Glimmer Lantern Glimmer--Autumn on the Farm

Today was the last of our Saturdays on the Farm at Fishkill Farms until spring and we spent this soggy morning honoring the waning light of late autumn. Everyone began arriving on the terrace just as our cozy fire was getting going (with thanks to the Reimer gentlemen!) and we gathered around the fireplace to warm up a
bit before the day's hike.

In the spirit of Martinmas, a festival that honors St. Martin of Tours a Roman soldier who cut his cloak into two share with a beggar one freezing night, many folks brought along an old coat or something else warm to be donated for the coming months of cold. Martinmas is also associated with light and the festival serves as a way to remind ourselves, as the daylight hours grow shorter, that the light will begin to return with the winter solstice. Such a message was truly made clear on the farm today as the dormant fields and orchards clearly showed us how important the return of the sun's light and warmth really is.

The skies remained dry for a while, allowing us to venture out for a good hike through the orchard and along an old tractor trail through the woods and meadow beyond. Thanks to the morning's rain, (and the rain pants and boots they were wearing!) the highlight of the day was some solid puddle stomping along the orchard road. The kids followed a little rain stream down the hill to a series of nice, muddy puddles where they had a good splash before continuing along. They collected some autumn leaves to use to decorate the lanterns they would be making later and searched for the milkweed pods which sent little seed parachutes through the air only a few weeks before. And hey tromped through an old section of orchard stomping on the over-ripe apples discarded by the trees as they prepared for the winter ahead.

We returned to the terrace, a little bit soaked and took a break for some dry clothes, hanging damp socks near the fire to dry, before settling in to hear the tale of St. Martin and create our paper mache lanterns. After choosing a clean jar wired with a long handle, the children painted fiery, autumn tissue onto their lanterns' surfaces, layering colors and various leaves until they were, mostly, completely covered. Our work was accompanied by singing a lovely little lantern song whose few words the kids learned quickly. As each child finished, they were given tiny tea lights to place inside their lanterns, and we lit each one as we celebrated the close of the season with hot, cinnamon-y apple cider and warm, sugary donuts.

Wacky Wednesday Field Trip--November Ponding at Westmoreland Sanctuary

Hooray for days off!

This morning we had over 20-families join us for our hike and picnic at the fantastic Westmoreland Sanctuary in Bedford Corners. We were treated to a dry day and relatively mild November temperatures in the mid-50s for today's outing, and though I know that the comfortable weather is a good motivator for folks to get outdoors, I'm also going to chalk the crowd up to the growing enthusiasm for Kids Unplugged's adventures! Thanks to all of you who joined us today, who brought friends along and who made it out for the first time.

When our group was finally assembled, gear gathered and Kids Unplugged trail protocols announced, we set off down the hill on the Easy Loop Trail to Betchel Lake. Along the way we searched for signs of animals getting ready to batten down for the coming winter months. Cozy burrows and scatterings of seed husks were indicators that the Sanctuary's critters had been busy with their seasonal preparations.

The downhill stretch of trail brought with it some good momentum and the kids made it to the shore of the lake in record time. They're really getting to be seasoned hikers and I think I'll be able to choose some longer trails this coming spring! To everyone's delight, the ponding nets were resting against the shed alongside several buckets and pans for viewing the animals we might retrieve from the water. Being November and considering that the weather had been fairly chilly the previous week, I didn't expect the kids to find much. What a surprise for everyone when tadpoles, minnows, snails and one honking-big crayfish were pulled from the lake. The kids shared buckets, carefully emptying their catch into the vessels while calling to one another gleefully with every new discovery. We spent a good amount of time at the lake and some kids roamed while others worked with the nets. They happened upon the beginnings of a lean-to shelter of branches and some of them began adding to its construction.

When hungry stomachs began to rumble, we released the critters back into the shelter of the lake before heading back up trail for a picnic lunch and a visit to the Sanctuary's fantastic nature museum. I'm not sure which feature of the museum was the biggest hit for the kids. The live animals on exhibit on the first floor were definitely a big draw, but the incredible assortment of stuffed birds and mammals upstairs are equally captivating. We probably spend close to an hour exploring the museum after lunch and then another bit of time visiting with the chickens on site before heading home.

Steve and Adam, the Sancturary's director and naturalist, were wonderful hosts as always. Westmoreland is a favorite Kids Unplugged venture and we're sure to return soon!

Rocks and Logs and Slides, Oh My! An Afternoon at Neperan Park

There's a new playground in town, but it isn't what you might imagine. Tarrytown, New York, with the help of the Natural Playgrounds Company in Concord, New Hampshire, has begun the first phase of constructing a natural play space in the town's Neperan Park.

Unlike traditional play structures, the new playground is built with a child's natural sense of free-spirited adventure in mind. Conventional apparati like monkey bars and free-standing swings are replaced by rock scrambles, nature paths, and log balance-beams. Children are intrinsically inclined toward unstructured, open-ended play and exploration. Typical playgrounds offer kids the opportunity to challenge their gross-motor skills but do little to encourage imaginative play or to nurture their social or emotional connections to one another. A natural playground offers children numerous options to create their own adventures. Because the structures are incorporated into the park's existing landscape their play is always new.

Our first visit to Neperan Park's new playground was a resounding success. After a short hike down the Old Croton Aqueduct trail ending at the park, the kids headed straight to the wooded area on the park's periphery where the first structures had been installed. A steep slide built right into the hill was the first order of business for many kids. And while the fast ride down was definitely a thrill, having to negotiate a series of well-placed boulder steps up to the slide's entrance was equally captivating. The kids swarmed the hill, attempting to scale their way to the top from myriad angles. Several of those attempts ended, much to their delight, with a hearty down-hill slide in the dirt.

A log, climbing structure also had it's appeal, and being a bit lower to the ground, the younger kids flocked to this area. Kids sat and talked on the logs. They scurried beneath them. They climbed up and walked along their lengths, testing their balance. They hung and dangled and jumped. The logs became a house, a train, a horse, a tunnel. See if all that happens with some monkey bars.

Climbing up another group of rock steps, the kids made their way up to a woodland path that wends it's way through the trees to a series of platforms called the "lookout tower." Kids immediately adopted the structure as a fortress as well as their roles within that great fortress, creating passwords for entry, keeping enemies at bay, looking out for dangers lurking below. They ran up and down the boardwalk, hopping from level to level, hiding out in their new-found clubhouse.

And so it went, kids climbing and running and jumping and sliding. Kids imagining. Kids getting filthy. Kids deep in their play.

When the light started to wane on this, the first Wacky Wednesday since the end of daylight saving time, parents began gathering their tired, dirty brood to head back down the trail for dinner. It was almost like our childhood days in those backyard woods. Almost.