat, we study their enormous eyes, we comment at how her drinking straw reminds us of liquorice and gently sit and watch as one day rolls into two. Then three.

But then there comes the day the little one hadn't really bargained for - the day he must let them go.

This a hard lesson for him. He loves them and wants to keep them forever. I remind him that they need to find a place to start their own families now. And that such beautiful wings were meant to be stretched. And how that if you love a thing you must put their needs before your own. And that to hold on too tight to a handful of water will mean it squeezes out through your fingers ever more quickly; that all we can do with the beautiful and joyful things that life gives us is to hold them gently and drink them quickly before they fall to the earth.

And then I realise I am actually talking to myself.

I hug my children in one of those tight mama-bear hugs they don't really understand the meaning of and prepare myself for the day that my beautiful butterflies will fly too. The best thing we can give our children is roots and wings.

We all walk into the garden. The boys gently lift our guests from their cage one by one and watch as they realise how big the world is, and how they must now make their way into it, bravely, trusting those wings that took so long to grow.

The little one is sad. I ask him if he'll come and visit me when he's a big man with his own family. He rolls his eyes and says 'no'. Then grins, grabs my leg and says, 'YES' and asks if he can play outside the gate.

These days may be long, but these years? They are so very short.

This Week

Our nature studies have been a bit book-intensive this winter. Car problems have meant we haven't really got out of dodge and stretched our legs properly for a while. The boys are tetchy for some forest time. So is their mama, actually.

Book knowledge can provide only so much, but the mornings we spend out there in it all? Well, it goes deeper and has a bigger impact and provides so much more nutrition.

Hoping for some real open spaces soon.