Rockwood Hall Hike & Play

I was greeted this morning at Rockwood Hall, a portion of Rockefeller State Park with expansive, gorgeous views of the Hudson, by the pleasant surprise of a big group of folks ready for the hike. I must say that I wasn't expecting such a crowd this morning with the short-notice schedule change. So, first off, thanks to all of you who joined us for what turned out to be a really glorious walk.

As a sidebar, I just want to take a minute to talk about Rockefeller. I find myself cringing a bit when I write about yet another visit to the park. "For goodness sake," I fret, "people are going to think you don't go anywhere else on these hikes." I do admit that other sites have been sandwiched between Rockefeller visits these past weeks, but for good reason. The preserve is comprised of 1,233 acres of land donated by the Rockefellers to the NY State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation in 1983. It is an enormous park with what feels like a neverending network of trails running throughout. Couple that with the pace at which children walk, and you have an excellent resource for ever-new hikes with kids! The most notable feature of the Preserve is the system of carriage roads built by John D. Rockefeller Sr. and John D. Rockefeller Jr. Designed to complement the landscape, these carriage roads are quite similar to those which wend their way through Acadia National Park in Maine, which were designed and financed by John D. Rockefeller Jr. between 1913 and 1940. Rockefeller State Park hosts a network of scenic paths that wind through wetlands, woodlands, meadows, and fields and past streams, rivers, and lakes. One road passes by the foundation of Rockwood Hall, once the 220-room home of William Rockefeller, the landscape of which was designed by Frederick Law Olmstead. This was the site of today's walk.

As planned, we spent the majority of the time with the kids playing by the old foundation. The views from here are amazing, and the two Sargent Hemlock trees lend themselves beautifully to climbing. For about a half an hour the trees were home to 20-something swarming children scrambling like monkeys to roost in the branches, peering above the evergreen crowns at the parents chatting below.

The trees also served as a cozy shelter for the cold wind blowing over the river, and we soon decided it was time to start moving, both for a change of scenery and a chance to warm up. We continued down the trail toward the river before heading back to the trailhead and the busy Saturday afternoon which awaited many. Nice way to start the weekend and a good way to beat the coming snow.

This Just In...

Some of you may have seen this article in Tuesday's NY Times about the academic and health benefits of recess and unstructured play for kids.

Obviously this is something I've been thinking a lot about lately. So here's a bit of grist for the mill.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/24/health/24well.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

Wacky Wednesday Woods Wander

Our walk in the woods just west of the small lake. Nice crowd today. 10 families, 20-odd kids, lots of off trail exploring and adventuring. I'll let the pictures say it this time.

Wintery Wildlife at Westmorland

Westmoreland Sanctuary is a really special place. We started our morning at the Sanctuary's museum and nature center, which is the former Presbyterian Church of Bedford Village. The 200-year old building was dismantled and reconstructed in 1973 at it's present site. There we met up with Adam Zorn, resident naturalist and guide for the morning's hike. Adam was patient and enthusiastic with the kids, a fountain of knowledge about the flora and fauna of the Sanctuary, and obviously passionate about his field.

We hiked about a 1-mile loop on a couple of different trails close to the nature center looking for signs of wildlife. The kids searched for tracks in the frozen mud and expanses of snow, listened in the still wind for the sounds of chickadees and titmice and tried to follow the birdsong to spot the birds in the bare branches soaring above. We also learned about the Eastern Bluebird, as the sanctuary is home to over 40 birdhouses designed to attract the birds and help grow their population.

Continuing along the trail, we saw piles of pignut hickory shells littered at the base of a tree, the remains of a meal left by a squirrel or chipmunk. As we headed toward Bechtel Lake, we learned about the hibernation habits of native turtles and about the amazing winter survival feats of frozen frogs--or the "frogsicle" as Adam amusingly told the kids. In a grove of pines, the kids found the inner cobs of pine cones littered about the forest floor having had the seeds picked off by resident red squirrels. They gathered beech tree catkins and bunches of dried wild grapes while determinedly snapping dead branches to make comfortable, kid-sized walking sticks. The large, three-toed print of a wild turkey greeted us as we arrived back at the sanctuary. We'd missed spotting it frozen into the ground as we'd started out on the trail.

The museum itself is fantastic--very comprehensive and engaging. On the first floor there are numerous live specimens, from snapping turtles and wood frogs to a mourning dove and a rabbit named Scooter--the clear favorite among our hikers. Upstairs, the museum has interactive exibits (of the unplugged sort!) about local plant and animal life, a huge display of animal specimens, and a cozy area in front of a large picture window framing Westmoreland's bird feeder area. Sitting there for only a few minutes we saw many different species including a beautiful red-headed woodpecker (I think that's what it was). Down below I noticed that there is an ampitheater of sorts (outdoors) assembled of log benches all around the feeding area where one can sit and watch the comings and goings of the birds from a different vantage point.

So now I have another place to add to my list of those to return to soon. I think that the evening amphibian walk in April will make my to do list for sure.

Wacky Wednesday Bushwhacking!

This morning we were off to the Teatown Lake Reservation for Wacky Wednesday Walks. I bumped the time to the morning being vacation week, and am glad that I did as the timing was just about perfect with the weather. The flurries were just starting as we left around 12:45.

We started in the nature center where the kids checked out Teatown's pretty extensive collection of native species--corn snakes, rat snakes, red-eared sliders, wood frogs, and more are there for the kids to visit and study up close. After a quick chat with one of the naturalists, we decided on our path, a short walk to the dam along the lake trail and then loop back to the nature center via two shorter trails through the woods. "It's about a 20-30 minute walk," she told me.

Two hours later (whose pace was she thinking about?) we circled back to the nature center past the resident rabbits, owl, and bald eagle. Twenty minutes at a steady clip. Two-hours if you're bushwhacking.

Looking up the term 'bushwhacking,' I come across a plethora of definitions. Everything from, "To make one's way through thick woods by cutting away bushes and branches," to "To fight as a guerrilla in the woods," to "a North American term for hikers and cross-country skiers who make their own trails." For my intents and purposes, I'll call 'bushwhacking,' "when a bunch of kids can't seem to keep their feet on the blazed path and take to the woods for adventures of all kinds." Because that's what our hike was today. A series of adventures--climbing enormous boulders, examining the crystals discovered on some rocks, lifting pieces of glass-like ice from the thawing lake, searching for the perfect walking stick, and simply "splooging in the splooge," with gratitude for splooge-proof boots. No cutting away of branches to get through, just watching out for little twigs that might poke a tender eye.

Teatown really is a magical place and the walks are beautiful and accessible. The wind started to kick up a notch as we reached the dam and we were glad to be heading into the shelter of the woods trails. When we got to the turn-off point from the lake trail, the kids marched triumphantly ahead, our new readers navigating the trail for the moms with babes on our backs following behind. And when they shouted, "we can see the nature center!" the pride rang out from their voices.

Nice hike.

It's Not an Eagle, It's Just a Seagull

The kids and parents alike have been having fun out on the trails this past week. I'm hearing a lot of great feedback from parents on our hikes, especially along the lines of what this mom said to me on Saturday, "we would have just been at home this morning, kids in front of a video game, while we wished for something good to do." We've all been in those situations, though I find that if I have a set plan, the day doesn't loom so large ahead of me. Moreover, when the plan involves getting the kids out, it sets the tone for the rest of the day and makes it easier to get out the next time. The fresh air and physical activity work their magic on the whole family; parents more patient, kids calmer, all of us more centered after a morning spent in nature. I'm hoping that more of you will hit the trails with us in the near future.


On Saturday we visited the Lenoir Preserve in Yonkers. Now here's a place I bet many folks didn't know existed. It's a 40-acre nature preserve with forest trails, a dragonfly pond, a butterfly garden, and an expansive lawn overlooking the Hudson River and the Palisades where folks gather in the fall to watch the hawk migration. It is also home to the historic Lenoir mansion which is now the Yonkers Education and Cultural Center, and a nature center where the Hudson River Audubon conducts part of it's Feeder Watch program.

We went for a walk with a young woman named Venisha, a graduate of Pace University, and an educator at both Lenoir and Croton Point Park. She taught us a bit about weeds in the preserve and surrounding county. The kids helped tame a bit of the invasive mugwort, tramped through the now dormant butterfly garden, explored the edges of the thawing dragonfly pond, spotted deer tracks and other scatalogical traces of their existence, and searched for moleholes along a bumpy ridge they followed through the lawn. They trecked around with armfuls of mugwort for a "weed bouquet" project in the nature center, stuffing their pockets with small stones and fallen pinecones, and carefully trying to carry the prickly, cast-aside outer shells of the American Chestnut. With these treasures in hand we returned to the nature center where Venisha provided us with a few other weedy specimens and lengths of raffia to create our masterpieces.
This morning we found another lesser-known (to myself, anyway!) county park called George's Island. The park is comprised of 208-acres of tidal wetlands, a pond, wooded trails and shoreline along the Hudson. Our group, with kids ranging in age from 7 to 2 1/2, saw probably 2-acres of that over the course of two hours and had a great time.

On our way to the park, driving up Route 9 near the Croton train station I spotted an eagle soaring above, it's big white head and fan of white tail feathers clearly visible from the car. I shouted and pointed to my girls who were hoping to spot more at the park. When we arrived, binoculars in hand, we saw many seagulls, ducks, hawks and Canadian geese (hence, it's not an eagle, it's just a seagull), the ditty my girls sang for the rest of the day). There were two eagles perched one above the other in a tree across the inlet, but the kids had a hard time spotting them in the binos. They stayed put in their tree the whole time we were there.

Our visit was almost cut short when my 4 1/2 year old decided to test the strength of the paper thin ice covering a tiny creek in the park by walking across it. Her boot stuck and she belly flopped down. This child cannot, no matter what, keep her little-self out of the water even when she knows she's going to be cold and wet after the fact. Seriously, she's becoming notorious. Luckily, her sopping jeans dried quickly lying on the high-blowing defroster on the dash of the car while she ate a granola bar in her carseat and waited while the rest of us tried to get a good view of the national birds in the trees.

All dried and warm, it was then off for a walk through a small wood and down a narrow dirt, slide-like path to the river below. The kids spent a long time gathering oyster shells and tossing rocks in to the water, scaling rock bridges, sploshing along the shore and collecting bits of colorful, soft riverglass.

We left, pretty dirty, not too wet, pockets stuffed and jingling, looking forward to tomorrow's trip to Teatown, and definitely planning to return to these places in the spring and summer.

On another note...

My oldest daughter began Suzuki violin lessons this year. My husband, a musician and music teacher, and I were a little hesitant to start the program as it is a bit of a time commitment. But you start very slowly. So far it's been going pretty well.

Anyhow, last week one of the teachers gave the parents an piece written by a fellow violinist in which she discusses the physical relationship that one has with live music. She is sharing a story about bringing her violin into a first grade classroom and writes,

Somehow in explaining how the sound comes out of the violin, I had the idea of having one volunteer touch the scroll of my violin, to feel how the wood physically vibrates when I play an open 'A.' Then, of course, they all wanted to feel the scroll vibrate, so they formed a line. One-by-one they came forward to touch the violin scroll as I played a note. "Can you feel that?" I asked each one. "Yes!" each said, with some surprise.

"You don't just hear music," I said, "When it's live, you can feel it. It's different from an IPod with earphones."

This past December I went to see Alvin Ailey at City Center for the first time since I don't remember when. Part of the way through the first piece it struck me, There's no orchestra. How could that be? And what a difference it made. At first, one might not notice, and in fact, many probably didn't notice at all. But when you did realize it, you really realized it, because the music simply didn't go through you in the same way as it does when it is live.

When the girls were smaller, we participated in a parent-child class at the Green Meadow Waldorf school in Spring Valley, NY. The Waldorf philosophy advocates strongly against television for children for myriad reasons. What I didn't know is that, for the younger children anyway, they also oppose the use of recorded music, something that I found, initially, ridiculous. One of the parents in the class, overhearing me saying that Jon played the piano after dinner each evening said, "You are so fortunate to have live music in your house like that."

Unless I read some serious research to convince me otherwise, I would not advocate against exposing children to recorded music. It is an enormous part of my kids' lives, especially musical theater recordings. That said, I do believe that there is a big difference between listening to a cd and singing along with their dad on the piano or attending a live musical performance. Live music simply engages people more fully than recorded music.

Because musical instruments are like living beings and when you listen to them, you are participating in the experience in a physical way. There are vibrations that you feel when you listen to a live performance that are different from what you feel when you're cleaning the house, or driving on a warm day with the windows down with some great cd turned up nice and loud. At a live performance, the audience responds to the music and, in turn, the musicians respond to the audience. In a theatrical production, as my husband was saying the other night, the musicians and the actors are completely in tune to one another--emotion, timing, improvisation--all of which would be lost using a recorded track.

In any case, the more live music you can get out to listen to, the more musicals your family can attend, the better. The organic experiences of these events are good for all of us. This is assuming we use good judgement with regard to appropriate content, of course.

In this vein, I will try to post age-appropriate local musical events whenever possible. It's another part of the Kids Unplugged mission and making the time to go to some of them certainly couldn't hurt. Just something to think about.

http://www.violinist.com/blog/laurie/20091/9603/ (this is the link to the full text of Laurie Niles' blog post quoted above).

Wacky Wednesday Wallow (in the mud, I mean)

Welcome Mrs. Thaw!

There's a great book by Swedish author Elsa Beskow called Ollie's Ski Trip in which a young boy anxiously awaits the arrival of King Winter so that he can try out his birthday skis. In the book there'a a character called Mrs. Thaw. She is a confused old woman who struggles to know when to come and begin her work of melting away the winter snow and ice to clear the way for Spring in her butterfly-drawn carriage. In the story Ollie and his brother beg her to leave their snow alone at the first sight of slush.

February is still a bit early for Mrs. Thaw, but no one seemed to mind her confusion this time, especially after having what seems like the first real winter in a while. After many weeks of cold and snow and ice, a mild 56-degrees was a welcome reprieve. My girls had a picnic lunch and Nola tried to strip down while demanding the sprinkler. What a difference 40-degrees makes!

We headed to Rockefeller State Park for a visit to the Swan Lake trail in the afternoon. 5 adults and 11 kids had a wonderful walk spotting nests in the bare tree branches, examining animal tracks, navigating bridges, exploring the stream, and stomping through the mud. I thought it impressive that the kids hiked from the visitors center all the way around the lake with nary a word of complaint. The average age of the group was probably four. I know that my own girls might have had a lot to say in the way of possible discontent (hunger, damp, tired, that kind of stuff) had they not been surrounded by other kids. I know that the parents had a great time in the company of other adults sailing in the same boat on the crazy-kids sea.

And I know that I can't wait for next time!

A Little Motivation at the Gym

Sitting on my spinning bike at the Y today, a friend and I were chatting. During the conversation she mentioned that her husband, flying solo with the kids on Saturday morning while she did some nursery school volunteer work, took the kids to Eaglefest. "They had a great time!" she said. They watched the puppet show, listened to the storyteller and saw eagles flying overhead. She told me that if I hadn't sent out the information about the event they never would have known about it. She then said again, "They really had a good time."

That's reason enough to keep plugging away at this enterprise.

Thanks, Susan.

Book Talks for Parents

I'm excited to report that after forwarding to Patty Cohn, the children's librarian and interim director of the Warner Library, the Kids Unplugged information, she replied enthusiastically about making the library a venue to get the word out about the group and its mission. We decided an appropriate way to do that would be through a book discussion group open to the public. So, beginning in April, Kids Unplugged will be hosting a series of book talks--No Child Left Inside-- for all of those interested in learning more about this important issue and incorporating the goals of Kids Unplugged into their own lives. Scroll down to the bottom of this page for more information. The first book will be announced at the end of the week.

Great books, hot topics, fascinating conversation (with adults!)...what more could you want?

Doodleedoodleedoo!

This past Monday at 11:30 it was 52-degrees and sunny. I called my daughter's school to ask if the kids were, finally, after weeks of indoor recess, going to go outside. The answer was no. Reasons? There may be some ice on the playground. (I'm sure that it's all slushy by now, not at all dangerous). Not all kids have boots. (Couldn't a note be sent home asking that kids please come to school prepared to play outdoors. Couldn't we collect an assortment of boots and snowpants to keep in the classrooms for those children who come unequipped for the weather?). Even if the kids did have boots and gear, they would track mud into the school afterward. (But the classrooms all have doors that exit directly to the playground path. Isn't it feasible that the kids could leave their muddy boots by the door, just like they do at home, before coming back inside?). Additionally, if the playground equipment really is too slick to play on safely, why not take to the nature's playground--the Old Croton Aqueduct Trail--that meanders right through the school grounds. What is really the bottom line here? Too much liability? Too much trouble? Too little importance placed upon going outside? A bit of each?

After this conversation I got on the phone to rally a group for an after school walk. The weather was going to turn cold again in a couple of days, let's capitalize on this while we can. I later learned that another friend, incensed that the kids would again be taking only a five-minute walk along the paved path in front of the school, made enough of a racket that some of the children did, in fact, get out to the playground for a short time.

The clouds started to roll in shortly before the bus arrived home, and the temperature dropped about 10-degrees in anticipation of the coming snow. We bundled up into our gear and headed out to the Brook Trail in Rockefeller State Park with some pals.

My husband's cousin gave us the book A Hole is to Dig by Ruth Krauss for Christmas. One of my favorite pages in this endearing vocabulary storybook for children says, "Mud is to jump in and slide in and yell doodleedoodleedoo." So that is just what we did. The kids stomped in puddles and followed the horseshoe tracks, mucked about in the brook and tossed snowballs into the water. Climbed trees and squeezed into hollows. And though we did have one casualty involving a slippery fallen tree and a bitten lip, the kids had a good time and headed back up the trail soggy, filthy, and singing.