A week off for thanksgiving meant a substantial amount of time apart from each other and away from our school routines. It’s strange how just a few days can make such a difference in our connections with each other and the land. For some of us it took a good deal of energy to throw ourselves back into this world, a world often quite removed from the rest of our lives. Our schedule this week was perfect for reintegration. Wednesday we spent on the school land learning about land stewardship from Mike Prince, our land manager. We then spent some time brainstorming various land use changes and then getting dirty and sweaty actually doing a little land stewardship ourselves. Thursday we had a wandering tracking day at Bob Heirman park, a beautiful open meadow, wetland, and river ecosystem not far from school. In our clans we had various new adventures that day including owl sightings, otter and beaver tracking, and discovering multiple animal signs such as bones, skulls, feathers, beaver chews, animal burrows, deer rubs, and copious amounts of scat. Friday we took a field trip to Northwest Trek, a wildlife preserve/safari/zoo where we were blessed to spend time in the presence of a multitude of northwest birds and mammals. For many of us we made some real connections to animals we had formerly only read about in books or tracked in sand. Some of the highlights of that day included being growled at by a wolverine, watching raccoons use their amazing hands to “see” everything they feel, realizing wolves were hearing sounds none of us could hear, actually seeing a beaver strip the bark off a branch, hearing a wild bald eagle calling to captive eagles, holding a grizzly bear skull, and playing with a river otter. What a full week! How wonderful to be back and part of this world once more.

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