Big Foot And Little Feet Forest Adventures

Happy Pollinator’s Week

In celebration of Alaska Pollinator Week, entomologist Alex Wenninger took a moment to appreciate one of our most maligned pollinators, the yellowjackets.

She writes that yellowjackets don’t seek pollen as a primary food source for their young as bees do, but they do regularly visit flowers for nectar, which gives them energy for flight, nest-building and hunting for protein to feed to their young.

In addition to their pollination services, yellowjackets are excellent predators of other insects, providing free pest control for our garden. They are excellent scavengers, helping to break down carrion and return those nutrients to the soil.

Read more about yellowjackets on our blog: https://ces.open.uaf.edu/2026/06/22/getting-the-sting-on-alaskas-pollinators-alaska-pollinator-week-2026/

Happy International Children’s Day (June 1st)! It is summer in Alaska (finally) and we have been enjoying the sun !

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers and grandmothers! My children are not this small anymore but I love the photo from the says when they were much easier to bring along 🙂

I hope you have a wonderful day ❤

Today my family and I joined the Anchorage Park Foundation to kick off the city wide clean up by walking the trail loop around Cheney Lake and picking up trash, we met many neighbors and had a great time in the forest, in fresh air cleaning up and spending time together !

If you live in East Anchorage bring your family to this event, they have a fenced in toddler/preschooler playground ! I will be there between noon and 2 at the bubble station so stop by and say hi !

Forest school days ❤ Happy Earth Day to all of you that follow us here in Anchorage Alaska ❤

Sun Halo as seen at Forest School Last Monday while we were sitting at the sledding hill with soaking gear because the snow was slushy and wet. We all took our snow pants and hung them on a tree near by. Some kids wore rain gear so they were dry. I put the tarp out and we had this dry spot to sit on and wait for the sun to do its thing and dry the gear. It may be hard to believe but at 36F on a sunny day the rays are actually strong and for an hour our snow pants were dry. While we were sitting and chatting up, snacking and looking a round a sun halo appeared in the sky. A circle rainbow !!!! What a sight to be seen, most kids have never seen one, the oldest have seen a moon halo once when they traveled away from Alaska. Did you know a sun halo means a storm, and sure enough there was a storm 48 hours later. But back to the hill that day I thought of this quote so I will leave it for you to read and then to enjoy the moment I got with my phone camera.

"No barefooted, tree climbing, mud pie baking, cloud spotting, puddle stomping, bird calling, wild foraging, star gazing, firefly chasing, den building, stream paddling, rock hunting moment with Mother Nature is ever wasted." — Nicolette Sowder.

Hello friends, I am here to share that I have two spots open for Mondays starting May 10th. Those can be used as a drop off until the end of ASD school year or you are more than welcome to message me if you are interested in summer attendance with my program.

Photo of sun halo we witnessed on our last Monday gathering.