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Nature Challenge – Day 6 – Family Fun

Yesterday I picked the kids up from school and instead of curling up in front of the Xbox or the iPads off we went to the woods.

I know we get out to the woods on a regular basis however not normally on a school night. I did not know what we would do with our limited time but as it turned out it was surprisingly a lot.

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Tracking

As soon as we got into Morgaston wood the kids picked up some deer tracks and after sitting for five minutes we were rewarded by spotting a deer crossing one of the paths.

As we trundled along I got them to find some fungi. There was not much around but we did get some King Alfred’s Cakes, some Birch Polypore and some Artists fungi.

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Finding Fungi

The Bluebells were really coming out and there were plenty of Primroses around. Just on the edge of the wood though we spotted our first Cuckoo flowers by a ditch. This is a sturdy little plant as it grows in some really exposed areas however it does have a very dainty look about it.

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Wild Flower Spotting

It was not all learning – there was plenty of time to just explore and get muddy – as you do 🙂

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Just Fun

This was a challenge to myself as I had to watch every step I took in case I re-opened my torn calf muscle – It was worth the effort though.

Cheers

George

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30 Days of Wildness – Day 18 – Shelter Building – Part 1

I have never seen a pram being used as a cooking stand but it worked 🙂

I was looking at the weather forecast for today and there was a possibility of thunderstorms in the afternoon. So for the 30 Day Challenge I thought a bit of shelter building learning was the order of the day.

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Proper playing

I have a load of sycamore rods in the garden from some pollarding I did last winter so decided to put them to use.
I prepared three interlocking poles for Catherine and Finlay to put up to start their shelter. Once they had locked them I got them to lash them together with a bit of paracord. Then they had to collect all the other poles together ready for constructing the shelter walls.

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Set up and wood collection

I think you could say that they were happy with their haul 🙂

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I think they are happy with their haul

They took it in turns at first to select a rod, measure it, saw it with me and then place it in its correct position.

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Catherine, measuring, sawing and fitting

This lasted for a little while alternating back and forth but I felt that this level of accuracy was testing for most adults never mind a couple of active kids so eventually I let them off to play elsewhere and cracked on with this bit myself.

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Finlay , measuring, sawing and fitting

As I neared the end I got Catherine and Finlay back involved finishing the tail of the shelter off.

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Eventually the final touches to the frame

Shelter building takes time so for tonight we just put a tarp over it secured down with some logs. In a day or two we will cover the shelter with some spruce boughs and give it a soft bed – but that is for another post.

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A tarp for tonight

So the difficult bit began 😉 Time for play.

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Time to play

I must say that Catherine really got into the spirit of making a camp setting up her own play fire and rigging her own cooking rig (thankfully no thunderstorms appeared).

I have never seen a pram being used as a cooking stand but it worked 🙂

Cheers

George