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  Home Page » Features » Columnists » Durango Nature Studies » Junior Naturalists Know How To Celebrate Joys Of Summer

Junior Naturalists know how to celebrate joys of summer

No season is missed and longed for more than summer. Every living thing, from the smallest plant to the largest animal, seems to join together in a celebration of life.

On a personal level, it is hard to not favor the season that allows me to spend the entire work week in the great outdoors.

Thanks to Durango Nature Studies' immensely popular Junior Naturalist Field Camp, which has expanded from three to six sessions of summer camp in just three years, I am spending as little time as possible in my office.

It is hard to stay grumpy or tired in the presence of the Junior Naturalists as they marvel at a cicada shedding its skin, find fresh black bear tracks or revel in the cool relief of an afternoon dip in the Florida River.

Children are better than anyone at filling a summer's day with activities and adventure, and there is little need for structured activities or overly-planned daily schedules.

Give a child a field, a grove of trees or a riverbank of mud, and they will show you how to spend an afternoon digging for treasures in the dirt, hanging from tree limbs or hunting for bugs and reptiles in the tall grass.

Because children are experts on all things summer, I sought out the current Junior Naturalists to help create this column dedicated to the season.

In the hopes that their words might inspire a few of us grown-ups to not only appreciate but to get outside and experience more warm and sunny summer days, I asked the campers to share what they love most about summertime.

Here are just a few of their responses:

•Going out into the woods and building forts;

•Playing in the grass like a tiger;

•Watching clouds and brightly colored sunsets;

•Going dirt-biking;

•Catching lizards or snakes and getting muddy;

•Swimming in the river and smelling the air after it rains;

•Watching cool stuff that flies, like birds;

•Going on hikes;

•Listening to the river and catching horny toads;

•Digging in the dirt and gardening;

•Seeing snakes and playing in shallow pools;

•Having longer days;

•Visiting my cousins and jumping on the trampoline;

•Going camping and rafting;

•Watching wildlife;

•Drawing pictures of wildflowers and swimming;

•Catching garter snakes;

•Playing outside without having to be bundled up in coats.

Like a cold during flu season, it is next to impossible to avoid the infectious nature of a child's enthusiasm for the summer.

I am writing this column at camp on a piece of construction paper during a very important part of our daily schedule - free play time.

As I watch campers play and run in the field at the Nature Center, a John Muir quote from his book, The Story of My Boyhood & Youth, keeps running through my head: "Young hearts, young leaves, flowers, animals, the winds and the streams and the sparkling lake, all wildly, gladly rejoicing together!"

gretchen@DurangoNatureStudies.org or 382-9244. Gretchen Lamar is program manager for Durango Nature Studies.