Day 17 - Forest School and a Pond Party

Day 17 has been my wildest day of June so far!

My first little bit of wild today was topping up the watering hole and drinking a cup of tea outdoors in the garden...

Then I went to Carsington Water for Forest School with Derbyshire Wildlife Trust. I've not volunteered at forest school since January as I've just had various things happening each month which meant I couldn't do it. It was great to get back, though there was just one session today.

In honour of 30 Days Wild, today's forest school challenge was to do 30 Wild activities. What a great idea! It was a really nice, laid back session with all the families joining in with what they wanted to do and generally having a great morning outdoors. They had so much fun, no one was ready to leave at the end of the session and we were a good half an hour late packing away (but it didn't matter as the other two sessions weren't on).

There was home made (by the leader) elderflower cordial

Bug hunting and orchid spotting in the meadow...

Making woodland medals / necklaces

Tree faces...

Stick towers...

My second outdoor drink of the day... (Elderflower cordial)

Here's the list the FS leader put together...

Once the session was over, we went to look for the bee orchids on site

Then onto the Wildlife Discovery Room to get ready for the pond dipping party I did this afternoon.

I went down to the outdoor classroom to take the pond kit down and do a quick check for litter etc and had about 5 minutes to spare to eat half a sandwich before getting back to the wildlife discovery room ready to greet party guests.

After a successful pond dipping session (we found water boatmen, tadpoles, dragon and damsel larvae and a few other little creatures) everyone made a dragonfly to take home and then it was back to the WDR for party food and birthday cake.

I finished cleaning up the room just before 5 then headed home. Later in the evening I had my third outdoor drink of the day in the garden - one I'd been looking forward to all day!

A look back... 

On day 17 last year, I found some chicken of the woods...

And the year before? I went out on a guided wildflower walk with Derbyshire WT and, as well as all the flowers, found cave spiders.