Great day – but cold. The video camera was so cold that it hurt to hold it so I don't have a ton of footage. Why the long video then? Because I hit the wrong button and included whole clips instead of doing the auto edit and by the time I figured out what was taking so long it would have taken another half hour to make a shorter one — so you get the Herons raw footage, consider it a DVD special feature.
Our morning class was winter survival and the winds and cold made it the most challenging I've done. Normally, the adult group has a roaring fire and hot cocoa with plenty of time left over to watch the kids groups slowly figure things out. This time, our own fire went out twice and our snow never got beyond the slush stage. The point of the experience is to talk about team work and group process and our discussion after the activity was rich. I think the kids learned a lot about their response to frustration and the challenges that frustration pose to team work.
Our afternoon class was Trees and Keys which ended up being really exciting. To quote L.B. "Well, this is kind of constructive criticism, but when you first introduced the class I was like, 'trees? what could we learn about trees?' but now I see how different they all are even though at first they all looked the same. Your Herons is now able to identify a black ash, mountain maple and beaked hazel in the dead of winter by using bud scales and lenticels. Really, I'm not kidding.
I tried to film our night hike which is one of my favorite things to do here. I've ended the video with that footage.
Favorite quote that I wish I had on film: The Herons have gotten interested in green shield lichen which grows at a rate of 5 mm a year. The circular patches on trees can be easily dated and make for a fun thing to watch for as we hike. Today I pointed out one that was about a year old and there was a spontaneous outcry from 4 or 5 kids, "Ohhh! It's so cute." Again, really, I'm not kidding.
The Rookery 
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