________________________________________________________________________________
Fall happenings at Adventure Tree and Adventure Farm
Canopy Climbs Even in the Rain!!!
Once a month we open one of our climbing trees for anyone age 5 to 105 to feel
the wonder of climbing high into a tree. The September climb was met with a
much needed rain that just happened to occur just before the climb was to
begin. This month we were at EarthDance Farms, so it was hard to be too upset
since we knew the farmers were very grateful but it was still a little
discouraging. Not all of the climbers were dissuaded from attending, though.
Much to our delight we had two father and son teams arrive despite the rain.
While we all waited for the rain to let up a few of us explored the farm and
enjoyed feeling the squishy mud beneath our feet. We even tried a few cherry
tomatoes, cucumbers and green beans. It was wonderfully fun. These hard core
climbers then had the tree to themselves as the rain stopped, the sun came out
and the climbing began. Small groups are often fun for us because we really
get to know our climbers. This was no exception, and we look forward to seeing
these guys again!!
We hope we see more of you at the October 6th climb from 2:00 - 5:00 PM. This
month we will be climbing
Asherah
at The Grove house. Come and join us, no registration required.
________________________________________________________________________________
Adventure Tree Intern
Meet Luke Nurnberger, Adventure Tree's intern for the next few months. Luke is
a student at Lindenwood University who is an awesome help in many ways. He
helped us facilitate events over the past season and he'll be working on new
program areas for us while doing a practicum for his school work. His presence
is a great opportunity for Adventure Tree not only to benefit from his efforts
but also to extend our mission of education to helping a talented
and motivated young college student to gain some experience. If you see Luke at
one of our events, give him a big hello and thanks, and maybe extend
congratulations on his new marriage.
________________________________________________________________________________
AEE Conference Presentation
Guy is presenting a workshop on "Teaching Academic Content Using Recreational
Tree Climbing" at the Association for Experiential Education International
Conference in Denver. His ground-breaking work over the past few years has been
to combine explicit teaching areas with the excitement of tree climbing to get
students motivated and engaged. A tree is a great teaching platform for all
kinds of content areas, from physics to literature to natural science. Some
great results have been achieved at St. Louis area schools and he'll be sharing
these insights with the AEE.
________________________________________________________________________________
Supporting Stewardship
There isn't anything quite so satisfying as supporting each other as we learn
to be more responsible stewards of the Earth. In September we had
opportunities to support two wonderful places as they hosted Adventure Farm
workshops.
EarthDance Farms and Rain Barrels
Last month there was a great turnout of interested people motivated to learn
and support EarthDance Farms in Ferguson, MO. Together we worked together to
design and construct a bank of rain barrels to collect and store water from the
roof of the farmhouse. This water will be used for nearby demonstration gardens
and will be part of the farm tour, which will continue to educate the community
about the importance of holding water on your property. It is always a great
pleasure to partner with EarthDance.
Check out the
EarthDance newsletter article
for more about this event.
Native Plants and a New Friend
We were also fortunate to meet Laura Lynne Dyer who owns property in Grubville,
MO. When we met she was looking for help identifying native plants and we were
excited to help. Deanna can hardly think of anything more fun than exploring a
new site to see what is growing there. On a hot but beautiful Saturday a small
group gathered at her place to explore, identify and collect plants that would
be inundated due to a dam restoration project.
One of Deanna's passions is helping people realize the importance of including
native plants in their landscapes. Laura Lynne's generosity and foresight to
include the opportunity for others to learn and share these plants that might
otherwise be destroyed was inspiring. It felt good to know that after this day
there are now more native plants in yards around St. Louis.
If you're looking for a reason to include natives in your yard, check out the
Bring Conservation Home
program and/or read Doug Tallamy's book Bring Nature Home
or listen to one of his talks on YouTube. Or, better yet, catch Doug
Tallamy at the Missouri Botanical Garden in March.
________________________________________________________________________________
Build a Cold-Frame Workshop
Extending the growing season on a budget.
There's still plenty of room to grow here at home, so we are hosting a cold
frame workshop on Sunday, 9/29 from 2:00 - 5:00 PM. This is our first time building a
cold frame, so we will all definitely be learning together. We will be using a
simple design with easy to find materials that are still attractive for
anyone's backyard garden. For any of you who would like to extend your growing
season or are just curious, stop by and help us learn. The event is free and
meeting the people who show up at the events is always the best part. We love
our community.
Find out more at the
Adventure Farm events page.
________________________________________________________________________________
Learning About Tree Climbing
We love tree climbing and believe that once people have been exposed to the fun
of climbing into a tree higher than you ever thought possible many people are
hooked. If coming to the open climb leaves you wanting to learn more,
Adventure Tree has several opportunities to do just that.
Community College Course
One of the best ways to learn about the biology of trees, how trees are
assessed for safety, how those ropes get up in the trees and the basics of tree
climbing skills is to take our Community College course offered several times a
year. This class is an opportunity to spend three hours with a small group of
people learning the basics and becoming one of our tree climbing family. Even
if you are a regular climber with us this course will allow you to "bag" a tree
as we don't normally hold open climbs at Camp Wyman.
The next course is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 12 from 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM at Camp Wyman in Eureka, MO.
Take a look at our
STLCC Course
page for more info.
Learn The Ropes Course
This more extensive training will give you the basic skills to climb on your own. This two day course teaches you the fundamental skills of
tree climbing which includes climbing techniques, learning about climbing gear and tree assessment.
This is also the first level for the tree worker training. For more information on
this course and the tree worker training program go to:
http://www.adventuretree.org/Training/LearnTheRopes.html
|
|
|
