Author Archives: Tresca Weinstein

Our Wild Ways reunion today was so sweet. As folks trickled in and said their hellos, they inspected the beauty of a recently found dead fox, admiring its coat and heavily furred paws and discussing its lifeways. There was also a station to experiment with the process of turning stones into usable sharp cutting tools, one of humankind’s oldest crafts, which were later used in our craft of the day—Maple Spiles.

Today was a truly wonderful day of the Cobblers program, full of unexpected turns the whole way. We opened the morning with some gratitude, some stretching, and a good old-fashioned game of Duck-Duck-Goose! Then we headed out to the field for some games. As we were hiking across the field, we noticed that the snow had a few different layers—a fluffy white surface layer, a harder crunchy middle layer, and a base of ice. Thinking quickly, the Grey Foxes sought the lowest part of the field where water might pool and found a huge frozen puddle, more like the size of a small pond. They cleared off the freshly fallen snow and got to slipping around on the ice and challenging each other to slide the farthest and the fastest.  

It was a jam-packed, fun-filled, snow-covered day to wrap up our Winter FOREST semester! The day began with a simulation of predator and prey relationships involving lots of movement to keep us warm! Next, we learned about the different types of tracks in the forest—the differences between canine and feline tracks, a ground bird and flying bird track, and finally how to distinguish a rabbit track (Nevada shaped) from a squirrel track (square shaped).

Today in Wild Ways, we dove headlong into wildlife tracking! Many mammals can be elusive—so much so that a person may be inclined to think that there are not a whole lot of animals traversing the landscape. Not so! As soon as the snows come, we get a glimpse of how widespread these creatures are! Turns out, they are all over the place, right under our noses, hunting, avoiding being hunted, eating, sleeping, scent-marking, and so much more!

It was so lovely to be out in the snow today! We had a great day full of lots of snow-related hard work. As students arrived, we got right to work, excavating a circle from the snow for our morning activities. We piled the snow in a ring around our cleared space, as well as in heaps that we turned into mini snow chairs. 

It was a cold morning, but with good layers and the warmth of the sun, we were comfortable and ready to go. We started off our day at Wild Ways welcoming a few new teens to the program, and then rolled into a Flying Deer classic, Bobcat Dodgeball! We reminded the teens that not only is this a game but a strategy for building their awareness and agility, two important aspects of moving in tune with the wilderness.

We started our day milling about in the snowy field. Piling up snow and snowball fights kept us busy until we had our morning circle and a big game of Weasels and Voles. This game gives us an inside look on the life of voles in the winter time and weasels their ravenous and hungry predator. Most of the weasel and vole action happens under the snows surface and most often in their tunnels, so we made our own tunnels and hunted away! 

We celebrated our reunion in our Opening Circle as a large group this morning and talked about our goals for the next four weeks. We were graciously interrupted for a moment as a Red-Tailed Hawk swooped right into a tree nearby. What a nice visit! We talked about what other animals it might be hunting and imagined what it would be like to have to pay attention all the time if we were but a bit smaller. A good reminder to pay attention ourselves, to catch special moments like these that we might otherwise miss!