Adventures at Turkey Creek Nature Preserve

This week we had to take our three year old for his bimonthly craniopathic chiropractic adjustment. Since it's on the other side of the big city (typically over an hour away) I always try to plan an outing with the kiddos. We've explored much of the greater Birmingham, Alabama area in the realm of free nature explorations and even some that were not so free; so I've had to broaden our circle of travel destinations. It doesn't help that a huge chunk of downtown Birmingham is under major road reconstruction including massive detours, which means some major navigating finessing for this non-geographically inclined ol' girl, lol.

While searching for a new place to explore, I came across Turkey Creek Nature Preserve which is about 30 minutes outside of Birmingham via the interstate. Unfortunately, that part of the interstate is closed so to get there you have to travel highways and backroads, doubling how long it takes to reach the preserve. I had planned to go the last time we went to my sons appointment, but then realized (at his appointment) it was closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, argh. So I went ahead and scheduled his next appointment for a Wednesday so we could finally head out to explore Turkey Creek Nature Preserve despite it being further away than I would prefer.

Well, folks we finally made it to Turkey Creek Nature Preserve and it did not disappoint! It was a super neat, donation only, outdoor place to explore. There was some amazing watering holes to swim in and there were even folks tubing. We ended up hiking along the creek which to me was more of a river, but hey if they want to call it a creek so be it. The trail was not really maintained well, but I did see plenty of trails that appeared to be better maintained when we were driving through the preserve.

I was quite impressed with my children's ability to scramble over the rocky terrain. There was only a couple incidents where my kiddos slipped and fell. Which I found to be a miracle because the rocks along the creek were covered in slippery algae. Thankfully, they were all good sports and even disappointed when we had to turn around on the trail due to a fallen tree.

I prefer exploring nature spots that aren't so heavily populated; that was not the case with Turkey Creek Nature Preserve. There were people everywhere! We passed a good many folks on the trail as well as dozens swimming/tubing in the creek. It's not that I'm anti-people, but it takes a lot for my children to decompress and actually immerse themselves in God's creation. I love to see them truly become one with nature and be intentional with their time 'outside the box'.  I'm not saying they didn't enjoy themselves, but all the people around were definitely a distraction.

Several of my children were severely crushed that we didn't bring our swimsuits and floats. I must admit it would have been nice to cool off from the intense heat and humidity, but with the long drive I just didn't think it would be wise to add 'exploring the watering hole' to our itinerary. Perhaps I should have planned differently, but now we just have all the more reason to go back.

Part of the adventure for me is getting to take dozens of pictures ~ my kids typically know this is just part of the trip, but I didn't get too many pictures during this outing. Sadly, even one of my pictures was accidentally deleted, which happened to be the only one I captured of my 16 year old {{sigh}} Sometimes that's just the way things happen, unfortunately. I know life isn't about the pictures, but it helps me to remember those special little memories that mean so much to me. Much of life is hard and not so pretty so when we're in the beauty of God's creation I want to savor it for everything it's worth and my pictures help me do that in a long term fashion.

Yes men can (and do) wear babies 😍

Yes, we're the crazy parents who take eight children into the woods for an adventure, because you know 'every-day life' isn't adventure enough, lol!!

Hiking with children is not an easy feat especially when you've got a large family with lots of little ones, but I never regret the effort when we go exploring nature. I spent many years making excuses why not to go hiking, boy am I glad I quit making excuses. Hiking is one of my most loved past times as a child and while many of my children are not big fans of hiking, they usually admit to having a good time once I drag them out there.

Sometimes doing the not-so-easy thing doesn't reap massive rewards but the subtle ones do exist ~ even if you have to look a tad bit harder to see them. Besides, we all know a little change of scenery is good for regrouping and refocusing. Our midweek adventure certainly helped to break up our rough start back to homeschooling. I'm beyond grateful we had the much needed distraction and that the Lord brought us to visit Turkey Creek Nature Preserve. It was definitely worth the extra drive and energy to experience it with my family.

With Love & Hope,
Jennifer

Homesteading with Boys: The Low Tech Life

I am a boy mom seven times over. Life is aways loud and rambunctious. It's not always easy being one of the minority genders in our home, especially when the testosterone is running high. Even with all that, I wouldn't change it for the world.

Homesteading with boys is the perfect life if you ask me. It's the best and perfect way to prepare them to be real men. My boys love to be outside. Mind you we only have one acre of land, but they always seem to find all sorts of creative ways to spend their time outside ~ and for that I'm grateful.

Give my boys some tools and some scrap building materials and you never know what you're going to get. Recently, my 12 and 10 year old boys spent several days building a "shop". They received zero help for any adult besides their 18 year old brother helping to cut some metal. To say I was impressed by the finished product, is putting it mildly!

Their little shop could easily pass as a crude cabin from days gone by! When I think of all the lifeskill AND academic lessons they had to use for their special building project, I'm convinced they're going to be just fine when it comes to securing jobs in the future. There's so much more to an education than sitting at a desk staring at a textbook. Sometimes the best teacher is just trial and error and figuring things out for yourselves. But, the opportunity must be available, children have to be given the time, resources, and confidence to experiment with what they can actually do.

Our current society seems to be convinced that modern tech is the way to go. Well, sorry y'all I'm just not convinced. And, it's in moments like these, when my children use their minds and hands to create something so awesome, that I know our alternative lifestyle is perfect for us. Our kids have limited access to technology. I'm not 100% anti technology, but I am very pro keeping devices in the background of our daily lives. Our children do have allowed time for tv gaming and family tv watching it's just not a regular facet of our day.

Our children do not have cell phones (yeah, not even my 16 year old and he manages a successful business), they don't have tablets, or computers. We do have computers and tablets, but they don't belong to our children and they are strictly used in a supervised environment for the purpose of education or research. For our family, technology is a tool used to help us grow in knowledge not a means of pleasure time. For us there's just so many better ways the children can spend their time. One of them is for them to get outside and get creative.

Do I ever hear "I'm bored!" "There's nothing to do!" Um, yeah, plenty of times, but that's when I encourage my children to keep searching for something to do or I put them to work (trust me there's endless work that needs to be done around this homestead!) That usually sparks their creativity bone and they run off to do something on their own or with a sibling, lol.

I realize this way of thinking and raising children isn't the norm, and I'm ok with that. We aren't living our days to keep up with the world, we're here to follow the calling God has in our lives; and for us, living a simple life and teaching our children to use their minds and their hands is simply part of that lifestyle choice. I'm not here to convince you this is the only way to live. My goal is to encourage parents to put technology on the back burner for a bit, and allow their children to use their God-given creative spirit. You might just be a little surprised at what your children can do. 😊

With Love & Hope,
Jennifer

This is a picture of my 'shop building crew' working 

in the pouring down rain to get their shop finished.