So Much To Do, So Little Time: Hard to snowshoe

We took another 4H trip to the Pine Bush today. We were supposed to snowshoe. Its hard to do that with only a couple of inches on the ground! We still had a great hike though and the kids had a wonderful time....in the mud. So it was still a successful trip!

We started out with Miss.Erin at the Discovery Center where she talked to the kids a little bit about snowshoes. She covered what the parts of a snowshoe are called, what they used to look like compared to what they look like now, how long people have been using snowshoes and how to get one to fit you best.

Then she gave the kids hiking sticks to use...except these were fancy "walking poles". Maddie was in the middle of picking one out when suddenly she shouted "Hey!! I have my one from Poppa! I don't need this." and went zipping off to get her walking stick. Apparently she forgot we brought it in the excitement of new equipment.

Then we went out to see what we could find. Wow--we found a lot more than I would've guessed at this time of year so close to cities. The hike started right out with some crow tracks. And at this point we got Maddie's quote of the day.

Miss.Erin "Can anyone guess why those crows are making such a racket today?"

Several guesses were made and some considered possible then...

Maddie "I think one of them is mad because some guy stole his woman."

Miss.Erin showed her ability to take things in stride by leading that right into a discussion about when birds build nests and look for mates.Brian and I were ready to go through the ground to China which shows that we are still taken aback at some of the things Maddie says (in public). It was finally decided that probably they spotted an owl or hawk and were all upset and nervous about it.

Crow tracks

We found the first set of crow tracks right outside the door. We weren't even on the trail yet! So this set the tone for our hike. It was a little bit of walking then a big huddle and discussion with Miss.Erin. It was fun to hear the kids reason some things out. We saw lots of tracks, heard lots of crows and at the very end found an earthstar fungi. Earthstar fungi look like something out of star trek. It was a really neat thing to end our walk!