what’s in the nature journaling go-bag?

Each student gets a “go-bag” for the semester, and they know to bring it for every class. We have to operate within a traditional fifty-minute class period, so it’s important that they’re ready to roll from the start.

The contents have varied from semester to semester, but here’s the current iteration:

• Drawstring bag. Both in the field and in the average eight-grader’s locker, these live pretty hard, so it’s important to get one that can take some abuse. This is the one we’re ordering now. KEY TIP: Make sure it’s a light-enough color where students can clearly mark their names on the outside with a Sharpie.
• Spiral-bound 8.5 x 11 journal from Sketch for Schools. We get black matte-board front and back covers with intermediate paper. KEY TIP: each student also gets a little vinyl paw-print sticker to designate the front and add their name.
• Zipper pencil pouch. The one we ordered for this semester almost too small, so this is the one we’ll order next time. KEY TIP: After having a couple of students leave them behind in the field, I’ve gone to high-visibility yellow. Plus they can clearly mark their names in Sharpie.
• Micron Pens, black with 05 tips (2)
• Staedtler 2B pencils (2)
• Prismacolor Col-erase non-photo blue pencils (2)
• Barrel pencil sharpener. KEY TIP: Get one that screws closed so the shavings reservoir doesn’t pop open in a pencil pouch.
• Set of Faber-Castell Polychomos colored pencils (I go with the set of 24 plus two extras that John Muir Laws recommends on his website).
• Insulated sit pad.

I’ll hold onto the colored pencils for a couple of weeks and let the students get the hang of nature journaling before offering something shiny and new.

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gearing up

My students are coming to me a little later this morning, so I thought I’d take a moment to go over the journaling supplies we’ve got lined up for everyone.

To start, each student gets a sketchbook (custom ordered from Sketch for Schools) and a little pencil pouch containing a pencil sharpener, a retractable measuring tape, and one pair each of mechanical pencils, Micron pens, and non-photo blue pencils. They also each get a simple folding sit-pad, a simple hand lens, and a pair of Pentax Papilio II 8.5 x 21 close-focus binoculars. These last two items I may hold in reserve for a few days and make their introduction more of an event.

Later in the semester we’ll look to add more art supplies, specifically either colored pencils or a simple watercolor kit, depending how things go. Thinking too seriously about art supplies is way above my pay grade as of yet.

Just as important as the supplies we’re providing is the stuff I’m asking that they bring with them, specifically clothes that will allow us to be outside in all but the most awful conditions. Here’s the letter I sent home to parents before Christmas Break laying out our expectations. We’ll see how prepared they are today; I’d like to take a fairly long walk today in our introductory session, and it’s a cloudy 45 degree morning in Atlanta.

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please put me back in water

In about an hour, the boys and I will load in the car and drive south, and by tomorrow morning we’ll be launching our canoe into the Flint River just below Lake Blackshear as part of the Paddle Georgia 2013 armada.

Alas, our canoe has sat about as idle as my blog since last summer.

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paddle to the sea

I had sort of forgotten about it, but I’ve had footage from our Altamaha trip earlier this summer languishing in my camera, waiting to be downloaded and shared with the world. So here it is (two months overdue):

These shots came from the morning of Day 6 of Paddle Georgia 2012 and give a good sense of the swampy feel of the lower river.  Around lunch time that day, however, my camera ran out of juice, and I’m absolutely kicking myself that I hadn’t remembered to recharge it the night before. I’m especially bummed not to have have footage from the final stretches on Day 7 as we entered tidal waters.

The obvious development in this video is that we managed to pick up another boat for the final two days, courtesy of a Paddle Georgia volunteer who was not paddling to the end so she could spend time in Darien preparing for the river’s end celebration. She overheard the boys pining for boats of their own and claimed that we would be doing her a favor if we took her boat all the way to the end, and justlikethat my labor force in the canoe was halved. The boys loved the freedom that the little blue kayak afforded, but they also learned in a hurry that being solo in a boat means no one else will do your paddling for you. The Altamaha grows to be quite wide as it nears the sea, and the sea breezes can be relentless, so it didn’t take too long for Andrew to generously cede his kayak time to his brother and just stay in the canoe. For a short while on the morning of the last day, when both the wind and the tide were against us, I got frustrated enough that I put both boys in the canoe and towed the kayak behind for a while. Nonetheless, I have to give kudos to Will—watching him struggle to make the last mile and a half into Darien (as the trees gave way to low marshes offering no protection from the wind and as the outgoing tide slowed) was one of my prouder moments as a dad. I wish I had that on camera.

The other moment I wish I had on camera: Andrew trying repeatedly to catch a fiddler crab. As the river merged into the marshes, the mud banks exposed by the retreating tide were home to carpets of fiddler crabs who would scuttle away in great waves as we approached, crabs by the billions, it seemed. Andrew was bound and determined to catch one and kept having me steer the canoe closer to the banks so he could make a grab. I pointed out that crabs have claws that ostensibly can pinch, and he said “I don’t care; I want one.” And indeed he was very persistent, making dozens of failed attempts (“Those suckers are fast!”) before flipping one onto his shoulder and momentarily panicking as it ran across his chest and down the opposite arm, coming to rest on his right elbow.

I should and could have written more about our trip, but alas, summer seems long past now. Thankfully, I can point you to a far better retrospective on the Altamaha adventure than I’m likely to have written: Joe Cook’s blog post looking back on Paddle Georgia 2012.

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“right dad” strikes again

Andrew has a habit of following even the most unambiguous of statements by fishing for confirmation—”right, Dad?” On this trip, “right dad” has been omnipresent: “This river’s shallow, right Dad?”; That’s a long kayak, right Dad?”; These cookies are good, right Dad?”; “It’s hot, right Dad?”

Well, I want to go on record that Dad was, indeed, RIGHT once again yesterday when Paddle Georgia moved base camp from Clarke Central High School in Athens to John Milledge Academy in Milledgeville. Once again, over the boys’ protestations, I decided we’d camp in the gymnasium rather than broil in a tent out on the athletic fields. I knew I had made the right decision when I saw campers returning from the local Walmart with battery-powered fans. And then this morning the talk has been about the sprinklers’ coming on last night around 2 am and spraying up underneath everyone’s rain flys. The simile I overheard at breakfast this morning was “coming out of their tents like a nest of ants after it’s been kicked.” Glad we weren’t among the ants last night. Right, Dad?

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