This past week I led three outdoor education classes of children age 5-12 at Fort Ord National Monument. It was my first time directly interacting with children that age in what feels like years, and it was a really heartwarming experience. The young children were really unfiltered and enthusiastic, and it was really enjoyable and comedic at times to spend time with them. I led them on nature hikes pointing out any interesting animals, plants or fungi that I saw, and showed them BLM’s domestic California legless lizards and gopher snake, two reptiles found on Fort Ord.

Kids taking time to journal

Old man’s beard

Before those nature classes, I was helping a group of CSUMB capstone students do transects of old restoration sites in order to monitor their vegetation coverage. While in the field, we stumbled upon a very large orb-weaver spider in one of the plant basins.

Orb-weaver spider with its meal