Hey-a-ay, Go Out and Play!
Just over a month ago, I moved to large lot of land in rural central California. I went from living across the street from a liquor store and walking distance to nearly everything to living walking distance from my mailbox and little else. The nearest gas station is about 15 miles away and it’s only open during select hours.
There have been some growing pains, but my favorite reason for being out here is to see the kids running and playing where kids ought to run and play: outside.
We go on nature walks and look for something different every day. We’ve found nests (one of which looks big enough to be an eagle or hawk nest – The Boy was a little wary of that one. The hawks scare him a little… I do admit, their circling and soaring can be a little unnerving). We’ve also found baby trees (collectively dubbed “Twiggy” by The Boy), distinguished between the calls of different birds (we can only clearly identify the owl, the rest we just imitate), spotted funnel shaped webs housing funnel spiders (terrifying for mom, exciting for all else), pointed out the different colors of leaves and types of trees, stargazed, and with all this, worked up a bit of a sweat on account of the extra walking running around.
This is a big deal to me, and it turns out, a big deal to a lot of people. Children in the US are increasing in obesity — one of the stats I read was more than fifty percent by 2011. Meanwhile, the amount of time children spend outdoors has declined fifty percent in the past 20 years. Coincidence? Hmm.
The great outdoors. They’re not as far as you think. And despite how wrecked our economy is, the government does still fund national parks and every city has local parks to support kids gone wild. Use them. And if you still need a little more prompting, visit the Forest Service’s website, Discover the Forest.
6 Comments
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
The year before last, we were in the US and our house backed onto a greenspace. Ilsa, then 10, was in 7th heaven–she was out there all the time, building bridges and racing twigs in the tiny stream and building secret clubhouses, etc. (The boys were too, but Ilsa was passionate about it) Our landlady was impressed. She said her sister’s kids aren’t allowed outside–their mom is too afraid of everything from predators to tick bites. I heard that a lot. I think the combo of video games’ attraction and parental fears are pretty potent.
nature truly is the best playground
Endless possiblities on nature exploration! Just be careful!
Lola
Yay for the great outdoors. I like the sound of your new place.
Love the thought that you’re living it up there.
What a change. It’ll be fun to find out how it works for you, but the nature around you sure sounds lovely.