Getting Out

Cold winter months, and what to do? The Christmas season is over, and little ones have been talking increasingly more about ice cream, flip flops, afternoons in the nearby park doing nothing. Despite the freezing temperatures, getting out into nature seems the thing to do.

In the cold--and in the cold, situated in a city--it's easy to remove ourselves from nature, to see but not experience the natural world around us. The Publisher's Weekly review of The Last Child in the Woods (by Richard Louv) sums up the book's pertinent concerns:

Today's kids are increasingly disconnected from the natural world, says child advocacy expert Louv (Childhood's Future; Fatherlove; etc.), even as research shows that "thoughtful exposure of youngsters to nature can... be a powerful form of therapy for attention-deficit disorder and other maladies." Instead of passing summer months hiking, swimming and telling stories around the campfire, children these days are more likely to attend computer camps or weight-loss camps: as a result, Louv says, they've come to think of nature as more of an abstraction than a reality. Indeed, a 2002 British study reported that eight-year-olds could identify Pokémon characters far more easily than they could name "otter, beetle, and oak tree." Gathering thoughts from parents, teachers, researchers, environmentalists and other concerned parties, Louv argues for a return to an awareness of and appreciation for the natural world. Not only can nature teach kids science and nurture their creativity, he says, nature needs its children: where else will its future stewards come from? Louv's book is a call to action, full of warnings—but also full of ideas for change.

How fresh the crisp air, how startling familiar the surrounding honking and quacking, how strong the urge to reach over and scrape a handful of cold, hardened earth into our palms.

Here was our attempt at getting out into nature--a centuries-old working farm where we showed up at the barn just in time to help milk cows for 50cents, pet the surprisingly clean pigs (hey those guys are more hygienic than their bad PR suggests), and our preschooler cackled at the baby goat trying to nibble the corner of her coat.

Happy feet.

Happier feet.

Comin in out of the cold, partner. Yee haw and hooray for nature.