I’m really all about doing the smallest thing. That’s what I recommend. Do the smallest thing. What is the smallest? Thing that you could do to make a change that will feel successful.
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. Welcome to the podcast. I’m glad you’re here. Yeah, and I am back in the wood spot above the creek, which is flowing fast and chocolatey after more storms.
It’s kind of nice here, being in the woods. Oh, there’s new fresh green here in Ithaca, springtime, and it’s blowing. All the little leaves are blowing in the wind and it’s, yes, very sweet. And so I’m glad you’re here with me. And so today we’re gonna talk about the great motto. Dream big, start small, and never stop.
Dream big, start small, never stop. And that is one of my favorite mottos, of course, when it comes to growing your outdoor play space and your outdoor play practice. But it’s also a good model for life. It’s a good rule for our life path. Dream big, start small and never stop. So I’m gonna get into that. And at the end I’ll answer some questions maybe as you’re starting dreaming big and starting small and answer the question for some new nature play, starting small projects of building a hill, how do you build a hill?
And advice for building a sand area. Okay, so maybe those are some of the starting small first projects somebody might be tackling. But this dreaming big, starting small, never stopping. I love it for life and I love it for playground projects too. And the dreaming big. You know, it involves kind of thoughtful planning.
That’s kind of the dreaming big. You’re dreaming and then you plan. I. And you don’t have to do it all at once. The starting small, that’s, that’s the taking action. So it’s the dream and then it’s taking action and then it’s the perseverance that’s the never stopping on your path, on your journey in your place.
Gate building adventures, never stopping. I got a great, uh, fortune cookie fortune not long ago that said. Success is usually the fruit of patience, the fruit of patience. And I took that as kind of the dreaming big, starting small and never stopping that it’ll happen, your dreams will happen. But with steady work, you know, progress additions, steps, stages, you keep it going.
Things don’t have to happen all at once. You know, sometimes we want overnight success. But you know so many stories of people who seemed successful in life. The backstory is that it was progress. Whether it was your favorite rock band, how they formed, made it big. Favorite actor or professor or you know, any other professional or anybody.
It’s often like they had the dream and then they just started working towards it. So the same thing with kids. Small changes. And that’s kind of the beauty of wanting to make change in your outdoor space. We, we dream it up right and we wanna see it on a big scale adult scale, but the starting small is brilliant.
It’s a great way to go because any small change you make in your outdoor space makes a huge difference for your children. Totally changes their world, their environment. Something new. And that’s also the beauty of adding natural elements into your yard because just like here with the spring coming out and the new green leaves that are quivering in the, the wind around me, you add natural stuff to your space even a little bit.
And that’s changing. That’s making small changes. And that could also be the never stopping. The trees are growing, the plants are coming up. The sunflowers start towering. So adding nature does that too. So with playgrounds and my journey in play spaces, here’s a little funny story for you now. I, you know, I started off doing play equipment and, and love that.
And then I got a chance to live in the Netherlands, work with a Dutch playground company and I, that was amazing too. And that’s. My life changed in many ways and I had a lot of aha moments and my professional path really changed and I was really inspired by the environments I saw, and it was more than just equipment, and I saw natural spaces.
- Children’s environments. I saw, you know, kindergartens that had hills and berry bushes and, you know, kid eroded, muddy areas, saw art in public places. I saw art in elementary, uh, sculpture in elementary schools, all sorts of stuff. And I was like, yes, this is what play environments should be. And so I came home and I was like, I, I know how to build these.
I’ll do it. Community built style. Because that was al also important to me that every play environment should be different based on who lives there, who’s, what’s artists. There are whether the skills that could come to a project and how to save money and do it cheaply and build community at the same time you’re building the environment.
And so we did that at the company that I worked with Big Toys in in the us We did some community builds to build the playgrounds and I was inspired by this custom playground company. Leathers and associates that would do these huge, like Amish barn raisings with like hundreds of volunteers. And I was like, all right, we can dream it up.
Come up with a plan, materials lists, and volunteer skill lists and you know, we’ll do these big things and we’ll build it all. Yeah. And so we did it. So, uh, you know, I did that for a bunch of years and loved it and building new spaces and. Working with communities and all sorts of stuff. And then I, I went over there on a, to back to Europe for a study tour in Berlin and I saw all these green schoolyards and there were sculptures and water play areas and sand play areas, uh, cob houses and musical areas.
And I was like, yes, there it is again, all the, I want. You know, do all these big things and we’ll do it in big builds. So I kept going with that, and then I went back to Germany, went to Berlin again, and took another tour and I realized I might have missed something the first time around, but maybe I was so enraptured, a GOG with all that I was seeing in these school yards that maybe I wasn’t listing carefully enough.
These schoolyards were built all at once. No far from it. Each of these things was kind of built one, one project each year. One class built these cob straw bale playhouses. Another year they built a whole sculpture. Another year they built water play. Another year they did a musical area. Another year they planted their orchard.
Another year they. And I was like, oh, oh, oh, okay. So it’s funny, you know, ’cause we can get these different ideas in our head and we can charge ahead and we can be successful with it. That’s the kind of funny thing about me, this young guy all, all inspired. Yeah. We’ll do it. There’s a great quote it reminds me of from Mark Twain that says, all you need in this life is ignorance and confidence.
Then success is, sure. So I had ignorance and confidence and fun, right? It was, it was great to do all these big builds, get the community together and have this sense of satisfaction like we did it. But I will admit that there were a few times, but it was pouring down rain, and I was digging in the mud and I was like, huh, could there be another way?
So the other way could be instead of dreaming big and. Starting big. You can dream big and then start small, and then you keep it going. So I also got exposed to this idea of this fellow in the UK that has a slow playground movement where things take time and you are adding to it and you’re living with it.
You’re living with the changes, and then you’re adding to the changes. I just visited an incredible afterschool program at a couple’s house in North Carolina. I. And they’d been doing this afterschool childcare for 30 years, at least, maybe 40 years. And the place was incredible and you could never build it all at once.
There were just so many pieces and parts and attention to detail and little additions and little surprises, and. Things that built year after year after year. And so I started liking that idea of like, well, what if instead of big, huge projects that are, you know, grueling in some ways exciting but grueling, what if there were small, manageable projects?
So I started liking do more local projects, more like one day builds or half day builds. Build a willow hut. Build some outdoor classroom materials, do mud kitchens, and then also doing plans, master plans, and then just picking little projects to do in steps and stages. Now big builds are still exciting, and of course there’s, you know, new schools and new childcare centers popping up all over the place and, and they need to do new yards, new playgrounds, so might as well do the natural.
Awesome. Play space, right? With hills and pathways and sound elements and sand and water and mud and boulders and all that kind of stuff, go for it. But most of us aren’t building whole complete yards from scratch, right? They already have your yard or your backyard, and probably most of us don’t have big budgets to do a whole new yard or big additions.
So that’s also the beauty of starting small. I. But it’s the big dreams. Don’t have to, no matter what your budget is, you can dream big. You don’t have to limit your dreams. Blue sky thinking sky’s the limit. Yeah. And so that’s what I think that that’s the best way to do it. Dream big. Yeah. Think about your outdoor space, your backyard, your play area, and dream it up.
What would you like to see out there? How do you want it to be? What kind of opportunities do you wanna provide for your children? And I’m all about master plans. The master plan. So, and that’s one of the big things that I help people with. Come up with a master plan and then start thinking about, okay, what projects are you gonna pick to start tackling?
What’s your first project? What’s the next one? What’s your next step? So you visualize it, the master plan helps you see it, how it’s all gonna fit and flow together, and then you just start picking projects. And I’m really all about doing the smallest thing. That’s what I recommend. Do the smallest thing.
What is the smallest thing that you could do to make a change that will feel successful? An easy win, easy success. Could you do a sunflower house? Could you add some straw bales as loose parts? Could you build a hill? Could you enlarge a sand area? Yeah. So you can think about that. What master plan, dream it up and then think about, okay, what, what project do you wanna start first?
And then how can you bring in the community to help you have a party? A work party. Get some pizzas, get some food, and celebrate, enjoy. Spend the day together, working it. Get get to know your community, your people, your parents, your friends in new ways, digging in the dirt with them and celebrate and repeat.
Do it again. And the same goes for loose parts. Dream it up. Dream big, but then start small. What’s the simplest thing that you can do? The smallest thing, maybe that’s adding the cardboard boxes. Yeah. And it might not seem big deal to us as adults. Uh, just I to do much. I just added some cardboard boxes.
But to the children, you’ve changed the entire world. The entire outdoor space, the entire environment by adding cardboard boxes or your big dream might be risky play, saying yes to more kinds of play. And so maybe the starting small, you know, you dream big, alright, I wanna adventure playground, and tons of loose parts and kids are climbing trees and bouncing and jumping off logs and, but I’m not ready, really ready for that yet.
So you start small. Pick something that you can have an easy success with. Maybe it’s, ah, letting children climb a slide. Ooh. Or maybe you need to work up to that. Or maybe it’s yes to going out in the rain or yes to climbing a tree. Either way, this idea, dream it up. Nothing wrong with dreaming it up big, but start small.
So. With that. Let’s look at some questions
here from you about dreaming big and starting small. These could be some of the, the landscape. First, starting small projects to build a hill or mound. Would you bring in dirt or just move around what you have? Okay. How to build a hill so it could be both. Now. Moving dirt. If you wanna move around what you have it, you could do it with shovels, right?
If you get a, you could get a little shovel brigade and dig some stuff up and, and sometimes that works. Like if you want to dig a hole, if you wanna sand pit or something and you’re gonna dig, or you’re gonna make a wood chip trail and you wanna take out some earth and then put in wood chips for the trail, that earth, that dirt.
Could be formed into a hill. So you could be digging space and then piling it for a hill. Maybe you have or dirt or a hill already, but you wanna move it and maybe you have connections to somebody who’s got some heavy equipment, some backhoe, or a bobcat or a bulldozer. Sure. Push it around what you already have.
I’ve done it that way. I’ve also done it when you just get dump truck loads of dirt. And you dump it also built hills with wood chips, so you just get dump truck loads of wood chips in Ithaca, you could get wood chips for free from the city forester. They grind up the trees that they cut down from the city and then they have a huge mount, the wood chips that you can get.
Yeah, but you could also get fill soil. So you could look, look up where you could get dirt in your hometown and they can often deliver it. Or you could go get it. If somebody has a pickup truck, you could fill it up and, and bring that and shovel it. So really, either way, and you know, things don’t have to be huge again to make a big difference.
So it’s fun to have a big, huge hill, a big mountain, or one that’s big enough for an embankment slide. But you can also just have little bounds during covid. I had a, a digging. Challenge for people. Let’s see. And dig a hole in your backyard. And so my sons did that. We, we dug a hole and we just piled the dirt right next to the hole.
And it was funny. It was just a lump. A lump of dirt. Maybe it was one foot high and I don’t know, three feet around. And it was just so funny to watch. Like it changed the play in our backyard because suddenly that little lump, everybody as they’re moving through the space would run over and stand on it and then run off to the next thing.
And so it was like, it became this like, I don’t know, it was like a magnet. So even like a, a few bumps you, if you tried that, you would find that it would change the play. It would add a little sparkle to your outdoor space. So there’s a start at small dream big, dream, a big mountain, but start with a little mole hill.
Ha. Okay. Question number two. Do you have advice for building a sand area? I sure do. Okay. So. In the old days when I was building big playgrounds, I would get more technical. But in the, as I’ve aged, as I’ve done more projects, I like it. I think like things less technical. So I’m fine with taking a dump truck and just dumping a pile of sand.
And then backing up and letting it go, letting the play go. And so, you know, the edges, you know, grass might be grown in the edges or maybe it mixes with wood chips or maybe it, it mixes with dirt, da, da, da. That’s fine. I think it’s awesome. The places that do that I think are great. The play’s amazing. No harm done doing it that way.
But you could also, you know, get a little more standard, a little more control over it. And you could dig a sand pit. So, like I was talking about with the hill, that could be good. You could dig, dig the area out, and then use the dirt to build the mountain next to the sand bin. I like to have sand areas big so that it’s not like a confined sandbox, but a big sand area so that there could be children played more like at the beach.
Where there’s room to have a bunch of kids play, working on a project, a preschool civil engineering water project with dams and rivers and you know, digging to China or there’s enough room that kids can be working side by side, not, not on the same project or there’s where you just be by yourself.
There’s the people who can be by themselves in there. So big, huge spaces. That could be a 20 foot by 20 foot, 30 by 30 foot, whatever works in your space. I also like sand pits that are deep, so like 18 inches, foot and a half, so that you can really dig so you’re not just hitting the ground at through the sand, that you’re really digging some big, deep holes to play changes that way.
And then I also sometimes would layer it up, so like for drainage. So with that 18 inches taken down, you could have put landscape cloth down first to keep things from growing up, and then an inch or two layer of gravel, and then another layer of landscape cloth to keep the gravel from separated from the sand, and then you pile the sand on top of that.
The retaining walls for a sand area. People do lots of different things. So in the old days I used to do vertical logs all the way around. It’s also fun that you can balance on those. I’ve seen people do horizontal logs. Now, when you use wood for this, this purpose, it’s in the ground. So you want to find, try to find naturally rot resistant wood.
You could also have pressure treated wood. I prefer to have like natural route resistant wood, like black locust or cedar white oak. Oh, you hear that? There’s kids playing in the creek. Okay. I could just see them through the trees, but I can hear them. I’ve seen retaining walls with boulders, lots of different things.
I also am fine again with. Having no retaining. You can dig down, have the sand there, but then you, the edge could be fuzzy. So lots of ways to do it. Dreaming big, start it small, try it out, see what happens, and then keep going. So to help you dreaming big I in the show notes, I have a free resource for you.
20 Ways to create natural play environments for the Soul. And if you really wanna dive deep into. Master planning, dreaming, drawing, and planning your outdoor play space. I have an online class, an online master class about nature play design, so I have a link in the show notes to that, plus a special discount code for you.
Podcast listener. Yeah. All right. Well, you know, dream big, start small. Never stop all. Till next time. Keep playing.
Alright, 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. Let’s do it. All right. Have fun out there.
