Fall is here and that means OCTOBER and that means HALLOWEEN and that means BATS!
Bats are victims of BAD public relations, specifically because of that FICTIONAL guy, DRACULA!
Bats have been on Earth for more than 50 million years. With over 1,400 species, they are the second largest order of mammals, and those species cover six continents. Globally, bats provide vital ecosystem services in the form of eating insect pests, plant pollination, and seed dispersal, making them essential to the health of our planet.
Making a bat-friendly place in your backyard supports the essential role bats have in the environment. All 15 different species of bats in Oregon eat insects…..mosquitoes, gnats, night flying beetles and moths.
Here’s a few BAT facts: 1. One Little Brown Bat can eat over 1000 bugs PER HOUR! 2. The world’s smallest bat is the Bumblebee Bat measuring 1.5 –3 inches in length and weighing 2 grams as a full-grown adult. 3. The world’s largest bat is the Giant Golden-crowned Flying Fox with a wingspan up to 6 feet! 4. The oldest known bat was a male Brant’s myotis who lived 41 years. 5. Of the 1,400+ species of bats in the world, only three are vampire bats that drink blood. They ONLY live in Central America NOT TRANSYLVANIA!
It’s time to help our BUG EATING friends….THE BATS!
Here’s your chance – Build your OWN BAT-HOUSE – STEM kit.
You get it ALL…..pre-cut ALL weather re-purposed plywood, screws and nails along with FULL detailed instructions to build your own BAT-HOUSE. Measures 16 in. tall, 8 in. wide and 2 ½ in. deep when finished. All you need is a hammer and screwdriver.
Features galvanized mesh for inside the house…..gives ‘em traction to climb up inside. Will hold about 35-50 little brown bats. They will use it as a roost as well as a NURSERY!
This package also includes a BAT coloring page and detailed 3 page educational fact sheet about all 15 Oregon bats and why bats are SO important.
If you are interested, please send an email to [email protected] with quantity and your address.
This is a PERFECT activity for scouts, homeschoolers or ANYONE who wants to invite these AMAZING mammals to your property.
I recently found Sugar Plumb Acres on Facebookand was super excited to go out and check out the farm located at 1850 Pioneer Rd. in Talent, Oregon.
We have a family recipe for a peach cake that my children love so it was easy to talk them into coming. When we pulled up to the farm the first thing that caught my eye was all the beautiful flowers!
They have a u-pick area that you can find reasonable priced flowers to make your own bouquet. Our next trip out we will be taking advantage of this for sure. We were directed to area to pick the peaches, you need to bring your own containers to transport them, we brought reusable fruit bags.
There are plenty of low hanging fruit so that even your toddlers are able to participate. Once you’ve gathered all your peaches you just have to pull up to the exit and you’re able to weight and pay right there, the farm does only take cash or checks.
Bring the whole family to North Mountain Park in Ashland for this free event featuring interactive exhibits, kids activities, live animals, salmon and watershed education, Native American demonstrations, fly-casting, storytelling, live music, and the opportunity to spend the day outside exploring beautiful North Mountain Park.
“Communities Connected by Water” will highlight the connections we all have with our watershed and the diverse habitats that serve watershed health from the highest peaks to the lowest creeks.
Looking for free children’s activities to kick those the summertime blues?
The Park & Play program provides free activities, sports, crafts and bounce houses guaranteed to deliver a positive and enjoyable experience for your kids.
The Park & Play crew brings a mobile recreation vehicle and leads children in fun, engaging outdoor activities aimed to increase activity, creativity, and build social skills.
The daily schedule consists of a game, sport or contest, a creative art project and time in the bounce house. The bounce house is monitored closely by staff and administers a time limit to guarantee that everyone gets a chance to bounce safely.
Park & Play visits eight Medford parks Monday through Thursday, stopping at two parks each day for two hours; 10 a.m. to noon and 1 to 3 p.m.
The schedule allows Park & Play to visit a park in each Medford once a week to assure that all residents have access to the program. Park & Play runs for eight weeks beginning in June.
Movie Night at Lewis Park
The program is also available at the Rogue Credit Union Movies in the Park series providing free pre-show movie themed activities Saturday evenings from June through August at several city parks.
Go to playmedford.com or call 541-774-2400 for more information.
The Storytelling Guild presents Annual Children’s Festival every July at the beautiful Britt Gardens in Jacksonville, Oregon. For many years, the festival has provided fun-filled summer days of affordable entertainment for the entire family!
The first Children’s Festival was in 1967 and began as a small storytelling program, billed as: “A Child’s Fun ‘N Fantasy Afternoon” and was held under the trees at Britt Gardens in Jacksonville. The turnout for this one-day event was so tremendous, 200 children, that it was repeated the next day for another 300 children!
It was apparent that this was an important program and plans were readied for a true Festival in 1968. The Storytelling Guild and the Jackson County Library began planning by recruiting volunteers from the mothers who attended the first Festival. Sixteen volunteers and the local chapter of the American Association of University Women planned for that second year.
The second festival drew 2,000 children. The third, 4000 and by 1981, the Children’s Festival was attracting 15,000 visitors!
At the festival, children and adults will enjoy a variety of booths with hands-on arts, crafts, science projects and feeding of the litter eating dragons. All activities are included with the price of admission! Older children will enjoy activities such as: candle making, pottery and wood working, while younger children will have a chance to make their own puppet, sand and easel art, and have their faces painted. In addition to fun hands-on projects, you can sit back and enjoy storytelling, child focused entertainment and stage performances.
Admission is $3 per person per day (adults and children). Food is available for purchase inside the festival at the yummy Dragon Deli. The goal has always been to offer an amazing day of entertainment and education for a reasonable cost.
The mission of The Story Telling Guild and Children’s Festival is to expose children of all ages to the magic of imagination and to instill a love of books and the joy of reading.
The 8th annual Kids Dash is June 8th, 2019 at the Grants Pass High School track. Gate opens st 8AM. Entry fee is $10/child.
The Kids Dash was founded by Dr. Nate Tanner. It has been a KidZone Community Foundation event since 2014.
The Kids Dash includes runs for children ages two through middle school as well as relay races for the whole family, a 1600 meter run for middle school and advanced runners, a foam dart javelin throw, standing long jump, a giant slingshot game and the Hue-man race, our version of events like The Color Run(TM).
The Kids Dash will also have a full carnival which is free to all and is sponsored by Asante Physician Partners.
New this year will be an opportunity to participate in games with student-athletes from the University of Oregon presented by the Oregon Athlete Foundation.
The event also feature a Wellness Midway with presentations by many local fitness and health-related organizations.
June is cherry-picking month in Southern Oregon! If you don’t have your own cherry trees to pick from, consider heading over to Valley View Orchard at exit 19 in Ashland next season.
This organic Farm also offers U-pick peaches, apricots, grapes and more when in season, so mark your calendars and follow them on Facebook for their Picking Times.
Taking children on an outing to the farm teaches them where their food comes from and gives them a sense of accomplishment as they “hunt” for the best produce to choose. But make sure it is an organic farm or orchard to insure the safest, pesticide-free foraging for the little ones.
Dress comfortably in loose-fitting close to accommodate lots of reaching, stretching and walking. Tennis shoes (no open-toes) are a must, and wearing a hat naturally protects little faces from sun and the heat of summer. Buckets are provided by the farm, but keep in mind that the trek back to the farmhouse to pay can be a long one with a full bucket of cherries. We always ask for two buckets each and fill them only half full or less to make the return trip and checking out a breeze.
Be prepared to hear, “This was my most favoritist thing to do ever!” , as you drive away from the farm, with little lips smeared in cherry juice and smiles that reach from ear to ear.
Karen Daggett Austin
Owner, True Juice organic Café’ and Nana to five kiddos who LOVE to garden and pick fruits and veggies
City of Medford Railroad Park Opens for the Season
Opening day for Medford Railroad Park is Sunday, April 8th, 2018! Dozens of volunteers have been working hard to bring you an even more special park! Ride diesel trains and a motor car, view unique model railroad layouts and the Hogwarts Express, ride Thomas and Percy, tour historical railroad equipment and more. Bring the whole family, pack a lunch or eat at the Park. It’s fun for all ages.
Medford Garden Railroaders. See a G-scale logging railroad, trolley barn and lines, and seaport areas, including five water features! A separate Thomas and Friends garden railway will especially please the youngest railroad lovers, and the Hogwarts layout, added for Harry Potter fans, is designed so that tweens can run the Hogwarts Express train by remote control. New this year “Butterfly Garden” with over 150 plants designed to attract butterflies, bats & Osprey.
Rogue Valley Model Railroad Club. Ten HO scale trains, engines whining and horns blaring, operate across hundreds of scale miles of track, through working signals and crossing gates at the Highway 99 railroad crossing, between Medford and Klamath Falls, on the Pacific and Eastern Railroad, including the heavily forested climb out of Keno along the Klamath River. Children can help operate trains on a special HO layout.
The Southern Oregon Live Steamers. 2018 is their 37th year of offering free train rides to the public. Pulled by a variety of locomotives on almost two miles of track, each exciting train ride takes about nine minutes to go over and through all the tunnels, bridges and hills. The park favorite for the very young is the Thomas and Friends loop encircling the large Garden Railroad layout, with Thomas and Percy leading special trains built for small kids only.
The Southern Oregon Railway Historical Society. Tour restored 1910 and 1942 cabooses and a 1959 flanger (a type of snowplow), and view restoration work under way on Medco 4 ─ a local 1925 steam locomotive. Ride the motor car, visit the Museum, and the “Learning Caboose.”
The Railroad Park is open to the public from 11:00 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the second and fourth Sundays of each month from April through October. The park is operated by volunteers, and admission and parking are free. No tax monies are used in the operation of this park. All four clubs rely on the generosity of the public for donations to help offset the various costs involved in maintaining and expanding this one-of-a-kind Northwest attraction. This popular attraction is a unique collaboration between the City of Medford Parks and Recreation Department, the Medford Fire Department, and the four volunteer-based clubs.
The Railroad Park is located adjacent to Fire Station No. 4 at the intersection of Table Rock Road and Berrydale Avenue in Medford, just a few blocks north of the Rogue Valley Mall.
Note: Parking is limited. We encourage visitors to carpool or use public transport when possible.
Geocaching provides hours of free outdoor adventures for the whole family!
By Alex and Amanda Smith
Geocaching has been around since 2000 and in recent years has expanded into one of the hottest family activities for all ages. Geocaching is a treasure hunt using GPS technology to find real life treasures hidden in plain sight all around the world and even in your own backyard! A GPS device or smart phone, a good pair of walking shoes, a writing tool, and a sense of adventure are all you need to geocache. It’s easy to begin. Go to Geocaching.com, set up your free basic membership (or for a small yearly fee become a premium member and have access to more geocaching options and possibilities), search your home address and let the adventure begin! Each cache will have a description of what you are looking for and sometimes a hint. You can also read the past logs of other folks who have found that cache. Once you discover the physical cache you will find a log sheet to write your geocaching name on. Then you can log the find online via smart phone or computer and share your experience with other cachers. Often, inside the cache you will find small tradeable items so make sure you have a trinket if you want to swap something! This is a favorite part of the game for young cachers. See Geocaching.com for more details on tradable items.
In beautiful Southern Oregon, there is no shortage of hiking trails, stunning scenery, and outdoor adventure. Geocaching takes people to places they have never been to or perhaps didn’t even realize existed right here is Southern Oregon! From the top of Mt. Ashland to the river banks of the flowing Rogue River and all places in between, there are hidden caches and treasures to be found.
Pools, rivers, ponds, and beaches mean summer fun and cool relief from hot weather. But water also can be dangerous for kids if parents don’t take the proper precautions. Nearly 1,000 kids die each year by drowning, with
Happy kid enjoying kayak ride on beautiful river. Little curly toddler boy kayaking on hot summer day. Water sport and camping fun. Canoe for children. Funny child with vessel in a boat.
the majority happening in home swimming pools. It is the second leading cause of accidental death for people between the ages of 5 and 24.
The good news is there are many ways to keep your kids safe in the water – and make sure that they take the right precautions when they’re on their own.
Invest in Your Child’s Safety
Purchase proper-fitting, Coast Guard-approved flotation life vests and have kids wear them whenever near water. Check the weight and size recommendations on the label, then have your child try it on to make sure it fits snugly. For kids younger than 5 years old, choose a vest with a strap between the legs and head support – the collar will keep the child’s head up and face out of the water. Inflatable vests and arm devices such as water wings are not effective protection against drowning.
Keeping Kids Safe
Fencing is your best measure of protection for a backyard pool or and should be at least 4 feet tall. Pool covers and alarms have not proven effective against drowning for very young children.
Portrait of cute happy little girl having fun in swimming pool, floating in blue refreshing water with big green rubber ring, active summer vacation on the beach
It’s Imperative
Above all else, supervise your kids at all times when around water – whether the water is in a bathtub, wading pool, fish pond, pool, spa, the beach, river or lake. Never assume because your child took swimming lessons or is using a flotation device that there is no drowning risk.
Water play can be a great source of fun and exercise. Teach your child that safety is a priority and that they never swim alone. And don’t forget the sunscreen!
Since 2007, Kohl’s Cares has awarded over $177,000 in grants to Asante for health focused outreach programs to the community.
The Storytelling Guild presents Annual Children’s Festival every July at the beautiful Britt Gardens in Jacksonville, Oregon. For many years, the festival has provided fun-filled summer days of affordable entertainment for the entire family!
It has been a KidZone Community Foundation event since 2014.
engines whining and horns blaring, operate across hundreds of scale miles of track, through working signals and crossing gates at the Highway 99 railroad crossing, between Medford and Klamath Falls, on the Pacific and Eastern Railroad, including the heavily forested climb out of Keno along the Klamath River. Children can help operate trains on a special HO layout.
search 
your home address and let the adventure begin! Each cache will have a description of what you are looking for and sometimes a hint. You can also read the past logs of other folks who have found that cache. Once you discover the physical cache you will find a log sheet to write your geocaching name on. Then you can log the find online via smart phone or computer and share your experience with other cachers. Often, inside the cache you will find small tradeable items so make sure you have a trinket if you want to swap something! This is a favorite part of the game for young cachers. See Geocaching.com for more details on tradable items.
