April Showers Bring May Flowers (and Fruits and Vegetables)!

This class has had quite a few damp days over the semester. We have been testing out our boots and suits! Tuesday was no different. The forest was a neon green as we traveled the property and  trudged through grass as high as our knee! We were sure that most of the natural world around Irvine was happy and thankful for this rain!

On our gray and drizzly Tuesday, we took to the vernal pool trail in search of some wet discoveries. We followed the pallet bridge all the way to the natural vernal pool created by a fallen tree. We found a part of the stream running through this area that was trickling into the vernal pool. We discovered smelly skunk cabbage, noodle-y nightcrawlers and even a bulbous bullfrog! The rain really cooled us off as we made our way back up ‘tired hill’ (basically any hill we must travel is known as ‘tired hill’). We talked of garden plans and added our favorite fruits and veggie garden plans to our journals. Miss Sophie read us Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert and it got us thinking about the rainbow of colors we will hopefully be seeing soon.

On Thursday, our garden plans took action! We cleared out two garden beds and it took quite a bit of muscle! We dug through impacted root and rock and even found an old squirrels stash of nuts and seeds! We decorated a sign to mark our garden and signed our names. We will continue to maintain the garden for the next few weeks. We took to the Ed Hut for some relaxation and discovery. We played in the nearby tipi and listened to a Native American folktale called Sharing the Corn. It was about the first stalk of corn ever planted and how one brave soul stepped forward to test the new plant. He was seen as a hero to all the people. Isn’t it funny to think about everything we eat, must have been tested at one point? Thank you, ancestors!

Plant and Play, Forest Gardeners!