Great fun and interesting cooking techniques were on tap for the “Five-Star Dining around a 100 Year Old Cabin” event held at South Fork Nature Center on October 13, 2015.

Docent, Krissi Graham and Clinton’s Extension Homemaker’s president, Wendy Russ, worked hard to gather supplies and organize the event. Over 20 people participated in the evening’s program. The menu consisted of vegetables steamed in Kudsu leaves sewn together to make a cooking pouch, chicken or fish cooked on woven- reed (Yucca privet, Russian Olive and Muscadine vine) mats and baskets over hot coals, pine needle tea and Kudzu Lemonade.

One young family with two small children took a hike before dinner collecting pine needles while groups of participants divided up and started creating the sewn leaf packets, vine cooking baskets and woven mats.

Another group of participants mixed the ingredients for peach cobbler and poured it into the waiting Dutch Ovens. The ovens were placed in the fire ring and banked with hot coals. Approximately 1 and ½ hours later the evening’s activities wrapped up as the group devoured the delectable dessert! As darkness fell the last of the food packets were removed from the coals, a lantern was lit and stories started surfacing about “when we use to camp……” etc.

The evening was a great success. Primitive cooking techniques, using homesteader tools (and a little foil), were explored and fun was had by all!

Beth Tucker and the Fairfield Bay Garden Club visited the Nature Center September 29, sharing mutual admiration for the relationship between those magnificent Monarch butterflies and their Milkweed floral counterpart. Our outing featured hiking around those future butterfly zones with a casual assessment of the vegetation viability. Regarding the extensive planting project in June the term ‘nursery’ was clearly embraced as we gently coddled and encouraged the newborn growths. We look forward to our continued partnership and monitoring!

​Thirty-nine high school students arrived at the stone entrance of South Fork for the day…Friday, Sept. 18. Scott Perry’s civics class (they were also Jared Brice’s biology students) came to learn about pioneer log cabin life and aspects of ecology they could experience at the nature center. The “nature deficit syndrome” that many students experience was bypassed for the day…interest ran high as lessons in the chemistry of soap making and experience using an old cross-cut saw took the spotlight. Docents led students along the trails studying insects, fungi, and other decomposers that were shaping the ecosystems on the peninsula. Other students seated in a bench circle in the woods reviewed flower parts and their functions as they discussed the sexual and asexual reproductive process influencing the outdoor species of plant life…large colorful trumpet vine flowers (red, orange, and yellow) aided their understanding of the activity.

​Other student groups “journaled” their ideas and experiences as they took in the sights and sounds of the South Fork woods…they wrote miniature essays that they turned in to their docent leader…neat readings. Still other students did leaf-stamping art with nature and painted with sticks and walnut hull dye…they created artistic renditions of leaves by using paint on the lower leaf surface, transferring that leaf vein print to art paper, and spatter painting the leaf outline…the artful leaf and its colors were an introduction to the coming fall season.

​It was 12:30…sack lunches at the picnic tables restored energy levels before everyone had a chance to “pull” the old, 5 ft., cross-cut saw as their partner then pulled the saw back in return. After a number of logs had been cut in pieces, the 30 year old pine had produced two piles of sawdust, one on each side of the cut log, sawdust from the growth rings the tree had made from carbohydrates translocated from photosynthetic activity way out in the leaves during the tree’s previous years of life. Thinking back over the 30 years during which the pine had grown, a number of events that took place during those years were remembered: birthdays, ball games, war in Europe, 9/11, etc. The old pine had been around a long time witnessing lots of activity.

​ Before taking pictures of all the class on the Riddle Cabin porch, there was a wrap-up of the day’s activities…lots of ground had been covered, new ideas had surfaced, and textbook learning from back in the classroom had been used in a new setting (the slogan “no child left inside” surely fit the day’s activities)…the day had been a special one, a day of fun where the learning took place outside on the Greers Ferry peninsula known as South Fork.