Nature Journal

My favorite nature memory:

When I was little, there was a small forest right behind in our backyard. My parents set boundaries...we were never allowed to venture further than the creek (close enough where if my parents came to the entrance of the forest and yelled out, we could hear them). There, was a small creek with a branch that had perfectly fallen over the creek making a bridge from one side of the creek to the other. Spending many hours exploring, we made the forest our own personal playground.

On a more curious day, my sister and I decided to bring a jump rope and tie it to the fallen branch. We then used the walls of the creek with the help of the jump rope to climb our way down into the creek. There we found our own supply of clay--we were ecstatic.

We spent hours down in the creek that day, making mud pies, clay pots and tea cups, drawing out our names in the clay and digging and burying our shoes as deep into the clay as possible. We were lost in the world of nature.

this picture was not taken by me....only a similar representation of what the creek looked like

It was hours before we returned home, which was by force of my father who we told we would only be gone for an hour or two...8 year olds tend to lose track of time when they find a hidden sanctuary such as this one.

As I reflect, this is the last time, I felt truly entangled and engrossed with nature...there were no interruptions. There was nothing else to think about and nothing more to consider other than the nature I was wrapped in.