Walters – climbing the willow tree

Originally when we planted this willow tree hut, which has now become a nest, I never imagined that children would climb it. I always thought of it as a place where they would go inside and seek shelter or get away and play. And then one time a few years ago some children began climbing it. And that was a real awakening moment for me, first of all in children’s abilities, second in their desires and thirdly in what we were actually doing here.  So that space is quite large and there’s a few extra branches that we prune off of that living willow every year and we plant them. And our hope is that they will continue to grow and be woven together to be able to create more spaces for climbing. And this morning the children and I were talking about that and they were wondering how they’re going to be able to get up and how they’re going to be able to get down. And I don’t know that yet, which is what we were further discussing is that we’ll have to wait and see when it grows and see what happens and go from there.