By Ashley Lodato
It’s field trip season in the Methow and seemingly everywhere you look, busloads of elementary school kids are being dropped off at interesting local sites to learn about the people and places of our valley — the Shafer Museum, the Twisp floodplain, the Twisp Ponds, and Methow Recycles, to name a few. Most of the field trips involved the activities you’d expect — interactive learning stations, knowledge-based relays, quizzes on recently acquired information, etc.
But one trip included something a little different: fire juggling. Fire juggling over the heads of teachers, to be precise. In a supreme gesture of trust, third-grade teachers Mrs. Wolfe and Mrs. Oliver allowed jugglers Rob Crandall and Brian Fisher to toss flaming pins back and forth across their heads. Fortunately neither of the teachers is particularly tall, and no harm was done.
Brian Fisher, left, and Rob Crandall, right, of Methow Natives Nursery entertained Methow Valley Elementary School third-graders at the expense of their teachers at the end of their field trip to the Twisp floodplain.
Behind all these field trips are, of course, a corps of volunteers who make the trips (and in some cases, the very existence of the organizations themselves) possible, so let’s give a shout out to all the valley volunteers, without whom we would have far less to see, do, and rely on around here.
Have you ever had one of those days when a hen you didn’t know was both missing and broody suddenly walked out of the field with a dozen little chicks behind her? As if maybe she’d been patiently sitting on eggs in the hinterlands for three weeks, rain and shine, despite the ever-present threats of coyotes and owls? Yes? Well, me too, last week. (And the embarrassing thing is, it’s the second time this has happened.)
The hubbub of having a tumble of new chicks in our household had barely died down when my older daughter pointed out, in a rather blasé manner I later thought, that there was a bird in our wood stove, having clearly flown down the chimney. Well, what with all that excitement in one afternoon, I hardly even noticed the frog in my shoe. Good thing I felt him before pushing my toes in all the way.
A lot of locals could be spotted on the rivers and lakes last weekend, enjoying the sunny window between last week’s rains and what is forecast to be another week of stormy weather. Most people were pretty leisurely about their watery pursuits, but I know of at least two rafts and their oarsmen and passengers — who shall be unnamed — who spent a bit of time in a hole below Black Canyon, getting a little extra jolt of adrenaline and for some, the first swim of the season.
