Did you get out in the snow today? Many of us had to address the snow in some laborious manner but it is hard to argue with the beauty and awe of a big snowstorm. My youngest child, not burdened by any pretext of labor, pulled me outside early this morning while it was still snowing.

Excited to help me shovel the driveway and sidewalks, Emerson grabbed his kid-sized snow shovel, and guided by wonder, helped in his own way. He took a couple of digs alongside the car, tossing each fluffy shovel full into the wind. This was gloriously light stuff.  Distracted by the depth of the snow, he headed out into the lawn to make a serpentine set of tracks.

Watching me shoveling on the driveway, Emerson soon joined me again at the task.  We created several mounds of snow at several locations along the driveway. Emerson tried to climb them but sunk into them as their light fluffy nature would not support his weight. He nestled in one of the mounds and together we modified it so that it became fort-like.

Thus went our day - the endless attraction of snow. We fed the birds, tossing seeds on the snow. We made more tracks. We dug and frolicked and made snow angels. We warmed up inside with tea (me) and hot chocolate. Returning outside we went sledding at the school. We saw someone trying their hand at kite skiing. We took a walk. We returned home and were soon found by a nap.

Next to my bed is a copy of Ezra Jack Keats’ The Snowy Day. This classic book was a Holiday gift for Emerson from his teacher. Thank you, Ms. Alecia! The book is simple and charming in capturing the magic of snow. In between snows we have been reading this book, over and over. I could not recommend a winter children’s book more highly.

Another light snow. My older kids appreciate the delayed opening for school but use it to lounge a little. I, on the other hand, cannot wait to get outside to do a little tracking in the season of love.

Valentine’s Day is in February but this is also the month of courtship for many of our mammals. A fresh snowfall in February is very revealing as the animals leave their stories in the snow. Opossums are looking for love, raccoons are randy and skunks are hungry for more than grubs. My favorite, to watch and track, the red foxes, are paired and very active.

After breakfast, I take my youngest son outside and as we shovel the driveway, he spies the cat tracks. “Look Daddy - fox tracks!” This is my cue - my journey to the babysitter and work HAS to include a visit to the Watershed Reserve with Emerson.

Entering the driveway you could see the jackpot of tracks in the snow. A skunk walking down the driveway. Deer heading into the woods. Fox tracks everywhere. Emerson smiled ear-to-ear as we discovered squirrel tracks stitching their trails from tree to tree. We followed fox tracks which were soon joined by another and before we knew it, we discovered a den. There were tracks everywhere. It was wonderfully dizzying.

A February snow is THE PERFECT time to take your child out to discover the mystery of animal tracks. It is a chance to glimpse the secret lives of your invisible animal neighbors. Whether you know what you are looking at or not doesn’t matter. Watch your child’s excitement as you discover different footprints and track patterns. Enjoy the adventure of following tracks to some unknown destination. Examine the clues that might tell you what you are looking at. Snow season will end soon but a February snow is a gift that one must accept.

I believe it is time for a snow dance!

I remember the joy and excitement of expanding my geographical boundaries when I was growing up. Some moments are preserved so vividly in my memory. I was probably around three years old when I first crawled beneath the hanging boughs of some backyard evergreens to discover a hidden world - cool, dark and pine-scented, and until then, completely unknown. When we moved to New Jersey, pioneers of a future development in a large fallow farm field, the frontier was measured by features in the landscape - the next line of rusty barbed-wire fencing, the remnants of an old farm tractor, or thicket rich in sweet, plump blackberries.

With my friends, as we grew older, we pushed our frontier in several directions - out across the expansive Washington Crossing State Park by trail and by stream, down into an old abandoned summer camp site along the Jacob’s Creek, and along all the still-rural roads in Hopewell Township. This process was an important part of growing up, filling us with sense of adventure and accomplishment, and leading to discovery. I still carry with me that sense of curiosity and wonder that leads me into the uncharted.

Now we are not talking about being true pioneers here - this is, after all, suburban New Jersey. But we are talking about heading in an unknown landscape, eager to discover and embrace whatever opportunities present themselves - choosing a route, climbing on rocks, hunting  salamanders, or just about anything.

I’ve been eager to explore some parcels of land nearby that have been preserved by two of my favorite land conservation groups - Friends of Hopewell Valley Open Space and the D & R Greenway Land Trust.  This seemed to provide the necessary “hook” to entice one of my older sons into going outdoors. We were dropped off at a small parking area in the woods and began to follow a small, unmarked trail into uncharted territory. Read the rest of this entry »

It was so wonderfully cold just a few days ago. I miss the cold already but “I am so glad it is warming up” seems to be the conventional opinion. It is funny how 45 degrees feels so warm after a windchill near zero. This evening just after sunset I listened to two courting foxes go on and on about the warmth, or maybe something a bit more romantic.

The coldness of winter is really just part of the charm. Just dress warmly, in layers, so that you can be comfortable, especially the extremities - hat, gloves, and warm, wooly socks. If you do this and get the kids outdoors, they will quickly show you the magic.

A big part of the magic is simply the ice. The ground crunches beneath your feet. Puddles become miniature skating rinks and often wear elaborate designs of sinuous curves and concentric circles. Ponds freeze solid and dramatically change the landscape. Small streams freeze, becoming quick pathways through the frozen terrain.

It was ice, or the prospect of “skating” on the ice that lured my children outdoors recently. We visited nearby Amwell Lake, because it was among the area ponds and lakes named in the fishing report in the local paper as safe for ice fishing. After lots of sliding around we went out to visit some ice fishermen who taught us a bit about catching fish and staying warm in winter.

Getting out onto ice is not for everyone. The ice was five inches thick BUT the center of the pond was still open, courtesy of the nightly visits by large rafts of geese seeking the safety of open water. Ice can be rather tricky so the key here is to be safe, set some rules (”Never without a responsible adult.”) and teach the children a healthy respect for ice. On our visit learned quite a bit about ice fishing, saw an ice trap in action catching a largemouth bass, discovered some beaver activity and had loads of fun sliding around on the ice. BE CAREFUL - with the weather warming up, there won’t likely be safe ice on the ponds for awhile though we may still have some ice fun on puddles.

Ice remained the theme for our cold adventure. We tossed rocks at the Neshanic River, struggling to break through the ice to earn a simple splash. We marched and hopped along the South Branch River, crunching the ice. We stomped on puddles, harvesting the ice and floating it downstream like a boat or iceberg. From upstream floating patches of ice became targets for the river rocks we threw. Zach even launched a giant shelf of ice, loosening it from the edge of the river with some careful planning and a long heavy branch.

To some folks, this might not sound like much. We know better. We had a tremendous time playing. While we were having fun we were getting fresh air and exercise, sharpening some real skills.  Motor skills were tested, hypotheses were formulated, and experiments were conducted. The kids engaged in problem-solving and didn’t even know it! That is the beauty of free play outdoors. What feels like good-old-fashioned fun is also healthy child development.  And while the kids didn’t really recognize the value of all of this play, they did notice how much better hot chocolate tastes after a good spell of adventure outdoors in winter!    

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It’s cold out. Even the kids notice it. There is so much to see and do outside but sometimes it takes a little coercion to get our children outside. Or the parents outside. A little bit of snow helps, at least for my youngest.

While most of our favorite outdoor pastimes in winter involve snow, Emerson surprised me with the last bit of snow we had. Though it was only a tiny bit, we enjoyed some of the usual activities. I hope he never tires of tracking, of the mystery and discovery. In fact, in addition to tracking, my five year old really enjoyed the simple aesthetics of snow. “Everything looks so different” he tells me.

Out in the cold, dreary meadow, the Queen Anne’s lace has taken on a new persona. Adorning the stark architecture of last year’s lacy flowers, are little tufts of snow. Each dried flower holds in its grasp, a small collection of snow, once destined to blanket the ground, but instead, now hovering above. We admire the show - quite a phenomenon. We meet a student from Montgomery High School, shooting pictures as part of his photography class. I suggest he check out the magic in those old flowers.

That is exactly what Emerson and I do. Emerson smiles and wades out among the flowers, dodging the occasional thorny rose bush. He grabs the stem of a Queen Anne’s lace and bends the flower to get a better look. He gets a curious grin while examining the dried flower. “Hey Daddy, look - a snow cone!” He eats the snow right off the top of the Queen Anne’s lace! He grabs the next flower and eagerly repeats the action, his grin growing now. He invites me to try it. I join in this joyous celebration of wildflowers in winter. Thank you Emerson for this delicious treat!

The little bit of snow that just fell is a disappointment for my older children. No snowballs, no forts, no sledding. The timing is all wrong too - no school to be cancelled. They should be grateful - no snow shoveling.

My youngest, on the other hand, shares my exuberance for the beauty of the snow. We choose to go hiking simply to enjoy nature with this slight accompaniment of snow. We also like the notion that we can go tracking - follow animal tracks.

We head for a local park for a change of scenery. We could find plenty of tracks around the house - bird, cat, and squirrel - but just want to explore somewhere new. Skipping down the trail, Emerson stops suddenly, right in his tracks - “Look at all of these footprints!” He marvels at all the great many people tracks - I tell him we are not the only ones who enjoy the snow.

We find the tiny paired “fork” tracks of sparrows and juncos along the trail. He carefully examines the squirrel tracks, even counting the toes on each track. “Hey Daddy, this one has four toes, and the other one has five toes!” He discovers the difference between the front and back feet of squirrels.

We follow some of the tracks off the trail. Many of the bird tracks are “dead-ends” - the bird simply switched from hopping to flying, no longer leaving tracks. Other animals lead right into the thickets - “Come on Daddy - let’s go in there.” It looks like a cat on the prowl for one of those sparrows. Some of the human tracks have companion tracks - children and dogs. We also find tracks of deer and a fox.

With only a few avian exceptions, we see none of the track-makers.  They are gone, hidden, invisible. That is part of their magic. These animals passed through here at another time yet we can “see” them now.  They stitched their passage right into the snow, revealing only a tiny part of their story.

Emerson realizes this as he notices our tracks. He starts walking backwards so he can watch his tracks as they appear in the snow. Soon he is running in circles and zig-zags, hopping to-and-fro, glancing over his shoulder at his footprints. He is simply writing his spirit all over this meadow.

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It is great to be back here writing after a personally challenging season including some minor surgery. I was unable to enjoy firsthand the major snow we had a couple weeks ago though it was impossible to escape the joy that it brought my children. I enjoyed watching our children frolicking about in that deep white powder - running through it, kicking it, diving in it, shoveling it (thank you) and eventually, sliding in it.

I am glad to see snow falling again even though it isn’t amounting to much. I grab the nearest willing participant - my youngest - and head outside for a hike and some guaranteed fun.

We head out for a nature hike/treasure hunt, the latter being our synonym for geocaching. We head for a nearby park, unexplored by us - a small tract of land behind Princeton Athletic Center protected by Montgomery Township. We hope to encounter a fox. On our drive there, we stop to admire a fox sniffing around in a meadow along the road.

Though tracking animals in some fresh snow is in the forefront of my mind, Emerson enjoys the snow on a more elemental level. As soon as we come upon some “blank” snow, unstitched by any footprints, he lays down. “I’m going to make a snow angel” he proclaims. His arms and legs begin pumping and the smile on his face just grows and grows. I help him up, we admire the snow angel, and he runs down the trail only to plop down to make another.  

There is barely any snow on the ground yet for this boy joy is drifting all across the meadow. In between examining animal tracks and admiring the snow-laden winter weeds, Emerson makes one snow angel after another. I notice him modifying a snow angel - adding feathers to the wings, two dangling legs and then a mysterious handprint up top on the head. “Look Daddy, I made a snow turkey!” Indeed, with a wattle included.

There is nothing like the gift of viewing the world through a youngsters eyes. Happy New Year!

Autumn - the season of change is upon us. The color creeps into the maples in the forest and the sassafras out my window has stains upon its leaves. Roadside oaks show off their crimson scarves of Virginia creeper. While these are the hallmarks of the season (along with pumpkins!), we are still finding caterpillars.

It continues to be impossible to resist the temptation of raising a caterpillar. Driving into work the other day, I spotted something green crawling across the - no irony here - Green Acres sign. I stopped to investigate and discovered a tiger swallowtail, blown out of a neighboring cherry tree. This was just one of the late season caterpillars that I’ve encountered and this one has come to the Buttinger Nature Center for visiting school children to admire as it completes the last stage of its caterpillar life. After feeding just a bit more on some cherry, the next step for this caterpillar will be an overwintering chrysalid.

At the local orchard, I investigated the On Sale herbs and discovered a caterpillar on a parsley plant. “I think we should buy this one” I told Emerson. We have been raising and releasing black swallowtails throughout the summer, finding them in the garden, in the field, and at the garden center. Here at this late point in the season we have three chrysalids that will overwinter in the garage and three caterpillars who need to get to that point.

It is easy to raise these caterpillars, especially when both the parent and child are attentive. It takes a little knowledge, about the type of caterpillar and the food it eats, but this is readily attainable from the local nature center or the library.  I will also say that for us - parent and child - it is important to raise these caterpillars. This act honors and feeds our sense of wonder - caterpillars are truly astonishing creatures. They remind us that beauty is important and that magic exists all around us, right under our noses.  Additionally, raising these caterpillars teaches our children to be caring and nurturing. It teaches them about the connections between local plants and the animals that use them. It teaches them that little creatures matter. I am not alone in this notion. I have listened to families all summer long as they recount their stories. My friend Eric sent me a picture of his daughter Amelia enjoying their Io moth caterpillar, and ultimately, the Io moth itself.

The end result of all of this is that we become richer. We participate in the dance of life and we warm our attentive hearts. When the butterfly or moth finally hatches out and dries its wings there is a beautiful moment where we say thank you one last time, and goodbye. Our hearts swell each and every time we repeat this.

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We are going out this dewy morning to visit some of the spiders from Friday’s Creepy Spicer Hunt. Emerson (almost 5 years old now) is particularly interested in the large black and yellow garden spider, also known as the writing spider. We stop at the meadows behind the Buttinger Nature Center for just a little fun in nature before I dropped him off at the babysitter. There is not much time for us but it is time well spent.

The grass is cold and wet, laden with morning dew. Close to the ground we can see the small flat webs of the sheet web weavers, Linyphiidae, all over the meadow. Most of these webs are less than two inches in diameter and so fine that the dew just lays in them as if they were hammocks. We marvel at their intricate structure and search for the tiny spider that resides under the sheet. “There’s one!”

Also near the ground are the larger webs of the funnel web weavers, Agelenidae. These spiders resemble wolf spiders accept that they construct horizontal webs and reside in a woven funnel at the end of it. Emerson recognizes these webs for we have them at home, under some shrubs, and behind the mailbox. I know why some of our mail goes missing from time to time; postmen too.

Finally we come to the Argiope, the yellow and black garden spider. Emerson’s eyes widen as he marvels at the size and beauty of this spider. I grin as I spot her suitor, the six-legged male, on his web, even closer to her than a few days ago. We quietly admire the scene - to parallel webs in the green jungle of plants, the zig-zag stabilimentum running through the female’s web, the wrapped-like-a-mummy bee that will be eaten as a meal sometime today, the size difference between the genders, and, well, you get the picture. We share our thoughts and I wonder to myself just when these two spiders might couple. I will be back and check everyday. Probably more than once daily.

 For Emerson, I will continue to share this experience in other ways. We will look more carefully around our yard and in the neighborhood for different types of spiders.  And as we snuggle up at bedtime to read, we will share a book I found nestled in our shop at the Nature Center - Spinning Spiders, part of the Let’s-Read-And-Find-Out Science series. The wonder continues every day and every night . . .

It’s that time of year again when we venture out at our Nature Center with families to celebrate the world of spiders. Our exploratory walk, at night, is known as the Creepy Spider Hunt. As we hunt in the dark with our flashlights, we hope to encounter an assortment of spiders. The star of the show will likely be the wolf spider with its eyes all aglow.

The excitement builds as we gather on the edge of darkness for a brief overview of spiders. The children name a few spiders that they know - the tarantula, the wolf spider, and the black widow. Someone mentions the daddy-long-legs, or the harvestman (not a true spider) which leads us nicely to a discussion of spider form. The kids present hit the key points - spiders have two body parts and eight legs, and, surprise, eight eyes! We also briefly discuss spider lifestyles - they are meat eaters all, some utilizing webs, others employing various hunting techniques. Collectively these kids know spiders, or at least, know that they like them.

Before I share some of our findings, I should point out that the parents are not mere tag-alongs on this event. In fact, it is because of the parents that this gathering is happening. Each of them has decided, at least at this moment, to feed the curiosity of their youngsters. In fact, every single person there was actively honoring their sense of wonder, from preschool-aged Joli through this middle-aged adult. Parents brought young children past their bedtimes, middle school and high school students and one parent even brought her college-aged daughter as part of her birthday celebration. Happy Birthday Regina!

Out in the meadow it was dark. Spooky dark. Magic dark.  And that is the point, to meet the spiders on their terms. We gather in the dark, with flashlights, to seek the reflective eyes of Lycosa, a wolf spider.  These spiders use keen eyesight (and large eyes) to hunt and catch their prey. The grass is loaded with dew but after several minutes people begin to discern the orange or greenish glow of the wolf spider eyes from the sparkly reflection of dew drops. “I found one! I found one!” is the rallying cry heard throughout the meadow. They are crawling on the ground and they are climbing in the grasses and they are just about everywhere.

The Creepy Spider Hunt is essentially an annotated scavenger hunt. We learn about the spiders and their lives as we search and encounter. Looking for crab spiders in the goldenrod we find jumping spiders and a “purse-web” weaver. Looking for wolf spiders we find small orb web weavers. One young naturalist Quinn seems to specialize in the tiniest of spiders, 1/8 inch long cobweb weavers whose small tangled webs will fill with dew overnight.

Probably the most impressive spider of the evening is the black-and-yellow garden spider, Argiope aurantia. This spider is as large as the end of your pinky and dressed in brilliant yellow and black markings. Its large web, nearly two feet across, is marked by a vertical zigzag down the middle, known as the stabilimentum. This adornment has earned the spider the additional name of the writing spider.  The spider, not at all dangerous, is scary for its large size, yet it enthralls all with its beauty. Nearby, poised on a smaller web, is a suitor, an interested male, maybe one-eight of her size. He too seems mesmerized by her beauty but to him, she is dangerous. If he is lucky, he will mate with her. If he is really lucky, he will do so and escape with his life.

Two hours after starting our spider adventure, the crowd disperses. Youngsters make their way slowly to cars, surely to fall asleep before reaching their front doors. Their dreams will be filled with creepy, crawly spiders, only these dreams aren’t nightmares. Filled with a wonder for spiders, the children dream fantasies of a sort, remembering the relationship we have had for generations with the natural world.