While the ladies headed into town to do some shopping the boys headed out Beaver Falls to get some much-needed fresh air and adventure. My brother and his wife were here for Christmas and all of us were staying just … Continue reading →

With all the wind and rain lately the canopy of trees in Columbia Park have lost a lot of branches. While getting some play time in with family, the boys and I collected some of the bigger branches and made … Continue reading →

A “murmuration” is the collective noun for a flock of starlings. It is also one of the most beautiful things in the whole world. There isn’t anything else to say. Show this to your kids. Murmuration is a video from Sophie Windsor Cli...

Overview: Hike is the second effort from Moosetache Games, an up-and-coming publisher with a knack for designing nature-themed games (their original game, Rowboat, was a trick-taking game with a nautical theme). In Hike, players attempt to empty their hands by following suit from the most recent card played, a mechanic ...

Dear Mr. Dad: My kids, 9 and 11, spend a fair amount of time with electronic games but my husband and I insist that they spend an equal amount of time reading. They both play outdoor sports (one does soccer, the other baseball), but no matter what we d...

The kids and I have previously set up a web camera to take pictures of the raccoons investigating our compost bin at night, but that’s nothing compared to what the staff at Banff National Park in Canada has done. Parks Canada set up a wildlife camera and collected photos for ...

Living in Portland we have easy access to amazing parks and nature preservers but we are also minutes away from streams, rivers, and forests for the boys to explore and engage. Not all kids are lucky enough to have that space to interact with nature and find adventure at the ...

The older boys, Max and Cody, and I headed out for a hike on the weekend. About 5 minutes in, the blazing eye of the sun microwaving my neck reminded me that I didn’t bring any sunscreen. But, as I explained to Lizzie later (as she applied aloe), there is ...

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve held fungi in high esteem. There’s something innately mysterious and otherworldly about fungi, and thankfully I’m not the only one who things so. Discover Magazine has collected some rather fantastic images of the delightful Kingdom, as well as some rather astonishing facts to ...

The most important question is, ‘Is the universe friendly?’ — attributed to Albert Einstein Long time readers may recall a post here describing how once, in the middle of the night, I woke, went outside, and sat for a time in the dark under t...