March Nature Day

We all look forward to our Nature Days each month. It is interesting to visit new places and spend our day together exploring and playing in the natural wonders. This day we went to Pritchard Park. This park is special for several reasons. First, it marks the place that the Island's Japanese-Americans were taken away to internment camps during WWII. There is a national memorial about this event in the park. Second, it used to be the location of a creosote plant, which polluted the land and the water over the many years it ran. And last, it is the sight of a huge clean up effort to try to un-do the damage that was done to the Earth. This fits right in as we talk about taking care of the Earth. It had rained the days before, and we enjoyed the big puddles.

The beach is sandy, unlike most of our Island beaches. This girl worked hard scraping the sand into this lovely shape as she began to make a place to build a sand castle.

The little village of Creosote was located here where the workers lived. The remains of the bricks the buildings were made of are scattered on the beach. 

We gathered them and laid them in a long line in an attempt to make a wall to keep the water back.

We always pick up litter when we are out. We walked a trail beside a hill of blackberry bushes, a place many have used to throw away their beer cans and bottles. The children worked so hard climbing into the blackberries to get this litter. It was very important to them.

Here is a sandcastle built by two friends.

And, the finished wall. I wonder if it will work?

What a beautiful place we live, and how lucky we are to explore and care for it!