Family Nature Journal
Option 5: Writing Allegory

"Let's be realistic. Even if we're lucky enough to sing for bears in Alaska or to have bonded with nature when we were young, keeping that bond or establishing an evolved relationship with nature is no easy thing."

–Richard Louv, from "The Hybrid Mind, Enhancing Intelligence through the World Outdoors," The Nature Principle










As parents we want our project of re-naturing kids' lives to feel free and easy. If in the 'old days' kids were asked to just play outside for a while, head into the back yard and get on a swing or dig in the sand, or maybe take a short trip to the nearest creek to skip rocks, well, let's face it, it tends to be a bit more complicated than that today.  For better or for worse, until Louv's call above becomes a reality and nature becomes 'natural' again, parents, caregivers, sitters, guardians and educators have to become part-time choreographers of outdoor education.

In a way, this is truly the key component to the entire project because it stands up to common sense that kids are not always going to simply choose 'the nature option,' just in the same way they may not choose the 'oboe lesson option,' or the 'math homework' option. Our kids tend to become what it is that we present to them. For example I began cooking for myself as a very young boy. I was an only child raised by a single mother. The routine of planning my meals, cooking them, and cleaning up after me wasn't much of a choice.  At one point, I was given a kids' cookbook with great graphics and simple instructions. This was attractive, I remember, because I felt a little bit like a grown up moving through these short recipes and seemed to take some pride in self-guiding the process. But, of course, the situation was set-up: there was the need, and there was the book. The same really holds true for outdoor experience. If there is a committed "green hour" every day at home, then it becomes part of daily life. It begins to become a priority and becomes somewhat untouchable after awhile. Other activities revolve around it. How we set up that "green hour" is important.  Getting kids to write, we all know, takes some work.

In his great book Wild Wisconsin Notebook, James Buchholz gives a wonderful written sketch of Raccoons, Nature's Masked Bandits. "The raccoon's uncanny ability to break into our food storage areas and carry off the bounty is almost legendary in our state park and forest campgrounds...one of the more unusual raccoon raids I've encountered during my years working as a ranger in state parks occurred at Devil's Lake State Park several years ago. The original complaint we received from the camper was that someone broke into his tent and stole his silver money clip and eighty dollars in cash. Upon investigation, I found a large hole chewed through the back of his tent and a long trail of potato chips, hot-dogs, buns, and eggs leading into a nearby forest–a typical raccoon burglary trademark. After a friendly lecture to the camper about keeping his food in his car rather than his tent, I helped him pick up the long line of food and litter. About two hundred feet from the campsite, I noticed a shiny object among the broken eggshells. Yup, there it was, the silver money clip intact with the missing eighty dollars. Apparently, the little masked bandits had finally moved up to petty theft of cash."

This little story happened to remind me of our very own inner-city, at-home raccoon network that seems to have made a den underneath a portion of our backcourt yard cement tiles.  Just last week, making a quick check whether the doors were locked in our car, I walked outside of the courtyard gate and stopped for a moment to the very subtle sound of sniffing in the thin line of bushes near the sidewalk. A I walked to the back of the car, must have been a very friendly raccoon, slunk underneath the car like a slinky shadow then disappeared somewhere over onto the other side. Living across the street from a river and a long line of oaks, I've come to realize that we literally live 'with' raccoons, but that we just don't see them that much.

With a little prompting, a few stories, maybe a Wild Wisconsin Notebook, the story of the raccoon can become one that tells an imaginative story, whether there is any banditing going on or not.

Option 5: Pick an animal to read about, set out chosen reading, and make it part of the "green hour" to read. Pick a series of human like characteristics or tendencies to apply to that animal. See if you can tell a story with a meaningful ending (allegory). On an art postcard, draw the animal on the front side as best as you can. On the backside, write your story.  If it doesn't fit on one, write down to "to be continued," at the bottom and continue during the next "green hour." Send these postcards to a relative.  More on allegory next option.