JM Squires Lake; 9/15/17

Welcome back, Jumping Mice families, for the third year of Explorer’s Club. We had a little turnover in the roster but most of the group remains as it was in 2016-17. 

One roster change of note is in the mentor ranks. I guess we kinda knew that Jedidiah was destined for grander things…he has moved on to lead tracking expeditions down toward Seattle (I think). In his place - presenting Adam! Your Explorers were very welcoming to Adam as they were to other changes in their group. A good thing, this embracing attitude! (motto- Widen the Circle)

Friday’s outing had a number of firsts. Along with Adam’s debut, the Jumping Mice also took their first ride on Merkel, one of Wild Whatcom’s two trusty buses (the other is Moose - you may also have heard of Stubs; it was retired a few years ago). It was a pretty quick run down to Squires Lake and your boys comported themselves well. 

In the early 1900’s Victor and Luia Squires purchased a large
tract of land, including the small lake, from Bloedel
Donovan Timber Company. Several generations of
Squires lived and worked the land until 1960. 

Once there, we scrambled up to the lake where we held our opening meeting. Our focus was our skill for the year - shelter building. Adam talked through the essential elements of an earth shelter (also known as a debris hut). He and I learned that the Jumping Mice already have a good knowledge of the materials needed and the process for construction. 

Now we get to enjoy it as Squires Lake. Here
the boys spot frogs.

While a promising start, we’ll need to wait for their October 1 outing at Stewart Mountain to see their “stuff”, as we were unable to access our planned work site above the beaver pond - too much underbrush and too little time to bushwhack through it. 

Leading the way?

So we turned to our budding navigator - a new job we’re piloting in the Jumping Mice -who directed us to a prime Spider’s Web spot. It was game on! The Jumping Mice asked eagerly for a mentor to play the Spider because “he’s fair”. We agreed this time, but soon an Explorer will fill that role. Having peers on both sides of the contest tends to stretch the boy’s edges (motto- Stretch Your Edge) by stressing their sense of honorable play. Many an Explorer’s cry of “not fair” has led not to lasting conflict but to constructive agreement. 

Ask your explorer to identify this plant.

Our game and closing meeting complete, we hiked around the lake and back to Merkel. A short return trip brought us a final first for the day. The 15th was a “Purple Friday” for Bellingham Public Schools but a normal school day at Samish Woods. We arrived to wade right into the pickup line with many Samish Woods parents! They were gracious as usual. And we at Wild Whatcom have learned our lesson. (motto- Turn Problems into Possibilities) Subsequent “Purple Friday” outings involving a bus ride will likely follow a different schedule. Stay tuned for further word.

Looking for a great spot to give thanks in our closing
meeting.

The Jumping Mice next outing is Sunday, October 1. Check the full schedule and the rest of the photos from our outing.

Tracking, discovering, playing: The Jumping Mice command Lookout Mountain

They’re closer than we realize, watching us as we amble through their space, being careful that we’re not there to do them harm. Mostly, we don’t notice them. But if one slows down and observes carefully, it’s quite possible to see the signs of their presence. 

The deer had clearly climbed this hill, so
off the Jumping Mice went to learn more.

We wanted to finish up our Tracking and Bird Language season strong, so Mentor Joey and I decided to stack our outline with activities (mostly games) that involved the “Six Arts of Tracking” (from Coyote’s Guide to Connecting with Nature). 

The Jumping Mice are learning that "Fast is slow and
slow is fast" (BEC motto). That is especially true with
tracking.

When we detect signs of a deer, squirrel, salamander, etc., asking Who, What, Where, When, Why and How (The Six Arts of Tracking) is our template for successfully learning more. Thus, the outing outline focused on these six questions and related activities. 

We talked about naming the ravine we
found, (Jumping Mice ravine). It appeared
that it'd been some time since the last
Homo Sapiens had been by. 

Well, I’m here to tell you that we didn’t do a single one of those activities! And for all the right reasons. Our first objective was to find a track, after which Joey and I would talk about the questions to ask and…..blah, blah, blah. What happened when we found the deer tracks in the mud was SO-O-O much more valuable! The Jumping Mice immediately began following the tracks up a hill and along a ridge. They were on fire with curiosity and questions (some of which actually mapped into the Six Arts). The mentors had trouble keeping up with the Explorers’, both physically and intellectually. It was fun and, for me at least, memorable. And when a person experiences with his or her whole being, the lesson is more likely to be internalized. 

Down we went, amid mosses, a stream, and lots of
curiosity.

It’s funny — the Boys Explorers Club mentors build outlines around a flow that places the “work” early in the outing, followed by celebration and reflection. We put that flow aside for the Six Arts approach described earlier. However, after all the excitement of tracking the deer, we explored a little and found a spectacular ravine that provided the space for free exploration, just the thing to balance the more intense activity earlier. Ironically, while we were relaxing a bit, Mentor Joey spied a raccoon spying us from a near hill. He and a few of the boys quickly switched into tracking mode, but were unable to pick up the “scent”, as it were.

This mud pit provided the spark to a wondrous tracking
adventure.

We finished with a few games of Spiders Web, the only game we played all day! I’m confident the Explorers learned both the technique and the thrill of tracking. I know that Joey and I learned once again that sometimes the best mentoring involves setting the stage and getting out of the way.

Next time, for Spider's Web, CAMO!

This outing completes our 2016-17 Jumping Mice year. With two full years under our belts, we can begin to expand our focus by exploring new places and new skills, all the while revisiting what we've accomplished in years one and two. I'm excited to reconvene in September to amble further down the trail. Have a great summer and I hope to see some Jumping Mice in Wild Whatcom's summer camps. Check out the rest of the photos from Sunday's outing at Lookout Mountain.

Jumping Mice put an exclamation point on spring service!

I’ve been writing blog posts about our service work for a few years now. After that much time, it begins to feel repetitive to write about uprooting Himalayan Blackberries and stomping down and covering the Reed Canary Grass with bark. In fact, until this season, it has been primarily the same work each time (I’ll explain it a bit why the work was a little different this time).

Notice the Reed Canary Grass? I didn't think so! (Of course,
it'll come back...but less seems to come back each season.)

So let’s refresh our thinking about why we do this work. Two Explorers Club mottos will help here. The first: All things are connected. "If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you'll come to understand that you're connected with everything." – Alan Watts 

On our outings, we point out and experience these connections as much as possible. In the course of our exploring, we come to realize that all things really are connected — mosquitoes and streams, cows and the Salish Sea, litter and otters, the skies over China and over us — and that all our actions have an impact.

We probably should've put more tiers of cribbing. Live and learn.

Notice - “all our actions” have an impact. The actions of others have caused significant degradation to a section of Happy Valley Park. We have committed ourselves to restoring the habitat for the sake of the mosquitoes, people, cows, the Salish Sea, otters and of course, salmon. Yes, the work is difficult and repetitive, but the positive impact is great.

The second motto: Connect and protect. When we’re exploring and playing games in the forest, we impact the land. We do this in service to what we perceive to be the higher goal of connection. "If we want children to flourish, to become truly empowered, then let us allow them to love the earth before we ask them to save it."-David Sobel 

I'll bet your Explorer can tells you the steps to place cribbing
in securely.

However, we do impact the land. So we work to restore it as a way of balancing the damage we do and because when we connect we recognize the need to also protect.

In Sunday’s case, we also got to learn a new technique involved in restoring riparian habitat. You see, we reached the creek this season! Years of hard work have produced visible, tangible results. It has also changed the work. On Sunday, we did little weeding and no bark shuttling. Instead, we built “cribbing”, or barriers to retain the soil and bark in place and not in the stream, where it degrades the water quality on which salmon rely.

Ask your Explorer for the 3 C's of a high quality salmon stream.

Connection happens when we're engaged directly
with the land.

Mentors and Explorers alike are learning as we go through this restoration process. Your boy’s work was inconsistent on this final service day of the spring, but when it came time to depart, each Explorer and mentor was able to see the good work he’d done — on Sunday and over the two years the Jumping Mice have been shouldering their share of the burden.

To give you an idea of the progress - here's a boy from another
group working on the Reed Canary Grass 3 years ago Compare with the
photo from Sunday below.

Blackberry - again, three years ago.

This was taken Sunday. The section of fence you see was
"discovered" in the midst of raging Himalayan Blackberry!

We meet again on June 4 at Lookout Mountain Forest Preserve. More photos here.

The Jumping Mice hike the Rock Trail to Lost Lake

A significant aspect of what Explorers Club mentors emphasize, especially for the younger boys such as the Jumping Mice, involves paying attention. We encourage them to tune in as we walk through the forest. Hear that bird chatter? Does one call sound different from another? 

Your boys are learning about the five different bird languages - Song, Juvenile Begging, Companion Calling, Aggression and Alarm. Paying attention to the differences in calls can be important in the wild. For instance, noticing an alarm call from the trees could alert you to the presence of the predator you're tracking (or avoiding!).

Bird language and tracking are complementary pursuits. Hearing a bird call or noticing scarring on a tree should prompt us to ask a few key tracking questions:

• What happened here?
• What does that tell me?
• What does that teach me?

These are the elements we're working on with the Jumping Mice this season. Sunday's outing offered the mentors opportunities to introduce and discuss these points, and in the best way possible. Rather than listening to me talk, the land was the teacher. 

Our exploration of the Rock Trail began at its highest point It quickly winds around to the east side of the mountain and heads down along some amazing rock formations which are, at a few points, penetrated by caves. These caves are growing very rapidly (in geologic time) in a process described here. As far as the Jumping Mice were concerned, of course, they were cool to explore and to see how many boys could fit into each one (Sunday's record: six boys and one mentor). 

As we headed further down toward Lost Lake, we found ourselves noticing places where animals might set up a den or stalk prey. Around Lost Lake, we explored what could be the world's biggest root ball and, thanks to our sharpened observation skills, noticed scat that, with the help of mentor Jedidiah, we determined was evidence of a Snowshoe Hare which was probably watching us as we played.

Mastering observation on the trail has many benefits in everyday life. In a few years, we'll ask your Explorers to expand the scope of their observation, attention and tracking to many more aspects of their lives. At this age, it can be a challenge to just notice that someone else is speaking so as not to interrupt in one's eagerness to share some nugget. We start where they are and hope to guide them toward being authentic men. One step at a time. 

Check here for all the photos from our Rock Trail outing.

Time to switch to our seasonal service work. Next outing: 

Sunday, May 7th, 9:30am-1:30pm

Service: BEC Connelly Creek Restoration Site, Happy Valley Park

Tracking Larrabee State Park with the Jumping Mice

We could sense it was going to be a good outing when we found ourselves basking in cool sunshine as we gathered for a different kind of adventure on Sunday. What a great day for the Jumping Mice to begin their spring season! 

After a last minute change of drop off location (thanks for being flexible, parents/guardians), we set out to traverse from the Lost Lake trailhead to the Larrabee State Park camp area along the west side of Chuckanut Drive. After crossing Chuckanut, Mentors Jedidiah and Brian talked with the boys about tracking...they wanted to play in the creek. In fact, there was considerable “antsiness" in the ranks. Opening and decision circles were marked by repeated talking over of the speaker. We talked with the boys about respect; of course it didn’t help that Mentor Brian forgot our “Talking Stick”, an important tool in our efforts to bring a tone of decorum to our circles. We are, each one of us, continually working to improve how we treat each other. 

So, after some free exploration, we hiked north intending to play Spider’s Web along the way, but chose instead to try an unknown trail. It led us to a spectacular overlook of the islands and Salish Sea, a bonus on this clear day. We took a break, then participated in a tracking activity, which seemed to sharpen the Explorer’s focus. We then finished our traverse to the camping area, where we were joined shortly by parents and friends for a pot luck dinner/campfire. The weather contributed to a fun, safe social time.

I think the Mentors learned an important lesson with the change in the boy’s behavior when we introduced the structured tracking activity. We should do more of this. We saw a similar response to a navigation activity last year. We’ll try to incorporate this approach more in future outings.

Perhaps the view should get credit for calming the Jumping Mice. It was just after we took in this spectacular vista that we tried our hands at tracking and the tone of the outing improved.

Scanning through these photos I noticed that there was more interaction that didn't involve physical contact, a sign these boys are getting older. In fact, yesterday was Archer's tenth birthday. Happy birthday, Archer!

One of the Explorers is into geo-tracking and knew of a geocache along our route; needless to say, we couldn't not investigate.

In the camp area, the boys spied a rabbit, a few nests and investigated a stream. This curiosity is a critical foundation for tracking. Now, Mentors Brian and Jedidiah just need to stoke that curiosity!

Parents and Explorers work to set up our potluck.

Congregating around a campfire provides an excellent place for socializing and relationship building.

Our skill for the spring is Tracking and Bird Language. As Mentor Jedidiah introduced our tracking activity, one of the boys asked, “I’m an animal; should I track myself?”, to which Jedidiah responded, “That’s the end of the trail.” I’m pretty sure the boys thought he was joking, but there was wisdom in the question as well as the response. As Jed pointed out, whether tracking animals or one’s self, it helps to begin by slowing down and becoming more aware of yourself and your surroundings. No illusions here that the Jumping Mice are going to “get it” any time soon, but be assured that our purpose doesn’t end when we find “scat”, exciting though that no doubt will be for the boys.

More photos here. We next get to explore the Stimpson Family Nature Preserve - on Sunday, March 26. Thanks for all your support with the potluck/campfire gathering — great fun. 

The Jumping Mice pivot to the Two Dollar Trail: find and learn unplanned stuff! 1/21/17

Saturday’s Jumping Mice outing to the Rock Trail became the JM outing on the Two Dollar Trail thanks to Cleator Road being closed due to snow/ice. True to the spirit of Boys Explorers Club, we worked to Turn Problems into Possibilities and embarked on what turned out to be a great outing! 

After a few minutes orienting ourselves to our location in the Chuckanuts, our small group of intrepid Explorers started excitedly up the trail in search of Fragrance Lake, promised in just 1.7 miles. It wasn’t long before they showed an aptitude for our skill for the winter/spring — tracking and bird language. One of our number was perceptive enough to notice a purple spot on the side of the trail and immediately realized the color was out of place: a foundational tracking behavior involves noticing contrast — when something is different or out of place. 

What our Explorer had picked out was a colony of Springtails, amazing little creatures that can leap astounding distances relative to their diminutive size. Of course, once we were aware and interested, we found several colonies along the trail. Cool find!

Next it was the mentors’ turn to show their stuff. An important mentoring skill is the ability to ditch your plan when your charges light up with a childhood passion. As we took a short rest break further up the trail, mentor Jedidiah picked up a few sticks and started working on making an Atlatl (yeah, I didn’t know what that was either….). The boys were immediately entranced and wanted to try one and/or to make their own. That wasn’t in the plan, but Jedidiah had clearly tapped into a child passion, so we went with it. You’ll notice that most of the photos involved atlatls and primitive rock tools. 

Our planned game of Spider’s Web was delayed as they worked on their tools. Note the intensity of their expressions in the photos. 

Hard to see, but there are many (thousands?) Springtails in a colony. The boys are trying to get these hexapods (6 legs) to jump on their hands.

Don't forget to look up! We were treated to a partial halo (also known as a Sundog, apparently) around the sun. Here's more about these exciting sky phenomena - Sundog

The Jumping Mice worked hard on this outing. It's interesting what can happen when kids connect with nature. 

Sharpening sticks; fashioning Atlatls; creating tools from stone

Mentor Jedidiah holding court

We never made it to Fragrance Lake. When it occurred to us that we’d better get moving if we were going to make it, the boys talked it over and decided to scrap that goal for more time to work on their atlatls and stone tools. It’s unfortunate that several boys were unable to join us; it was a special outing. And, of course, we also didn’t make it to the Rock Trail. I’ll put that on the schedule for the fall. It’s a very cool trail.

Our next outing, Feb. 26 from 2:00 ’til 7:00 pm at Larrabee St. Park, also holds the promise of a great time. We plan to make a fire for the last hour or so and share food and drink with guests your Explorers invite to join us. More information coming as we get closer. The rest of the photos and a video or two from Saturday’s outings here.

The Jumping Mice explore N. Chuckanut and Arroyo; 12/4/16

A jumping mouse is a humble creature. Yet, in the Jumping Mouse story passed down from the indigenous northwest peoples, our hero stretches his edge (see mottos) and emerges a much more complete critter. 

Our Jumping Mice Sunday showed many signs that they’re on a similar journey. As individuals and as a group, they walked unfamiliar trails, crossed barriers (streams, fears), engaged risk in a careful and confident way and collaborated on a shared goal. 

With the help of a useful tool called a talking stick, they focused better in circle. We discussed that while it’s called a talking stick, as much as anything it’s about listening to honor the speaker. This creates the setting in which any boy is free to speak from his heart knowing his peers will respect his thoughts and feelings. An ambitious goal, to be sure. First step, calm the group. We made good progress with that on this outing.

Led by their appointed Tribal Elder, they planned and executed a project to build a fort while learning about ethical harvesting (our skill for the fall). Wild Whatcom believes that when you engage a child’s natural passions, the boys connect heart and soul with your message and embrace, often unknowingly, the learning. So, rather than talking about how to cut a branch off a live tree for your shelter, we put them to work building a fort using downed materials and a live branch or two which we harvested in a way that minimized damage to the tree. Ask your Explorer what we did with the fort’s insulating leaves when we were finished and why.

With mentor guidance and little else, they also carried out several Boys Explorers Club cultural mainstays such as the sit spot, circular leadership and thanksgiving. On our first ever outing last year, one of the Explorers wound up in a sticker bush in the middle of our sit spot. Given that the 5 S’s of a sit spot are Solo, Silent, Still, Safe and Senses, no one should ever wind up stuck in a bush! Well, what a difference a year makes. We had very few distracting moments on this sit spot, a key building block for connecting with nature in this profound way.

Whew! It was a very full, and fulfilling day. 

If you've hiked from the N. Chuckanut trailhead, you know the trail...except we went the other way. Ask your Explorer about how the creeks are running (hint: fast, with lots of energy and wonderful noise).

So......how did this Coho jaw bone make it THAT far up the hill?

The boys organized themselves into gatherers and designers/builders and we were soon under way with our fort project.

They don't seem troubled by the lack of insulating material. However, the structure was sound so with more leaves and fern fronds, they'd have a fort that all 12 of them could fit in...mostly.

If your Explorer is having trouble relating what we did with the insulating leaves, show him this picture.

An engineering marvel.

Another child passion is sneaking and hiding. Spider's Web is a great game for learning how best to do that.

Why walk on the trail?

Mentors Brian and Joey were impressed by your Explorer’s burgeoning inner strength on this outing. Like the jumping mouse in the story, they showed an independence we hadn’t seen before. It feels like our foundation is forming. It’ll no doubt be a two-steps-forward, one-step-backward progression as your boys morph into adolescence. Even the jumping mouse returned home to rethink his actions. But from our perch, we’re seeing the fruits of your incessant labor with these boys. We’re honored to contribute, however humbly, to that vital work.

Remember, we’re going to have an outing during the winter as part of our expanded schedule. Our winter/spring schedule will be posted soon. And the Jumping Mice photo gallery is where you’ll find the rest of the pictures from this outing. Take care.