nature appreciation

NATURE APPRECIATION

this is a photo someone sent to me looking across our community gardens
you see flowers kale malabar spinach and lots of flowers 
in the background is our banana grove

this is where i spend up to 2-3 hours almost every day
usually 4 days i have the 3 acres all to myself
just me and the bees and the chickens and the birds and the butterflies and the dragonflies and an occasional squirrel

i read this article linked here about how folks are not out in nature very much
in fact our connectedness to nature has decreased by 60% since the 1800s
many of us dont get much nature exposure

in the month of october our community garden will bring almost 600 kindergarten students into our garden for 4 educational classes and a chance to pick their own sugar baby pumpkin

we do a session on pumpkins and squash in our pumpkin patch
after that session they wonder through the patch and harvest their own pumpkin

they then walk to the next session walking by our chickens
many have not seen chickens live before

next they sit under our big oak tree to listen to our talk on rainbow foods getting to taste fruits or veggies of different colors
their favorites so far are carrots blueberries melon and oranges


from this session they go to my session 
nature appreciation

in this session we walk through the citrus orchard and see the beehives
we talk a lot about bees and how important they are
they are warned not to grab a bee or mess with its hives
otherwise a bee will not harm you
they help you
we show them an enlarged picture of a worker bee and a large piece of honeycomb

we sit under the shade of the big old pepper tree

then i read the a book called the earth is good

in the book a little boy and his dog play outside climb trees walk in a creek go to the beach barefooted
on one picture the boy has his shoes off and his shirt off and is standing with his arms up to the sky with his mouth open

i asked
how many of you have done that and also tasted the rain

not many had ever done that
ahhh they are missing one of the pleasures of childhood

many of these kids havent planted a seed or pulled a carrot from the ground or pulled a leaf off a head of lettuce or eaten a sweet pea off a vine
much less tasted rainwater on their tongue

then they go to the last session
called seeds

they learn about the life of a seed and at the last of the session get to plant a sweet pea in one our garden beds
they are encouraged to come back in a few weeks to harvest a sweet snap pea to munch on

i always tell them after they plant the seed to pat the ground close their eyes lift their heads up to the sky and make a wish for the seed and for themselves

we need more nature appreciation in our world
hopefully exposing these 600 kids to our garden for 2 hours will get them started on a life of nature appreciation

maybe this is what is wrong with the world today

the organicgreen doctor