After the snow....

....came the mud!

Which right now is everywhere and all pervasive! It's not just the normal mud of late winter either. For the past 6 months or so our stream has been damed to allow builders to build e new science lab, elevated on stilts further down the marsh. And with so little through flow of water our usually sandy bottomed pond has silted in. Lots. And it SMELLS!!! Thankfully work is nearly done, and within the next few weeks we hope to get the stream racing back through the site, and carrying away all the smelly silt.

At this time of year the Forest Tots fire becomes even more welcome. For some of our kids it is a major draw and probably the main reason they love Forest Tots! Sadly of course it is the hardest time of year to persuade it to light, with damp wood everywhere. We buy in firewood when we have to, and resort to firelighters on the coldest dampest days.

But despite our best efforts there have been days recently when the fire has been more smoke than flames and with watering eyes this little lad took himself off to build his very own fire, which remained blissfully smoke free ;) . He spent a good half hour snapping sticks and building up his 'fire' and was mightily confused by one particular stick, which try as he might, just would not break!

I spotted another little girl engaging in the fire in a meaningful way for the first time. She collected a handful of twigs from the woods and very tentatively and carefully through them one by one onto the fire.

As always the mud kitchen is very popular and the adults in the group are frequently offered cups of mud, plates of stones and bowls of stick soup ;oP

It is now mid Feb, and I think many of us are now longing for Spring, the warmth and light at the end of a long cold wintery tunnel!