Tuesday evening, I was delighted to lead the Girl Scouts of Troop 681 (Eureka / Farm Life) on a walk on the Sandhills Farm Life Nature Trail. I wore my lucky rattlesnake shirt-- and we saw no snakes! Does that mean it really was lucky?
Shortly after 6 p.m. nine enthusiastic scouts and their leaders Tracy and Erin met me in front of Farm Life School. I had a few things to show them before we ever got to the nature trail. First were these two giant fungi on an oak tree by the front parking lot. My point was that you don't have to go on a nature trail to see interesting and unusual things.
To further illustrate that point, I led them past this plant in the school garden. See that small brownish object smack in the center of the picture? It's an egg sac. Much harder to see is the green spider that is attempting to cradle that huge egg sac. The spider itself is very well camouflaged. I compared this to the story of "Charlotte's Web," which all the girls were familiar with.
One more thing to do. I needed some resin for my bird call so it would "chirp" properly and perhaps start some bird conversations. I showed the girls how some dried-up resin on pine trees served the purpose extremely well. Then we talked to a mockingbird that flitted from branch to branch in the oak tree above us. I'm sure he wasn't jealous of my "song," but he surely was curious. Just a few steps away, on a different pine tree, I pointed out the remains (exoskeleton) of a cicada. I knew there would be at least one: I've been finding them there for thirty years. We talked about the fascinating life cycle of the cicada, then headed toward the trail.
One of our first stops was the massive poplar tree, "Jack, Will, and Tom." One tree, three names. Each girl took a turn at the classic view straight up.
In case you're wondering, this is what the girls saw! Cool!
Yes, we're a bunch of "tree huggers," but that's not all we are!"
"Wow-- that tree's tall all the way to the top!"
"Okay, Mr. Loyd, will ya hurry an snap the picture so we can move on?"
Young Emy was probably the first of this group to ever walk the nature trail. The photo below is from 2008 and was a nature walk at my big retirement party. Emy, who was months from starting kindergarten, is second in the line. And I think she's almost forgiven me for retiring!
Dusk was falling, so it's hard to see the stream and Big Rock behind the girls. They really wanted to climb on it, but we just couldn't risk the mud.
No, the picture's not blurry. There was a small earthquake while we were there. No big deal.
Since Big Rock was pretty well blocked by those smiling girls, here's a picture of it I had previously taken.
Everything you've seen so far is on school property. But the old bridge, constructed by third graders 26 years ago, now leads off school property, and we will no longer maintain it. However, since we had three brave adults and nine adventurous scouts, we had to cross over and explore some distance down the stream. We turned around at a spot two of the young ladies remembered as Horseshoe Bend. When they were in Mrs. Dumas's class last year they went there with me and the class named it.
With all the world environmental problems these days, we learned that we have some local crises to deal with. We observed erosion on the trail and discussed how we hope to resolve the issue. We encountered evil Kudzu, and I explained its devious plot to take over the world-- starting with our school!
And last, but not least, we stopped to lend our support to Old Man Poplar, an aged tree which is already leaning on a sturdy white oak tree. How much longer can it stand before age or a storm bring it down? We do not know. But I assured the girls that every time they venture to the nature trail, they will new things, not just from season to season, but even day to day. Any time is a great time for classes or families to discover this wonderful resource for our school and our community.
The trail is in great shape for a fall walk. Mrs. McFadyen has already taken her fifth graders down there this year. Mrs. Dumas and Mrs. Cameron have invited me to take their second graders next week. All children would enjoy this experience. And I believe all adults would, too! Why not find out one day soon?
No comments:
Post a Comment