We need to do something to kind of help support that natural flow of the universe, the creative flow, which is play, which is children learning and growing and developing their bodies and their brains and their connection to the world, their connections to the outdoors.

Hi, this is Rusty Keeler, and you’re listening to the Play Nature podcast, where we talk about play, nature, playing in nature, and the nature of play. I’m glad you’re here. Let’s have a listen.

All right. Hi. Rusty Keeler here. I’m so glad that you’re joining me for episode two. All right. This is the episode that I’ll tell you a little bit about me. My background. Years ago, I got asked to do a talk at the great non profit organization called Evergreen up in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. And I got introduced, I guess I, it was back in my early days and I was moving and grooving and trying to build as many playscapes all over the place as I could, and I guess they had been hearing my name here and hearing my name there, so when they introduced me, they were saying, Rusty Keeler?

Who the hell is Rusty Keeler? So, maybe you’re wondering the same thing. So I thought this episode, I tell ya, who the heck Rusty Keeler is? And my specialty is outdoor natural play spaces. And I am a designer. I went to school for design, industrial design, product design. My first job out of school was doing play equipment.

I love that. I switched to naturalized play spaces and community built play spaces. And so I went in that direction. I’ve written some books all about nature play. I do talks and workshops and keynotes. I am all about advocating for play in the lives of children. And so, that’s where I’m at. And I, what I stand for, is the real stuff.

The real outdoor play. With nature, with grass, with trees, with bunks, with mud, with sand, with water, with other children, with loose parts, with adults. Let’s say yes to play. And so, you know, in the age of technology that we’re in now, I feel like it’s even more important to provide children with the opportunities to connect to the natural world, to the outside world with the real stuff.

Technology’s there, screens are there, but we want to balance it, right? We want to balance it all out. So that’s what I’m about. Natural play, messy play, loose parts play. And in my journey, I’ve gotten to travel all over the world and see amazing play spaces, amazing parks and schools and childcare centers and people with their backyards doing amazing stuff.

And so I have lots of inspiration that I want to share with you. But maybe the most amazing thing that I’ve seen is play. Just play. Play is one of those things. That is infinite. It’s like the infinite creative flow of the universe coming through children. The spark of the universe, the light of the universe that we all are.

Children have it. It’s strong with them. And they are wired to explore the world and themselves and each other and you through play. With a sense of curiosity and a sense of wonder. So that’s kind of the most amazing thing to me is that this kind of the universality of play and I want to Support that and I want to support you in supporting play now wherever you travel and you see children with say out outdoors with say loose parts like Gutters, hoses, bowls, bricks, two by fours, traffic cones, balls, cardboard boxes, they all kind of do the same thing.

They’re playing, they’re experimenting, they’re exploring, they’re tapping that creativity, they’re learning about the world. And so I want to help create amazing spaces for children to play. For them to explore that sense of wonder and curiosity. So, you know, my journey was interesting because I didn’t come at it through education.

My parents were teachers. But I went the angle of design. I’ve worked with educators, you know, all these years, over 30 years of doing designs and workshops. Lots of early childhood educators and elementary educators. But for me, it was through design. And I went to industrial design school, which was like product design.

And my first job out of school was doing playground equipment, the structures. And through that process, I found the amazement. of play, the beauty of play, the importance of play in children’s lives. And so that was like a big aha moment for me. And then the other aha for me was, oh, I love designing for play.

You know, through design, we adults can think about how children play, where they play, how to have social kinds of opportunities for children to play, or physical or intellectual things, how things work, or tapping children’s creativity. And so I love design for play. So I’d moved out west, go west, go west young man.

And lived in Olympia, Washington and Seattle, Washington and that’s where I was doing my first designs. Then I got the opportunity to live over in Europe, in the Netherlands and design over there at a sister company. And that’s really where the light bulbs went off, that’s really where my ideas shifted and I expanded my thinking in so many ways.

It’s a young mid twenties fella. And I saw more one of a kind spaces. I saw more naturalized play spaces. I saw more artistic play spaces. Not just play environments that you can pick out of a catalog, but things that were built by the community. By artists. By sculptors. By carpenters, by plumbers. And so I just thought, oh my gosh, wait, playgrounds don’t have to just be the equipment.

Which made me think back to my own childhood. And the places that were most important to me were the fields behind my house. The places that I roamed and ranged in all different seasons, all different weather. Finding berry bushes, in hedgerows between farmers fields, climbing cherry trees, finding snakes in rock piles.

Doing sledding and building giant snow forts with friends in huge drifts in the wintertime. And so it was that, you know, without even thinking as a child, that was just the environment. That’s where you roam. That’s where, you know, go out and see what’s happening out there. And so I suddenly started thinking about that in Europe.

Oh, gosh, those are really important spaces for me. And that connection to the earth, and to seasons, and to where I lived. And so then I started thinking, wait, maybe that’s the kind of environment that children can have. And so I kind of came back and started on my odyssey, on my journey, really on my life’s path.

To design natural play spaces and inspire others and support other people like you designing beautiful Beautiful environments naturalized environments for children’s play and through that I’ve traveled all over I’ve worked with amazing people I’ve seen amazing Structures, I’ve seen amazing yards.

I’ve seen amazing groups of people that are standing up for play And supporting play, with loose parts, and saying yes, and having the right clothes on hand so kids can get muddy. Having the right words to use to talk to licensing, or talk to parents. And just knowing that play is important. And so I’ve traveled all over and I’ve seen, you know, incredible places for play.

But the most amazing thing is, again, the play. The play itself. And that’s what we want to support. In all my travels, I’ve seen a whole variety. That’s what’s interesting. I’ve visited lots of child care centers, lots of schools, and seen how different people do it. And some people are confident. They’re like, yeah, we support play.

We have mud pants and we let them play. Go up slides and roll down muddy hills and, you know, really go for it. And other places or centers feel like, oh, we can’t do stuff or licensing won’t let us. Or talk to groups where they’re like, no, licensing can’t do that. And then somebody on the other side of the room is like, oh, well, we always, we talk to our licensor about that and we can do amazing things.

And so I’ve seen the whole variety out there in the world of. You know, people saying yes, and people saying no. People who are open to play and learning and growing and supporting play, and people who are more fearful. Seeing people who are kind of controlling over children, and then people who are more laid back or using their powers to follow the child.

Honoring children and knowing they’re capable. And so following them. So it’s interesting, all the different mindsets that are out there. So, for me, that’s part of learning and sharing with you, different things I’ve seen. I’ve been this kind of witness to all these, as a traveler, to all these different people and places and playscapes.

But beneath it all, it’s the children. And the children have that same spark in the universe, and that play. And so, that’s what I’m hoping the movement to play and nature play. Help us adults to take breaths and say yes to play. Because it is vitally important that we do that. Gosh, childhood has shifted.

Certainly since I was a child, growing up in the 70s and 80s, there’s a lot more pressures on children. There might be less freedom. You know, some places are less safe, and other places people think it’s less safe. So children have less freedom because of that. Schools have put more pressure on children.

There’s technology now, grabbing children’s attention. And I feel like it’s so important now, like we need to do something to kind of help support that natural flow of the universe, the creative flow, which is play, which is children learning and growing and developing their bodies and their brains and their connection to the world, their connections to the outdoors.

So it is vitally important. That we stand up for what we believe in. And we advocate. And we find ways to be inspired. And we try to work to inspire other people. And we lead the way. You know, you believe in play. So, how do we talk about it? How do you talk about it with others? Yeah, we need to use our voice.

It’s too important. It’s too important what’s going on with children’s mental health these days. And so that’s kind of what I’m about, too, of, you know, it, children playing, it may seem like splashing in a mud puddle, it’s just splashing in a mud puddle, or letting children climb up a slide. Okay, okay, they’re climbing up a slide, no big deal from the adult point of view.

And yet, it’s really the future of humanity. Saying yes to play, creating opportunities for children to play, creating time and space and materials for children to have the freedom to play. It is. Supporting that spark of the universe. And that is that creative, that creative flow. It’s children growing, it’s children living their lives.

And so we want as much of that to flow as possible. And so I’ve been doing it for all these years. In the beginning, I was all gung ho as a young man wanting to build, build, build and do community built things and break things down into bite sized pieces so that projects could be simple and successful.

And I’m still all about that. But now I’ve kind of shifted more into advocating and designing and talking about play and working with folks like you to kind of really rethink rules and see about how we can support more play. And so I’m as gung ho as I was in the beginning. I may even be more gung ho now.

And that’s part of what this podcast is about. Is I’m on a journey, you know, this is my life path and I hope that you join me on this journey or continue to join me on this journey because I love talking about play. I love learning about play. I’m on the kind of a lifelong journey to learn and grow, travel with a sense of curiosity and wonder to just expand my own thinking, expand my own practice.

And I want to in turn, share that with you. So I’m not stopping. I’m going for the duration, so I hope you join me for the duration too. And, especially in this day and age, when there’s so much that’s going on in the world, that we can feel helpless and things are out of our control. We feel like we can’t make a difference.

And yet, we can totally make a difference. If we remember what we stand for. If you remember what your intentions are. With your work. With your work with children. You work with your own children. If we can get strong in that, we can be the spark of the universe. And we can support play, and we can stand up for naturalized play spaces, and naturalized play, and children connecting to the real stuff, the good stuff.

And that’s what we have control over. And so I say, in this time of change and uncertainty, we can be certain, and you can be certain, that I’m not going to budge in the things I believe in. And I’m going to keep walking forward and I want you to join me. We want to keep bringing the light in the world, right?

Yeah, let’s do it through play. And that’s what we have control over. And so we can continue to ground ourselves in what we believe in and to create the world. You

improve your outdoor space, you’re making the world a better place. It’s true. So let’s do it. That’s a little, my, my journey in a nutshell, from young whippersnapper in my backfields, to kind of wide eyed industrial designer, learning about play and design, to the living in Europe, having my mind blown about possibilities of outdoor spaces and play in the city.

And naturalized spaces. Trying it out and working with communities all over the place to build community built naturalized play spaces. To the books I’ve written about it, to the places I’ve traveled, and more and more, my commitment to you, to the world, and to children’s play. To dream big, start small, and never stop.

So there we go. Episode 2. Who the heck is Rusty Keeler? Well, there he is. And keep listening. I’ll share more. And I have some questions. I’ll answer some questions here. And if you want to send me a question or comment, you can at PlayNaturePodcast at gmail. com Here’s one. Bees are a big concern. Thoughts?

Okay, bees. So, you know, with natural playscapes, we’re talking about adding nature, and plants, and flowers, and we want nature, and we’re inviting nature into ours. When we put plants in, we’re inviting wildlife. We want birds and butterflies, and bees. Yeah. Now, here’s kind of the thing thinking about bees is that bees, if there’s a nest, they’re very aggressive, right?

They’re protecting, their job is to protect the nest. So we don’t want bee nests or wasp nests, you know, they got up in playgrounds or under playhouse roofs or, you know, in different places. And so we don’t want that kind of thing. We don’t want bees in that way. Bees that are pollinating, you know, going from flower to flower.

You know, they’re all blissed out on nectar and pollen, and they’re just doing their job. And actually, bees doing that, doing the pollination, that, I mean, in one way, that makes the world go round. That makes every plant grow. And we need bees, but it’s also an opportunity for children to see bees in action, in kind of a, you know, in a safe way.

You know, they’re just moving from place to place. So it’s an opportunity for conversations and, you know, we respect the bees, we give them some space, and we can just see them doing their thing. Because we want, you know, children to have kind of connections and see the beauty and the web of life. You know, that there’s so many different layers and bees are a part of this world just like we are.

So we want to have that there, and at the same time it’s important if you’re working with groups of children or you have your own children that you know that who might have a bee allergy, you know, so if you get stung, and I’m sure no matter if you have a natural play space with flowers or if you have traditional play equipment and a rubber surfacing, you want to make sure that you have safety steps in place in case somebody does get stung, both if they’re allergic or if they’re not allergic.

So you want that on hand anyway. Okay. So, bee nests are bad, but bees pollinating flowers, that can be good. Okay, another question. Do you prefer playgrounds with natural grass or turf for playgrounds? What do you think? What do you think my answer is? Okay, I’m, I like having natural grass. I like having natural materials.

But at the same time, I recognize that some places have a lot of foot traffic and things get eroded and grass can get eroded, especially if you have multiple feet. Every single day, you know, that can be hard on grass. So, I’ve seen interesting natural playgrounds that also make use of artificial grass.

But, I’ll also say, you don’t, to have a natural play space, you don’t need to have perfect grass. In fact, it’s better not to have perfect grass. I’ve seen some people really try to have perfect grass. With irrigation, and keeping kids off at different times, and all that kind of stuff. But in some ways, that’s more of an adult thing than a kid thing, like to have the perfect grass.

To me, the perfect outdoor material and surfacing is a mix. Some grass, some bare dirt, some wood chips, some this and that. A whole mix of things. Some maybe paved areas, some asphalt areas, some brick areas. Maybe a little artificial turf where you need it. But I like the idea of like it being raw and kid erosion and that kind of thing can be good.

One of my favorite play spaces in town, the child care center that my kids went to, my sons went to, I don’t even know what the surface of the yard is. It’s like so many years of like. Leaves falling in autumn, and wood chips getting mixed in, and then they have all these straw bales that they’re using, and then when they’re done with a play after months, it all breaks down, and that becomes part of the surface.

And so, the surface is like this soft, spongy layer. It’s almost like the forest floor. And it’s also with sand, and dirt, and the whole thing’s mixed in, and it doesn’t have to be perfect. In fact, for me, with my aesthetic, I like the raw kind of wild or rough and tumble yards. So grass is good. If you must have artificial grass because of, you know, high traffic, that’s okay.

But there’s lots of different ways, lots of different ways to do it. We can talk more about that in the future. Here’s another question. Can we use loose parts from the kitchen, if safe? I’ll say, sure, I guess it depends which pieces and parts you’re talking about from the kitchen. Obviously, knives and corkscrews and things like that might not be the best, but the mud kitchen stuff, think about what would be good in a mud kitchen.

Think about your own kitchen cabinets. There in the back of the cabinet there could be a, you know, beat up frying pan that’s ready to go for the mud kitchen. Yeah. So pot some pans and wooden spoons and sifters and colanders and cupcake tins and all that kind of stuff. Perfectly fine. Typically for your outdoor play space and for loose parts.

So you just want to check things, make sure there’s no sharp edges and all that kind of stuff. But for the most part, if it’s good enough to eat off of or cook with, it’s probably safe for children. And so you just use your judgment. But certainly you can grab some, grab some stuff from the kitchen, your own kitchen or second hand store or garage sales and stuff to outfit your own mutt kitchen where your loose parts play space.

All right, send me more questions, playnaturepodcast@gmail.com. And I look forward to visiting with you in the next episode. All right, play on.

All right. Thanks for listening. Do you have a comment or a question? Email me at playnaturepodcast@gmail. com. You know I like talking about this stuff, and maybe we could use your question on a future podcast episode. As always, I have some free goodies for you in the show notes, including my Outdoor Loose Parts Guide.

Fun stuff in there. And so I wish you the best in your outdoor play adventures. And when it comes to adding nature to your yard, or loose parts, or saying yes to risky play, my favorite motto is dream big, start small. And never stop. Oh yeah! Woo woo woo woo! Let’s do it! All right, have fun out there!