Fiddleheads outing to Arroyo Park 10-25-15

Our last outing of the fall took us to Arroyo Park.  The weather was cool but all the Fiddleheads came prepared for a fun exploring day.  After some rearranging of clothing, a quick trash pick up (thanks to the group for living the motto You See It, You Own It), and our morning check-in circle, we headed down the trail towards the creek.

We did not get far before the girls were playing and exploring along the creek's edge, and sometimes in the creek itself. We talked about Safety First as our most important motto, acknowledging that when our weather gets colder, our body needs to work harder. When we play in the creek, there is a known risk for getting ourselves wet. We tried our hardest to stay dry... but as we know, it's so tough to do so when Explorer's fever takes over. Our Fiddleheads are working on their GEC mottos, and we will only continue this as the group moves forward into future seasons.

We also discovered some cool things along the way.... Mushrooms and other fungi littered the ground, nurse logs, and trees that we passed. We started counting the number of types of fungus we saw, but we found so many that we lost track! We also met nature's sweet treat, Licorice Fern. Mentors helped explain how we harvest this plant (ask your daughter about the 1 in 20 Principle) and passed out some root for the girls to taste. Many girls loved it, others spat it out with a "yuck!". To each their own. :)

There's a fungus among us...!

The girls made a collaborative decision to check out the "magic tree."  Ask your daughter to take you there and find out why we think this tree is so special.  We had seen a boys explorers club group pass us while we were exploring by the creek.  We thought is might be fun to put our fox feet on and try sneaking up on the boys.  We could hear them playing high above the magic tree...so we did our best sneaking, crawling our way along the trail, and slowly crossing the tree...

But we were not sneaky enough! The boys heard us coming. Thankfully, we all decided together that a big group game of Spiders Web would be fun.  Dorothy, one of our Fiddleheads, was elected the spider and for nearly 45 minutes no one could get past her and her keen observation skills. The girls worked together with the Short Tailed Weasels to finally finish the game, allowing the bugs to win! This is a tested and true favorite game of GEC, and this was an extra-awesome way to introduce this game to the Fiddleheads.

Dorothy, our super-scary spider

After finishing the game, the girls headed back down the magic tree to enjoy a Peaceful Place by the rushing arroyo ("creek" in Spanish). The girls sat silently and still, writing in their journals, splashing in the water, building towers from rocks, and tossing leaves. We joined together for our Web of Life activity, which we do to culminate every season of Girls Explorers Club. The girls reviewed our four fall outings together, and reminisced about what we connected to in nature during these outings. The girls connected to birds, rocks, ferns and so much more. We reminded the girls that We Are All Teachers - Can 7 or 8 year olds be teachers to adults? You bet! As explorers with nature knowledge, we have a responsibility to Walk Our Talk in the community, and help nature thrive as we'd like it to. We rounded out our day with a quick walk back, and some final gratitude for this group. What a great season we've had together! Looking forward to more with the Fiddleheads. Our Words of the Day: "Happy Arroyo Web Day!"

Mottos especially in use today:

*Safety First

*Walk Your Talk

*We Are All Teachers

*You See It, You Own It

To see more photos of our day, head over to our photo album!

-Hannah and Rebecca

Fiddleheads Service at Connelly Creek (BEC site) 10/3/15

This tall gentleman is Steve Keller. He serves Wild Whatcom as the Program Coordinator and mentor for the Boys Explorers Club. Our day in service today was spent on land that has received over 3000 hours of service in the boy's hands before us. It's a special site that the BEC adopted nearly 3 years ago, supported by the City of Bellingham's Greenways Coordinator, Rae Edwards. Here's the link to see how they've transformed this area over time, deepening relationships to the land and reclaiming habitat for other species. There are now salmon coming back to this creek! Progress as a result of some very hard work, yay.

This outing was an excellent reflection of the Explorers Club mottos: Collaborate & Compromise, Stretch Your Edge and Widen Your Circle, as both Girls and Boys were going to be present and work together as a habitat team today. A few girls LIBK'd their unfamiliarity with boys, and were reassured that boys are people too (like dads). : )

Steve welcomed us to this site along Connelly Creek and gave us an in depth tour of the land. He showed us the progress the boys have made and shared the many learning opportunities that happened along the way. We learned from Steve which plants grow best in sunshine, which in shade. A big lesson was to dig up those blackberry roots, folks. It's the only way to get them out of there for real. After discussing whether invasive plants are "good" or "bad", we decided that they're in the wrong place and they take over. "Bully" plants? After an effective tool demo, we were all set to move mountains of mulch and reclaim this area for salmon.

Memorable moments of the day:

• A team of Tree Tenders mulched baby trees that the BEC planted a season or so ago. Lots of Reed Canary grass pulling and huge buckets of mulch redistributed in this role. We constructed stick cages around these babies to support and protect their growth. Grow trees, grow! 

• Hordes of girls attacked Blackberry Town with vigor. A few Fiddleheads really took this job seriously, working with persistence and commitment to making the area a better place for salmon. Blackberry removal is difficult and strenuous work, and some of these girls took it as a personal challenge to Stretch their Edge and weather the pokes and scratches. Their preparedness (rainpants on) was an asset to them today!

• The "Rootball Hall of Fame". Seriously, there were some MONSTER root balls placed in a tree for admiration. We were constantly amazed at the size and gnarly shapes of the roots of Himalayan Blackberry. No wonder they are so successful.

• Snacks happen. Physical work requires that you have gas in your engine. The Girls LIBK'd their snack and hydration needs and took breaks.

• Working with these boys was inspiring! We widened our circle when the boys joined us after a couple hours, reinvigorating our team with their physical energy. The job brought these groups together and they worked alongside and together to serve this land. Nice collaboration, folks!

• How many rounds of Decomposition Tag can a group of tired girls play? Ask your daughter, this mentor thinks we did at least two invigorating rounds. Hint: These girls love to play. 

• Great words of gratitude. Thanks to our sturdy and kind EMA, Lily for her coyote leadership and positive attitude all day today.

Words of the day: Root ball blackberry mulching at Connelly Creek!”

Link to our photo album of the day.