The Rookery

At about nine o'clock on Friday night, I looked around at the Heron faces lit up by our campfire.  We'd spent the whole day together learning and laughing and slogging.  In just those few hours away from the routine of our classroom, I'd seen kids make new connections to each other.  I had the opportunity to see everyone in a new way,too.  Those faces, crowding together, singing a raucous version of "Ratlin' Bog" were now a cohesive group.  I'm not a terribly sentimental person, but it was a special moment.

I know that I was too tired to give a particularly detailed account on Saturday so I'm guessing that your Heron might not have been too forthcoming about our day together.  We started out learning about geocaching (thanks to Chuck for hiking all over the park with three separate groups!), gathering clay and learning about creek geology (thanks for getting mucky Josie and Kerry!) and learning how to set up tents and whittle.  

In the afternoon we took a long hike looking for an elusive geocache — someday we'll get you, Itsy Bitsy! — and set up one of our own (thanks to Dean for his boot!).  We trekked down to the creek, marveled at the steel footbridge that a flood had lifted off its moorings and pushed down the creek, over a water fall and left upright a hundred yards away from where we saw it last year, then climbed up to a glacial erratic.  In a half mile of walking, we stepped back in time to from the glaciers (10,000 years) to the Ordovician period (450 million years) to over a billion years ago (when the granite of the erratic was formed by the volcanoes along the North Shore.)  Along the way, we identified some plant adaptations, learned about invasive species and saw two raccoons in a hollow tree.

Then we hustled back to enjoy a pot luck with our families, took a night hike and learned about how our eyes function, played a very fun game called "Beans" or "Skittles" and had a campfire.  At long last, it was time to sleep.  Things got very, very quiet, very, very quickly.  (Thanks to Harvey, Jenney, Michael and Chuck for sleeping over and packing up.)

It was really a wonderful twenty four hours.