DO LIKE THE KIDS DO
Jill Dreves, the founder of Wild Bear Nature Center in Nederland, Colorado, has a simple recipe for getting dirty: Make a mud pie.
She suggested throwing something similar to a sip and paint event: Ask everyone to bring an old cake pan and get creative with mud.
“Bring out some rocks and beads to press into them, collect some pretty leaves, press your hands or feet in,” said Dreves, who has organised mud pie parties with her staff. “We save that kind of thing for little kids, but really, as adults, we need to be doing more of it.”
If you have actual kids to entertain, build a fairy garden, Yurich said. Gather leaves and moss to create a miniature, magical landscape, using sticks to construct huts, bark for the floor and stones for seating.
Johnstone and his two-year-old daughter like making bug hotels, which encourage insects to shelter inside. They also make seed bombs, which you can assemble any time of year, then store until spring or autumn to throw around the yard, Johnstone said.
“A lot of people still have this nervousness around touching soil,” he said. But for him, “it makes me happy”.
By Holly Burns © The New York Times Company
The article originally appeared in The New York Times.
