Ferry Bluff State Natural Area

We really have landed ourselves somewhere very special, which I guess was kind of the point in moving, we wanted our kids to be able to run and explore a creek close to their home, to grow up with a sense of awe to bodies of water, land shaped by a river, rises in the earths surface. A respect for the land that is hard to get in an area of the planet where so much of it's spaces have been made worse by human interaction.

With the help of a new friend, we found ourselves at Ferry Bluff, which just happens to be right across the river from the natural area closest to our home, Mazomanie Bottomlands. It was awesome to climb up on that bluff look across at the sandbars (I love sandbars!) and think of all the adventures to come for us on the banks of this river. To see kingfishers, bald eagles and sandhill cranes all so close to this place we now call home, witness the nocturnal activity of the beavers as we explore, it all makes the heartache of leaving a place that is familiar a bit more bearable.

To let my boys just play, thought staying out of the water isn't their best skill, was refreshing. They quickly took to being beavers with their new friends. Hauling branches into the river to float downstream. Gnawing branches (sometimes too literally), packing sand into their lodge, putting food stores by for winter... the natural world is amazing as is role playing with your kids.

I also felt on this day that River started to understand a bit of his name. We didn't have river in our vocabulary much, but now River lives by a river and will be able to explore his namesake. I don't know what he thinks of this revelation, but he knows that his name is something we call something else and it isn't another boy like Big Asher. It is all spinning in there.