Thursday, October 14, 2004 – 11am
Park Program: Tree Identification at Pattison Park on (located on Rt 50 in Owensville)
Organized by: Laura Riesenberg

Laura writes – We will meet near the lake. Alethia Pattison donated her 23 acres of land the Clermont County Park District, known as Pattison Park, "to be used as a bird and small animal sanctuary and as a preserve for trees and flowers". The park district has honored her wish and Pattison Park provides a great diversity of trees. Walk along the interpretive tree trail and you will discover more about Ohio'sterrific trees. You will also learn to use a key to identify native trees. Program is geared for 3rd grade and up, but he said that the younger kids will still get a lot out of the program. We plan to picnic and play following the hike (Pattison Park has a wonderful playground and shelter area with picnic tables).

What a wonderful program. The weather was a bit overcast and cool, but it didn't keep people from coming out and joining us. Keith showed us how to use a "Tree ID" book to figure out what kind of tree we had found and we walked around and used the guide to identify 5 different trees. I think the moms learned as much if not more than the kids. We were joined newest naturalist at the Clermont County parks, Sheila, and she is absolutely wonderful, just like Keith.

After the tour we picniced under the shelter and the kids played. Two new homeschooling families joined us and it was great getting to know Amber (Hannah and Ashton) and Michelle (Nathan). We talked about our homeschooling philosophies and why homeschooling was so important to us. We were all a bit shocked when we realized it was after 2 PM and we were all still sitting at the park just talking away!