Lake Padden is one of the most well known and oft frequented parks in BEC, and for good reason. While the park certainly has a great network of trails for dog walking, hiking and jogging, it also provides us with some amazing areas of woodland that provide plenty of opportunities for discovery and play. For their third outing together, the Pacific Chorus Frogs headed into the woods at Lake Padden hoping to uncover some of the natural magic that they hold.
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| Lake Padden Trails |
The day started gray as many days in the Pacific Northwest do. After gathering at the dog park, we headed into the field for a few games of Fire in the Forest. We find that getting our blood pumping and running off some excited energy, we can more easily shift into an 'explorer's mindset' where we are intentional, in the moment and curious.
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| Remembering how to play Fire in the Forest |
It felt good to head up the trail where the concrete and chain link of the parking lot were replaced with sword ferns and big cedar trees. We noted that there seemed to be a lot of fungus present on this day, and learned that fall is a popular time for mushrooms to emerge because how wet our region is this time of year. Fungus discovery became a theme of the day as we found many interesting types that were totally new to us.
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| Big mushroom! |
It didn't take long for our curiosity to get the better of us as we decided to leave the trail and head deeper into the forest. Our first spot that we decided to explore was a swampy area criss-crossed with huge downed trees. There was so much to look at and climb on here that we all dropped our packs and fanned out throughout the spot with some of us climbing among the logs, building forts, discovering more fungus or testing the depth of the mud!
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| Mud, of course |
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| More fungus! |
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| Scampering amongst big Cedars |
Our bodies began to let us know that we were hungry so some of us sat down and had a snack before we packed up and decided to look for a new spot that would be better for a game of Spiders Web!
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| Getting some nourishment |
Only a short distance away we found a great spot for Spiders Web. We decided that we should take a few minutes to explore the area so that we would have a better idea of how to move through the landscape when playing Spiders Web.
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| We cant help but climb |
While exploring one of us discovered a frog swimming in a small pool of water under some low vine maple! We all heard the news, bounded over and huddled close, hoping to all catch a glimpse or maybe even get to touch our amphibious friend. Within a minute of finding the frog, we sadly noted that we had broken one of its hind legs. Because frogs need their hind legs to move, it is likely that this frog would have been unable to move to eat or find shelter and it probably died because of its injury. So we gathered to discuss what had happened to the frog and how its injury could have been avoided. We found that none of us had intentionally hurt the frog, which is great, but that alone was not enough. We decided that in the future, we needed to intentionally not hurt the frog. This may seem like a subtle difference, but we agreed that in the future, instead of shooting our hands toward the frog, or attempting to grab the animal from another person, we would act with the intention of not hurting or unduly stressing the frog. While it is regrettable that this frog was injured, it did provide us with this opportunity to learn and grow our relationship with the forest more deeply, and for this we were grateful.
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| Our friend the frog |
After breaking our circle we grabbed some bandanas and set up a game of Spiders Web! We had lots of fun practicing our Art of Camouflage skills as the flies snuck under sword ferns and hid behind big Douglas firs and the spider tried to spot them. We added our own twist to the game by taking turns being the spider, which was great because everyone who wanted to try it out had a chance to. It was a long game of spiders web that finally ended with the flies successfully retrieving their food source and bringing it all the way back to the web!
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| Flies planning their escape! |
As it often happens when playing games, we realized that we were short on time so we had our closing circle, quickly packed up our bags and headed to the parking lot where we found our parents waiting for us.
This is our first season as a group and it is particularly exciting to see how each week we get to meet and come to know more of the plants, animals and fungi that make up our forest communities. Today we were grateful to have an opportunity to see clearly that our actions, wether in the woods or not, have real consequences and that when we act, we must act with intention.
Check out the rest of the pictures from the day here!
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