Cameron Sprauge: My big thing is about being authentic. We don’t want to just like, oh, we’re ticking this glossy box of doing Learn for sustainability ’cause we planted a few carrots. No, we like actually want to do this stuff. We want our kids to have this connection with nature so that it stays with them. And it’s a big difference of like laying under a tree and like a sunny day and watching the sunlight come through and.
You feel different and you feel better, and you know you care.
Rusty Keeler: 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. Hi, Cameron.
Cameron Sprauge: Hi Rusty. How are you? Good. How are you? I’m uh, very good my friend. It’s good to see you, and I’ve been loving listening to the pod, so it’s, uh, really exciting being on it.
So thank you for having me.
Rusty Keeler: Yay.
Cameron Sprauge: I’m glad you’re here. Yeah. And so where are you right now? So right now I’m in Glasgow and, uh, I probably shouldn’t promote a hotel chain that I stay in all the time. Okay. But, uh, I’m, yeah, I normally live in Fort William in Scotland where my work is, but I travel a lot for just my company and I’m doing training tomorrow.
So I’m in Glasgow tonight.
Rusty Keeler: Okay. Well, hey, why don’t I read your bio so people kind of know what you’re about and then I can talk about fall asleep. What, what I, no, they won’t fall asleep. No. They’re gonna get. Excited, passionate. Uh, and then I can talk a little bit personally about, you know, what I know about you, uh, and how much I like you and, okay.
So, you know, maybe even before that, I will just say that we met. IPA and I think we did the pod, your podcast first.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Rusty Keeler: So we sort of, you know, kinda had some rapport and then just meeting you, you know, a nature play person, outdoor risk, and uh, you know, season stuff. It, it felt like we were like old buddies.
- I think, yeah, I
Cameron Sprauge: think you’re being kind too. ’cause we did it well, Juliet Robertson, who’s a big mentor of mine and someone that you know from the UK that is, uh, this amazing advocate for outdoor play. She said to me, look at Rusty Killer stuff, you’ll love it. And then I loved it and eventually asked you to be on my podcast, but when I came to IPA, it felt like.
Even though I was American, I’m like, I’m working and living in Scotland, and I was like the lost puppy in San Antonio and I felt like, right, you just took me under your wing and took care of me for that week. So it was, uh, very appreciated. But yeah, I agree. We definitely have a lot of the same interests and passions about children.
So we did, yeah. Get along. And we had a good crew in that conference as well. For sure. Definitely. Definitely. Yeah.
Rusty Keeler: I feel like, you know, we, we have this posse, you know, or all of us who care about nature and kids and messy stuff. And it’s just like, oh, oh yeah, you’re one of us. You’re one of us.
Cameron Sprauge: That one.
That’s what I love about IPA. ’cause IPA is a conference where you feel like you’re with your people, you know, like, and that’s, yeah, that’s why I love coming to them and taking part in ’em. ’cause it’s an amazing group of people.
Rusty Keeler: Yep. Yep. So IPA, if people don’t know, is like the International Association for the Child’s Right to Play or International Play Association.
Some people say IPA, uh, and then there’s branches in, in all different countries and all over the world. And so there’s like the world conferences, which we’re in Scotland Yep. A year or two ago. And then we, we have a US one and coming up here. In October in Louisville, Kentucky.
Cameron Sprauge: Yeah. Which, yeah,
Rusty Keeler: I am. Yeah.
Hopefully gonna be at, but we’ll see. Yeah, that’d be great. Okay, so here’s the official bio. Cameron Sprague has been working with children in the outdoors for over 25 years while exclusively working for Strache. Is that how you say that? Yeah, that’s good. Good job. Yep. Okay. Okay. Uh, strache a Scottish social enterprise since 2014.
He was the founding manager of Stramash Fort William, where he led the nursery transformation from a two acre grass field to a dynamic child-led outdoor space, affectionately known as the field of dreams starting in 2025. Cameron works as head of nurseries for all of Stramash, helping to bring the same passion and magic of the outdoors to all their settings.
Cameron also shares his lessons and expertise wider through training and consultancy work with others. Looking to support children’s play outdoors. He has presented on Stash work across Scotland, England, Lithuania, Iceland, and the United States, including being a valued contributor at IPA World 2023.
Cameron recently became a published author with his inclusion in the anthology book, born to Play.
Cameron Sprauge: It sounds much more, uh, soothing when you read it. You just need to follow me around and do it for me. That’s great. That’d be great. Yeah.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah, I’d love to. Yeah. So, so what is this Kids in Nature stuff, how do you get into it?
What do you, what do you believe in? What do you doing? What’s, what’s, what’s it all about for you?
Cameron Sprauge: I got into outdoors in a very American experience. ’cause basically my parents got the, well, they separated when I was 10. They got like officially divorced when I was 12. And then I think I kind of went into a shell myself and stuff.
And my mom’s like, I know what I’m doing. I’m sending you to four H camp. You’re going to residential summer camp. And I went to for the first nine to overnight camp at 13. I loved it, you know, and I was like. Spending all this time outside, like bonding with the people. Like I came out of that week at 13 and I was like, I’m gonna work with kids outdoors.
That’s what I’m doing. Wow. And it was so, yeah, it was so solidified in my head. Yeah. Probably not in the way that I’ve ended up working with children, but like the outdoors. So. That led me to pursuing my degree in outdoor and environmental education, and I was eligible for work study. I first went and worked in the library and I was so bored outta my mind that I was going crazy and I had done stuff at camp, like junior counselor and counselor and all that kind of stuff, but I hadn’t worked with younger children.
So I went and worked in the child development center on campus as part of my work study.
Okay.
Cameron Sprauge: And I was in a three to five classroom. And I think it’s really interesting for me ’cause I was studying outdoor education, so the way I was working with children was a very, like, you know, from an outdoor education perspective, you know, I was studying like Kurt Hall and all the Leopold and people like that.
But I think so much of what outdoor education is about marries up with early years when it comes to people like, you know. Reggio and Montessori and Bel and all these kind of things that even though I wasn’t doing early years practice, in a lot of ways I was doing stuff that really mirrored that. And the more I worked for the age group, I had a better interest in it.
And that led me to doing my early years qualifications.
Rusty Keeler: Okay. Interesting. So starting off with the nature and kid connection, like knowing that that’s important no matter what the ages are. Yeah, a hundred percent. But then, yeah, but then realizing you, you liked the spark of the early years and wanted to dive into that.
Cameron Sprauge: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s, yeah, and I believe all people, all children especially should be spending time outdoors. But when you, I guess it’s that thing, right? If you start ’em young and get that thing to live in their heart, then hopefully it stays with ’em all through their life. And that’s, that’s what’s MASH is trying to capture, like.
Like, you know, outdoors is the equalizer I think when it comes to kids and, you know, on so many different levels. But you get ’em in that young age and it’s just amazing to see the transformation in ’em. And you know, but that’s the thing. We need to keep it going like through all the ages so we don’t lose it.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. Hey, I wanna, before we get too far, I wanna paint a picture from what I’ve seen of Strache and why I like, it’s one of these things that like, instantly I loved, like, I don’t know the, and I was like, wait a second. What? What is, this is what they’re building. This is what, this is their outdoor space. So to me it’s like this combination of.
Oh, okay. Natural playscape. But it’s also like a forest school with kids, you know, natural playscape where there’s willow and hills and you know, landscape and mud, and then it’s, but it’s also like, yeah, forest school where kids are wearing rain suits and getting out in it and they’re all weather all seasons.
But then it’s also like an adventure playground where there’s loose parts and you know, kids are building, you know, crazy stuff. And, uh, there’s risky play and it’s, and at the same time it’s contained. It’s like a, it’s like a built, planned thing to me. Again, this is my, you know, this is my imagination of, of what it is, but I think the thing that blew me away is like, oh wait, this is a planned thing.
So it’s part woodsy, but part just like this, yeah, this wild meadow kind of thing. And yet things you’re always building. And that’s what I love too. It’s like you’re, it’s not just like, oh, we built this great natural play space. It’s like, no, you’re, it’s evolving. It just feels like everything’s always evolving and you know, you’re sending me pictures, you know, every, every couple months or something new is getting built.
And it’s just like, yeah. So it’s just like this raw outdoor. Natural childhood that you’re creating an offering.
Cameron Sprauge: Yeah. And I, and you’re not wrong. Like, I like what you, what you’re describing is, is what it is. And I think it’s hard if you go there now for people to fathom what it was, you know? ’cause it was, it literally.
The, um, building was donated to stash by, um, there’s an aluminum, aluminum smelter in Fort William. They had a social club that was this old, like 200 year old building, and all the guys that worked in the factory and women that worked in the factory would come there and they’d, there was a bar and all this kind of stuff, but there was a, a soccer team, so there was a playing field, and then they did pitch and put, so literally the bit where the nursery was, was a pitch and put, so it was manicured like.
Like golf court, you know, like holes and stuff. And then they were looking to unload it and you know, they get, get social enterprises and charities put in like a bid for it. We got it. There’s a two acre fenced in bit. Pretty much was just grass. And then I caught in as the first manager and I was coming from my outdoor ed background, I was coming from like my early year stuff.
It was all about loose parts and child led and free play. And you know, I kind of, what I overused line is I was either really brave or I was really stupid. And I was like, it’s just gonna come from the kids, you know? And, and that’s what we did. But like in the beginning. Nature play takes time. Like if you’re planting, you know, you know, if you’re planting a tree, it’s a 40 year plan.
You know, it’s not like, uh, you plant a tree for like, all right, next week it’s gonna be grand, it’s gonna be 15 feet tall. So I would say, especially in the beginning, we were just in adventure playground for two to five year olds, like in whatever that context means. But that’s what we were, we were all loose parts.
You know, kids wanted things to jump off of. I was stacking pallets. Being like, all right, how high do you wanna jump off and going from there.
Rusty Keeler: So like open meadow with stuff.
Cameron Sprauge: Yeah, loose stuff. Yeah. Loads. Just loads. Loads and loads. Anything we can get a hands on? I was listening to your most recent episode on the way down and you know, you’re talking about the master plan and I think it took us a while to get to the point where like, we need a master plan.
You know? ’cause it was kind of like, we have so much space. Like we’ll just, all right, we’ll go put a book hotel over there and we’ll go do this over there. And. We have gotten much better about the master plan of like, all right, here’s the vision. Like where do we want pathing to be? Okay. So we want the pathing to be here because, all right, where are we gonna plant trees?
So we’re not gonna plant trees in this space ’cause we wanna keep it open for kids to run in and things like that. Okay, what do we else do we want? So we had a bit that always flooded and we’re like, you know what? It’s a problem. Issue. Our regulator hates it. ’cause they said it’s too deep of a puddle. I’m stubborn guy from Massachusetts, so I was like, all right, if the puddles too deep, we’re making a pond.
Yeah. Because if it’s a pond, it’s an area of interest. It helps, you know, sustainability, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. But that was like, so that was like two years of planning then, okay, all right. How do we make a pond? How do we do it right? How do we get the money in to do it? And then we did it as a community build with our parents.
And you know, they helped fundraise for it and do all those parts. But now we have this amazing wildlife pond. That is an area of interest and a special part of the nursery. But it did take like time to do it. And Juliet used to always come and visit, and I’d be like, I’d always have like a list of like, all right, we’re trying to, you know, we’re trying to do this, we’re trying to do that.
And that’s why she started calling it the Field of dreams. So I, I never wanted to lose that spirit of the adventure playground with the, the builds and the loose parts and all that. But now we do have an amazing natural playscape because. We’ve planted 5,000 trees with kids and we’ve got 150 fruit trees and they harvest the willow every year.
And you know, sometimes we plant more of it and you know, like those things. So it’s. It’s amazing now to see it. ’cause I have such like an intense relationship with like, I know every tree ’cause I’ve, we’ve planted ’em all. That’s what we’re trying to embed in the children as well. But we don’t want them to lose that risky, adventurous spirit that was part of the adventure playground stuff.
And it is, I, you know, not like I call it the magic mix, you know, it’s that, it’s all those bets together is like, you get pretty amazing play experiences by doing that.
Rusty Keeler: All right. Let’s, let’s hear some of this, the magic mix and the play experiences and the spirit. What is it? What, what’s going on there?
Cameron Sprauge: Well, it’s funny ’cause like. We design a lot of the play spaces with pallets and stuff like that, right? So a pallet is never gonna last forever. It’s not like you’re like when you were doing the big commercial playground stuff and it’s all treated and it’s built to last for 20 years, that kind of stuff.
But yeah, you know, we want things open-end and things of that, but we know like there’s a shelf life for this stuff. Like eventually it’s gonna go and we need to deal with that, but it means that we can reinvent ’cause. A little bit is like the spirit of the build still there, but also like our skills have improved over a decade of doing it, so.
The first bridge I ever built, you know, was this rickety all put together thing, which was very child led. ’cause when as we were building it, the kids were like, Hey, if you put railings on everything, we can’t jump off it. Mm-hmm. Into the mud. And I was like, oh, you know, draw a picture. Tell me what we want.
And they drew a picture of like two gaps in the bridge. Like we just wanna be able to jump off in the middle. So we just didn’t put rails for a section in the middle just so they could do that. When we put the pond in, we needed to take the bridge out so the kids love the bridge. So, but our next bridge was much, much bigger build ’cause we’re more confident in what we’re building.
So, but we’re also think about it in a different way too. ’cause we’re like, how can it be more inclusive? So this bridge has like a offshoot deck for if any child comes to us, they can still interact and play with it, you know, but it’s got like bits to climb on and do. And it’s just more like. Developed in its thinking, you know what I mean?
Like it’s not, yeah. We’re getting savvier in what we do. ’cause we’re, yeah, just learning all the time and like we’re learning with the kids. But it does change, like it never stays the same. Like it, it’s constantly evolving.
Rusty Keeler: I love it. It’s like that idea of, you know, you’re putting it out there and then you’re watching and seeing what happens and, you know, and that idea of like, oh, we’re building it ’cause we want it now.
And, but, you know, because that’s part of the philosophy is like, we’re gonna change it. Maybe you’ll improve on the thing that you just built. Or maybe, you know, at the end of its life like, like this, like you’re like, oh well. Next time or when we do the, the real bridge or the bigger bridge, we’re gonna have all these extra things with it.
So it’s, yeah, it’s like this part planning and then part evolving.
Cameron Sprauge: Yeah. Yeah. There’s always like a list of like, all right, I wish if, you know, if you can figure this out, we do this and you know, like that kind of stuff. But the space now, if you come to it, people are just like, they just think it’s been there forever.’cause there’s 20 foot trees now, but,
You know, I was there when those trees were six inches tall. Yeah. You know, so it, it is just changing and like our, we have all these apple trees and they’ve been in, um, a lot of them been in for three years now. So the first three years, the kids could like get all the apples when they were small, so we didn’t like get a ton of apples.
But the apple trees are just tall enough now. The kids can’t get ’em all. So like this will be the year that we first have like a thousand apples, you know? And then we can do some really cool community stuff with and things. So that’s exciting, you know, like, and that that’s kind of stuff is always what’s happening and changing about our practice and what we can do.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Listener. We want you to plant trees. Yeah.
Cameron Sprauge: Massive. Absolutely. Yes. And like in trees that like, I’m really passionate. It’s like trees that are like supposed to be where you live, you know, like mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You know, ’cause I think, like I get a lot of people like in Scotland and, oh, we’re gonna fill it all with bamboo.
And I’m like, why are you doing bamboo? And you can do willow. Like you can cut willow and just stick it in the ground. It’s gonna grow and it’s gonna do all the things you want that bamboo would do, but it’s meant to be here too, you know? And like, and I think. That’s an important message for kids. Like, you know, this is stuff that grows here.
What is it? And you need to get away from that culture of we pull our phone out of our pocket and you know, the kids will say, oh, you went with the iPhone, where, you know, you show them a tree and they’re like, yeah, it’s a tree. You know, is it, is it an oak tree or is it, you know,
Rusty Keeler: yeah, yeah. A tree
Cameron Sprauge: or what?
You know, like, do they know this stuff? And they don’t? Huh.
Rusty Keeler: Well, I love that idea of then putting it in their spaces Yeah. And mixing it up. So they, and like you said earlier, so they develop that relationship with it. Yeah. Yeah. They’re like, oh, you, you get to know it, you know, that’s a pine tree because the, the needles or how it smells or that you get the, the sap on you and sticky and, and all that kind of stuff.
So you’re, you know, I, I think about like outdoor education or. Children Nature. I just went to this Children Nature Network conference, and I think of it as like there’s people that are the bringing children to nature, the bringers to to nature, and then there’s the bringing nature to children. And, and so that’s, I mean, in some ways you’re kind of, you kind of doing both or you’ve had the experience of doing both.
But that idea of bringing the nature in there and having the, the years of it evolving and. So they, they have that kinship, they have the relationship with the earth.
Cameron Sprauge: Yeah. I mean, we’re doing stuff like we compost our toilet waste, you know, so kids are having those kind of conversations and things, so it’s not like a.
My big thing is about being authentic. Right? Like it, we don’t want to just like, oh, we’re ticking this glossy box of doing Learn for sustainability. ’cause we planted a few carrots. Like, no, we like actually want to do this stuff. Like, we want those kids, like our kids to have this connection with nature so that it stays with them.
And you know, you can’t, you can’t fake it and you can’t like, well, like here’s some trees on a computer, you know? Yeah. It’s not the same. It’s a big difference of like laying under a tree and like a sunny day and watching the sunlight come through and you know, you feel different and you feel better and you know you care.
And that’s, we want kids to care.
Rusty Keeler: And feel it. Yeah. Because it’s a multisensory experience, but also like your spirit. Soaring and or having all the emotions of, you know, what are all the different spaces and you know, whether it’s that or whether it’s stuck. Your boots stuck in the mud or Yeah. You know, and all that guys, well, it was interesting just about trees.
It made me think about, I have a friend who’s a permaculture person and I was, I wanted to plant fruit trees and. I was like, well, where should we plan? You know, I thought he’d study like where the sun moves or where’s the best place for this, you know, this cherry tree? And, and he said the best place was like where you’re gonna see it all the time.
Like put it right so you can see the blossom. So you can see the fruit develop. So you can, and so I planted it like right next to our back door. Like our back door is kind of on like a, it’s raised and the tree is like right in your face. So when you come out in spring, it’s just like, oh, you’re surrounded by blossoms and you’re surrounded by, yeah.
And now it’s all these cherries and it’s like you are literally like in the tree. And now my son’s like, oh, we need ladybugs. ’cause there’s aphids on it. ’cause it’s like right there. So. So you’re putting children in nature in the seasons and Yeah, and in a big way. I think that, like, just what you’re saying with the authenticity of it, I just, I’ve never seen any, any sight that is just like so full on with it, I guess, you know, not going small.
Yeah.
Cameron Sprauge: No, and I, well it’s funny ’cause you know, you’re, um, your dream big, you know, and make small changes or, I’m not saying that exactly right. Am I? But my issue, I, I always joke that my problem is that I, I always think big and, and especially with like risky stuff. ’cause I’m like, you know, there’s like rites of passage stuff on the site where, you know, there’s things that, we have a role platter that’s probably nine feet high or something like that, and.
When we put it into the structure, like I cut it short at the bottom so that it swings in when you climb on it. So you get that real like, ugh, feeling in your tummy. And, but I wanted it to be like that. Like I wanted it to be really difficult. And then, so there’s some kids that like master it really quickly and then others that, you know, they might be at Master for three years and they can’t get to the top and that’s okay.
But. There’s ones that, you know, I built this rope, the thing, the structure of the rope ladder. And then I, one of the, a little girl free climbed the structure without the rope platter, you know? And I instantly was like, man, what do we do now? You know, like, how do we keep pushing that like her, right. Yeah.
You know, and that, and like sometimes, especially with risky stuff. ’cause risky stuff is such a. It’s a personal thing, right? Like in the perception of it, when like, sometimes I forget about like, all right, like, do I have enough risky experiences for the children that are like, the kid that is nervous being on a six inch balance beam, you know?
So I always have to pull it back a bit and be like, are we meeting all child children where they’re at and their needs? Where my brain just goes, okay, all right, I’m gonna do this like 20 foot thing. And you know, like that. So, Uhhuh Uhhuh, that’s, that’s my inner, their inner like constantly like, alright, slow it down, bring it back.
What can we do that’s a bit different? You know, Uhhuh, what age group do you have? What’s the range? Two to five year olds and I like, and I’ve got like videos of kids doing stuff that I know what makes people’s hair, hair curl when they watch it. ’cause it’s just out of their whole realm of like what we allow children to do.
But we definitely start from a place of like, we have really good relationships with our children. We know them and we trust their capabilities. You know, so there’s children that we know we need to be closer to and things like that, but we don’t start from a place of children can’t do that.
Cameron SpraugeYou know, : and I think that’s a different mindset.
So there is stuff that kids do that I know a lot of people would be like, oh my goodness, I can’t believe you let ’em do that. But we have very few accidents. We’ve had, we, we in Fort William, we’ve had one broken bone in 11 years and it was a freak. He just fell and, you know, arm was out straight, so he hurt his collarbone.
But, you know, we’re not like, inundated with accidents and injuries. It’s quite the opposite.
Rusty Keeler: Hmm, hmm. Because, I mean, you look around and there it, it is risky. There are risky things or they know that they’re, they can choose a challenge and then they gotta like pay attention. Right? Yeah,
Cameron Sprauge: yeah. Absolutely. I even, um, I did some consultancy work with the nursery and, uh.
One of the management team, she just got out of her car and like tripped in like a little bit of a pothole and ended up having like four knee surgeries because of it. Oh God. Because it was a nightmare and all, you know, like the worst case. And I’m like, you know what? Parents worried about stepping outta the car in a car park, you know?
But it’s stuff can happen anywhere like, you know, but. I think what we’re, what you find, and like that’s, I love like Angela Hanscomb book balance and Barefoot is the kids aren’t getting these experiences so they actually just don’t know how to walk, you know? So, mm-hmm. We’re trying to make sure kids can’t just walk, but they can run, climb, jump to the best of their ability, and then hopefully, I.
Keeps ’em outta trouble.
Rusty Keeler: Hmm. So how do you, as a group of, you know, the adults and the educators, how do you discuss risk or your philosophy of risk or, because everyone’s got a different feeling towards it, but you must have an overarching view of it.
Cameron Sprauge: That’s Well, so as an organization, we use benefit risk assessment as an approach, and we have overarching benefit risk assessments around.
Different play experiences that, um, we stick to and guide to. But, you know, I wouldn’t write a different risk assessment for every piece of play equipment. I know people do that. They’re like, you know, you know, we have one for loose parts, we have one for the builds. We have stuff. And that there’s basic tenets and principles within all of those.
And when the IPA world, when it was in Glasgow in 23, they, that’s when they released that new ISO number about benefit risk assessment. So the the IISO or international standards organizations, so they’re not legally binding, but they’re basically considered like best practice. There was a big push with play advocates to get benefit risk assessment accepted as health and safety best practice for play activities in sports and recreation and leisure.
Rusty Keeler: Okay.
Cameron Sprauge: And when I was listening to the talk about it at IPA World Professor David Ball from England basically said, you know, risk assessment is an intellectual process. So we do right into our risk benefits that we trust our staff, that it’s an intellectual process and that. You can have the best things written down on a piece of paper, but on the day they can make a decision that’s different based on what they’re feeling and seeing and doing.
And we’re trusting them to do that. And I think that is as an organization where we start from, because you just never know, right? Like you can write, you can write 900 pages in a risk assessment, but then I always say like, it’s the day that the elephant got outta the zoo and came through your defense.
And who writes that into a risk assessment, right? So what I want is people to be able to think. Not people that are like freaking out over a piece of paper that says we have to do this, this, and this. ’cause if we’re not using common sense and best, you know, best and as a best practice, then that’s what I think people get in trouble.
Hmm. Because it’s like we always let the kids climb that, but I’m like, all right, well actually today it’s so icy. Like, what are you doing? Don’t let them climb that. You know? So you have to be able to not be so rigid in your thinking.
Rusty Keeler: I like that too because, you know, as we think about the change of the environment, the change of space, change of seasons, like you, you need to be on your game or for your supporting children in risky play.
Like yeah, the adult needs to be, you know, on their game because EV every day is different and you know, my sons and I, we. You know, we live near a creek here, so we’re, you know, we visit the creek and most of the time it’s fine to get in or fine to do stuff or you know, whatever. But then sometimes after the big rains, like you don’t go in there, right.
It’s, it’s raging. It’s a whole different deal. It’s a whole different thing. And that’s huge for children to learn too, that just because I climbed this one day or because I was, you know, whatever, getting off the bridge in the opening to jump in other days it’s not. Or, or you’ve gotta do it in a different way.
Right. You know, it’s funny, I think about like also the, the risk benefit analysis. Like, we wanna get, get to the point where people are thinking that not just risk, but what are the be, you know, the benefits and the risks of anything climbing a tree, jumping off a boulder, you know, going out in the cold.
It’s a risk benefit, but like you’re saying, the actual, the actuality, it could be anything on any given day. It’s actually in between. And you gotta make the decision as the adult like, okay, there, you know, these are the benefits of doing all that stuff, but who is it? You know, what’s happening? And you know, it might be somewhere in between.
Cameron Sprauge: One of the things I love about the ISO number, right? It says in it that what could be acceptable is inherently increasing the risk of an activity because it increases the benefits of it taking part in that activity, which sometimes I. It’s like counterintuitive for a lot of people that are new to this kind of work.
But I totally get it ’cause I’m like, if I made like that role platter, I made it harder by cutting it shorter ’cause it was not laying on the ground and it swung in. But because of that, the benefits for the children were so much more like they had to really work on their shoulder strength and their finger strength.
They had to problem solve so much in terms of like what was their strategy gonna be to climb this rope ladder. ’cause it was inclined when, as soon as they put their weight on it, you know, like all these things. So yes, it was inherently more risky, but the benefits for them went up by taking part in it and not like the ISO number celebrating that, saying like, yeah, like that’s, that’s the kind of stuff you need to think about.
Rusty Keeler: It’s so neat. ’cause that’s then the adult thinking, you know, so you’re like, as the designer or in the maker of this is thinking, okay, what, how are the children gonna use it? And then what are my designs? What length am I gonna cut that? And all that I worked with was doing like a water tower product with a, a buddy of mine, he’s got a Locust Locust logs.
And so we’re doing this little water thing. And so it was like. You know, kids could walk up to it and push the little water trickle and it comes out. So we brought it around to some different preschools and stuff. And the, the great director that I was, you know, my friend I was working with, she said, oh, well I try to put stuff lower so that every time, if.
They could just walk up to that. And it’s a kid height, you know, it’s thoughtfully designed that way. She says, I put it lower, so they have to squat each time. So you’re getting these deep squats in there, building their core, building their, you know, their leg muscles. And it was like, oh, that’s very interesting.
Rusty Keeler: It’s, it’s like you’re sneaking in extra stuff for the kids to do. Love that. And so that’s like with the, with the rope ladder or with, with any of this stuff, it’s like, okay, what are all the different levels from, from the 2-year-old to the most wild? Athletic 5-year-old.
Cameron Sprauge: Oh, I know. It’s funny ’cause I have like an unofficial list of like the top five physically gifted children that have come to stash.
Like, and it’s always interesting when there’s like, ooh, there’s a new contender. Um, I get one thing I guess I should say ’cause in terms of like the question asked before too, is like day one we weren’t letting kids climb. 10 foot rope ladders. You know, like it, there’s an embedded culture within the staff team now of an approach to a healthy approach to risk.
And I think that’s an important thing too. Like you can’t go from like, oh my goodness, you can’t step on a log to being like, all right, climb 40 feet up trees, kids. Like, no problem. Like that’s dangerous. You know, like, and I would argue kids can climb not high and those kind of things, but. You don’t do that.
You know, you don’t go from being totally risk averse to do it like you need to do it as a team and only progress as like the slowest person’s ready to go and let. You know, I always say like, we need to push each other and challenge each other to do it. But if you’re the adult and you’re supervising children and you’re deeply uncomfortable, that’s not good.
You know, there’s gotta be a bit where you have to recognize in yourself is that child actually at risk. Or am I just nervous? ’cause I don’t like heights and that’s what they’re doing. You know, like, and you have to, you have to recognize that difference in yourself. There’s definitely moments when I’m watching kids do stuff and I’m like, man, I couldn’t do that.
You know, and then, but I’m like, but he’s okay. So that’s like we have to balance. So, you know, we’re all humans. No one wants anyone to get hurt, no one wants kids to get hurt. But we can’t put our own, our fears personally of risky activities that are happening onto the children. You know, we have to recognize that difference in ourself.
I always talk about when I’m doing training, like I’m fine at heights. So like when I was doing my outdoor ed degree and working, uh, you know, four H camp every summer, like I ran a ropes course. The worst person I ever had to put through a zip line was my, like, now wife. ’cause she freaked out, like climbing up.
Um, she was ho like she was freaking out in the tree. She was hay tight, she was scared. She got up to the platform. I needed to just hook her into the zip line and it was like a meter platform, probably like 40 feet up a tree for the zip line. She froze and I’m like, Jenny, I just need you to take a step back and I’m gonna hook you into the zip line.
Then you can like off you go. And she was like, 20 minutes wouldn’t move. So eventually the only way I could get her onto the zip line was I unhooked myself from the tree. So I’m like free-floating 40 feet in the air. So she would’ve had kittens if she knew I did that. But I felt good. You know, I was safe.
I, you know, I held onto the top line like stuff like that, and I hooked her in. It was all good. We got through it. Now you flip that to her birthday one year we went mountain biking and our son, I think it was five at the time, so she had her mountain bike. She had a tag along hookup on her mountain bike with him.
Going down these mountain biking trails, hooping and hollering, and then me afraid of bikes is way behind her on the trail. Like, oh, freaking out. You know? But you know, she, she has that with heights and I have that with speed. But it would’ve been totally unfair for me to be like, no, Jenny, you can’t be doing that with him on those mountain bikes.
It’s really unsafe. ’cause they were both having a ball and you know, she was totally in control of what she was doing, but. That’s what I have to recognize in myself. Like, all right, I’m not good on bikes, but yeah, I’m happy with the heights.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. And for people working with children, you know, it could be like, oh, we like the heights, but I don’t like, I don’t like rough and tumble, or I’m okay to watch rough and tumble, but I don’t wanna be pulled into rough and tumble.
I don’t wanna get hit with a pool noodle or, yeah. So that’s the kind of the neat thing about having a team or working with a team that, you know, maybe you can mix and match and, you know, different people can handle different things. I.
Cameron Sprauge: Yeah, and I think that, well, especially rough and tumble, I think more it’s important that, that there’s a gender mix.
’cause I think it naturally, for many men comes easier. Not that there’s not women practitioners that I know that don’t do it, but I. I think that, I think in like in early years in educational settings, we wanna show like our team that reflects the way we want the world to be, you know? So it should be men and women working together and caring and advocating for play and stuff.
So I’m quite proud of the fact that 25% of our staff are male. Okay. Wow. Which isn’t, which isn’t, you know, that’s not typical in UK of educate earlier establishments. And I would probably say I’m quite confident of saying that for the US as well.
Rusty Keeler: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Cameron Sprauge: Yeah,
Rusty Keeler: for sure, for sure. Yeah. Trainings that I do and, you know, it’s, it’s largely female.
You know, the conferences, the early childhood conferences, you go, uh, they rightly take over the men’s bathrooms because.
Cameron Sprauge: I say the best part of being a male in early years is never aligned for the toilet. But I guess if, uh,
Rusty Keeler: if we give it up, no, we’ll give, we’ll give it up. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well that, having men in there, it does change things, you know, it brings a different, different element.
Now I, I think about like, the kids are into the, the mess and the, and the weather and, and risky stuff. And, you know, staff, you know, you work together to get on the same page, but then there’s the, the parents. Now, I, I imagine it’s not hard for you, you know, parents know what they’re getting into when they see.
You know, they, they go on purpose there.
Cameron Sprauge: Yes. Well, it’s funny, like yes, that and like that’s totally true. And I guess a difference between Scotland and this United States is that every child in Scotland is entitled to funded childcare.
Rusty Keeler: Funded childcare.
Cameron Sprauge: Yeah. So every child is between the ages of three and five and some two year olds based on their family situation.
Are entitled to 1,140 hours of funded preschool. Wow. So that works out to, if they want to mirror the school year, it’s 30 hours a week. If they want to come, go in year round, it’s 23 hours a week. So paid for by the government? Yeah, paid for by the government. So it’s. So our income, this, this 1140, well, is supposed to kick off properly in 2020.
And, you know, pandemic happened, but it’s, you know, it’s in place. And 80% of our income now is through the funding. And then 20% of it’s just like parents topping up extra hours and stuff like that. So we do get some parents that, you know, were initially, like we were near an out outward bound center, so we had loads of parents that worked at Outward Bound and things like that, or we’re mountaineers and things where we are.
But over time that’s changed where I feel like we have a real cross section of the population. So there are parents that send their children that, you know, might send them in wellies with like, you know, little doll like rubber boots with uh, dolly socks and you’re like, well that’s not like the right stuff.
So, you know, we’ve. Now, like if you use all your funding with us, we like buy you gear so the kids are in the right stuff and things. ’cause it’s one of those things like if you don’t do it yourself, like how do you know? So we have to help parents like with those kind of things. ’cause we want kids to get the benefits, but we have less and less parents that get like a guilt of like, it’s been raining all day.
You know? ’cause they’re worried. But that’s ’cause the site’s developed. But we used to get that in the beginning. So it, it took a while for us to mature. But now we’re like super busy. Like Fort William has a 30 kid waiting list.
Cameron Sprauge: when we’re, and it’s a rural town, so it’s quite significant.
Where the first year we’d have like four kids in an afternoon and we’d have like just as many staff as kids and be like, what are we gonna do? Yeah. But you know, that was, yeah. Those first ones were real pioneering. And, and I guess part of our like ethos is the community stuff. And I know you love the community builds and we do that with parents and things, but we invite.
All the kids back for like big things. So like we have a camp out next month, like in just about a month. And my son included, he is, he’s going into his, what would it be? It’ll be sophomore year of high school in America. So that’s the oldest age of kids in Fort William that went to STEs. But like a bunch of them are, a bunch of them are coming to the camp out nice at the nursery to hang out and it’ll be.
Kids down to, like babies up to sophomore year in high school that are coming to the camp out gonna, you know, potluck, barbecue, cook and then sleep there all night. And then the kids get up in the morning and they’re playing on all the equipment and their PJs and you know, it’s amazing. And then November, we do bonfire night, which is when they do fireworks here and we get like 350 people that come to that.
Wow. Of all ages. Wow. Yeah. It’s that community connection, right. Of what we want. Right.
Rusty Keeler: I love that. The idea of like, you know, it’s great for the kids, it’s great, you know, as it’s initial, you know, goal or mission, but the idea of the community center too, and Yeah, in this day and age, like we need that. Yeah, absolutely.
It’s not just online. You know, with Facebook or social media, I mean, that’s, that’s one that, you know, so that sort of does what people need, like this kind of craving for connection or community. But the idea of having a real place to go where there’s, you know, you’re connected to the earth and you’re connected to other people, you,
Cameron Sprauge: yeah.
And we have parents like that first year they help plant trees. So when they come back they’re like, wow, they’re 20 feet high now. You know, like, yeah. So they have that emotional connection to the space and I think like that’s really cool. And then. Yes, the play space has changed ’cause you know that one’s no good anymore.
So we’re tearing it down, we’re starting over, but the builds are all, have the same spirit. So like, it always has the same spirit, but we’re like, as a community, we’re evolving with the space too. And that I love. And that’s like part of our challenge now with my new role of like, how do we get all the mashes feeling and pulling the same way and you know, and that’s, it’s really exciting ’cause we’ve got lots of amazing people working across all our fore sites and.
Kind of after the same vision, which is cool. Yeah.
Rusty Keeler: Okay. So we get it. The kids get it, the parents get it. You know, everyone’s on their own level or spectrum. Yeah. Are you licensed? Is, are there regulators or how does, what’s the official, you know, kids climbing these rope things and ponds, what? Tell us about that.
’cause I, you know, I probably should have said that in the beginning, but, you know, anybody listening might be thinking, oh yeah, that’s great, but, you know, it’s probably not a, a licensed thing,
Cameron Sprauge: so, so Scotland is absolutely regulated. So we have two regulating bodies. I. That we work with. So there’s the, the main one is called the care inspectorate.
And from my kind of understanding, they’re probably most similar to regulators in the states in terms of they do, well, roughly, you get inspected every two years properly and they come and they check that we’re meeting basic standards for health and safety environment, you know, is your place that you change diapers, all kosher, good, all that kind of stuff.
They also do. Grade us on the care and play that we’re providing to families and then they re, they create public reports that grade us on a scale of one to six, and those reports are available for anyone to read so they can check up on your setting and see how you go. Funding I talked about in terms of the national standard, uh, the 1140, the funded childcare has like a thing in it that says, you know, they want you to hit national standard, which is each, at least a level four on the scale of one to six.
And if you’re not hitting the level fours, like councils could say, well actually you can’t deliver the funded childcare right now ’cause you’re not on that score. So, mm. It’s a. It is a really important regulation process and it matters to us. You know? ’cause if we lost that funding, we would struggle to deliver our organization so.
We do have to do the whole, all the talks and things like that. I would say part of the difference is that Scotland as a country has a very good policy base that is pushing outdoors and recognizing rescue play. So the care inspector have had a positive approach to risky play statement that came out like eight years ago, something like that, you know?
So there’s lots of things that are advocating for the things we’re doing. So that works great. But yeah, if we don’t have our benefit risk assessments written down and in place, like, we’ll, you know, we’ll be in trouble. Like those kind of things. So we do get inspected. We also get inspected by Education Scotland, which is purely focused on the way we deliver the curriculum.
But that it’s more about like the stats in your area and stuff. So Stash has four nurseries that have operated since 2012. The only one that ever got an education scholar in into Fort William like two years ago. So that’s like how, you know, it’s not typical. You get inspected by them a lot, but their regulations much more about like what kind of experiences of play and learning are you providing for the children?
Mm-hmm.
Rusty Keeler: Educationally. Can you tell us a, an experience of like having a licenser? Have you ever had a licenser, an inspector come out and they didn’t like something and you, how you communicate with them or how you got to turn their mind
Cameron Sprauge: around? Well, it’s funny, like, so, I mean, we’re lucky, like, so we’re, we’re lucky we right now ’cause it’s, you know, Scotland isn’t a massive country.
It’s, you know, there’s more people that live in Massachusetts than live in Scotland. You know, in terms of what you know and like that. So like geographically there’s quite a big area, but. Population is not huge. So I feel quite lucky that like our forester mass nurseries has the same inspector from the care inspector, which.
Geographically, it’s a massive area. So she’ll Oh, so from where she lives, like the farthest setting away from her is like four hours that she’ll travel and inspect. So that really is really, but that’s really helpful for us ’cause we can have conversations with her. Yeah. That help and do, but you know, previously we had a different inspector that I had a great relationship with, but like I talked about the pond.
Speaker 4: Mm-hmm. You know,
Cameron Sprauge: she came out on a day where. You know, I know this site by the back, like I know I like the back of my hand and it, it had been a heavy rain day and just the way our soil is that, you know, the water was sitting on top and that bit, that’s the pond. Like it was a like a deep puddle, but I was like, it’s gonna be gone tomorrow.
Like it will be a puddle, but you know, it will reduce in volume by half ’cause that’s just what happens, you know? And she was like, you know, this isn’t safe, da da, all the rest of it. And I think. I wasn’t gonna turn her from like, it’s not safe, but like I knew it was, that’s when I was like, this is gonna be a continuous problem.
We’re gonna make it a pond. ’cause that way it’s just like a bit and it’s an area and all those kind of things. So, you know, there’s bets where we’ve won our battles. And then there’s also times when like you have to choose to be like, all right, is it really worth fighting about this? ’cause I’m. You know, we’re gonna lose the big picture, like of fighting every knit bit.
And I think that’s, it’s the same as like anyone else, right? We have that, like we need to keep them on side, but not against our ethos. So I don’t know if that helps in any way, but, um, yeah, it’s, it is about developing the relationship with them though, so you can have the conversations.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. And then I like that idea too, of, of knowing like they, the men, there’s sometimes when you don’t need to push, push, push.
You know, sometimes when we’re, you know, we’re supporting risky play or you know, talking about risky play with people and they think, oh, I need to really turn their mind around, turn licensing’s mind around. But maybe there’s other times when you’re like, nah, I’m alright. I’ll let that one go because I’m gonna do, you know, I’m gonna go for other things or.
You know, so again, it’s, it’s that balance or you said like in the moment, knowing and, and making decisions.
Cameron Sprauge: Yeah. We’re all human. Right? So I think it’s that bit like, if. If you get them on your bad side, you know, like it is, everything’s gonna be harder, you know? Yeah. So, like, I, I’m like, let’s kill ’em with kindness and over, like, over communicate and, you know, this is why we wanna do this and this is why it’s important and, you know, and like.
Like, so we’re quite lucky in that way. In terms of the risky stuff. Like, I mean, we have in all our settings quite risky things that, you know, she goes around to and she’s like, great, you know, and then every once in a while there’ll be something that she’s like, not too happy about that, and then we just gotta talk about it.
But I, I definitely have a bit of me and like, proceed until apprehended, you know? But also, like, you know,
Rusty Keeler: I, I, you know, I mostly hear that. Ask for, I, I’ve only heard that as ask for forgiveness instead of permission. I’ve never heard, was it apprehended? Actually,
Cameron Sprauge: I, I forget I stole that from somebody who I heard it from not that long ago.
I can’t remember now. I, I wish I could give them credit, but yeah, I’ve always, uh. Said the same process, proceed is still apprehended. Yeah, but,
Rusty Keeler: well, you, you gotta, you know, especially when you’re, you know, you got a mission and you know, you believe in it and you know, you are all legit and smart and, you know, thinking about all this stuff every day, you know, you’re the experts in it and, and flexible and you’re staying flexible to, to change and, and trust your, you know, we’re talking about trusting the children, but trusting oneself.
Cameron Sprauge: Also, you know, if you’re a play person and you have this background, right? You come here, you come there and you just go like, wow. Like, and you know, and that’s like the honest reaction I think If you’re not used to this, you come and go like, oh my God, like this is a pile of crap. Yeah. You know, there’s like.
There’s broken planks, there’s gutters, there’s pallet stuff built everywhere. But like what I say to people is like, you know, you look at this in CMS, it’s actually clever crap. You know, like, we’ve thought so much about this and it’s so backed in theory and research and you know, every little bit, like you just see cable drums.
But we’ve thought about that, you know, like Juliet, years ago turned me onto Tom Bedard. The sand water tables one. And I had him on my podcast and he is like, I’m not an outdoor person. Why do you interview? Like why do you wanna interview me? And I’m like, ’cause I use your principles with all my belts.
’cause I’m trying to keep them open-ended, you know? So there’s so much thought. Like he, you know, he does these crazy things with cardboard and stuff. I’m just doing it with pallets and cable drums and I’m trying to maximize experiences for kids. So. It’s not like we’re just chucking stuff out, like there’s thought that goes into what we’re doing, and it is underpinned by a huge ethos and value base for sure.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah.
Cameron Sprauge: Yeah.
Rusty Keeler: Well, okay, so if people see pictures and, and they think, I wanna try this, what, what are some of your recommendations? Uh, whether they have a natural place escape or they have a manmade instruction and stuff. Huh.
Cameron Sprauge: So don’t be afraid to ask people for help. So like. I think, I’m not afraid to ask anyone for anything ’cause all they’re gonna say is no.
Right. And I good. You know, so I have had parents that were like carpenters and joiners and engineer and you know, we have like two guys specifically with the Fort William one, where I kind of like, I always refer to ’em as the brain trust to be like, oh, how could I do this? Or how could I build this? Or, you know, when we’re doing the sleeping pod is what the structure with the, the, the ladder.
You know, that was our first really adventurous build, but we kind of worked it out together and you know, we didn’t have playground standard and stuff like that, but they knew how to put together wood and all those things. So we figured it out and did it, and eventually got it checked by people that were like, yeah, you know, that’s all good in kosher, but I.
Ask people for help that have skills that you don’t have. And then listen, like, you know, I, like my dad, uh, is a fire, like retired firefighter, but my stepdad, but he, um, also had a carpentry business. I was so not interested when I was a kid, you know, he’d be like, oh, come work with me and like, do this garage extension.
I’d be like, nah, now I’m killing myself. I’m like, I wish, I wish I came and did all the tools stuff and, you know, so, but like those guys. Have taught me so much. So I have so much, like my skills are so developed over the last 10 years because of ’em and a good understanding of things. But I feel like it’s ’cause we weren’t afraid to ask like, oh, you know, about this stuff.
Like, like, let us, you know, teach us, tell us about it. Like what can we do? And. Collect people in your life that can give you some skills and then start small. You know, like just like, like have big ambitions, but, you know, build a mud kitchen. ’cause if you screw it up, you just take it apart. Like it’s not a big deal.
Right. But like, you know, build it strong, do it well and then that went well. Okay. What can we do next time that’s a bit more challenging? And, you know, it’s practice stuff.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. Just, just give it a go. Just yeah. Try it. Yeah.
Cameron Sprauge: Yeah, yeah, a little bit. Like, you know, that’s like what it’s been with the tools.
Like I think people just get super afraid, like, oh my, you know, oh my goodness, this is a power tool and stuff. But I’m like, you know, don’t start big, try small things. Get used to using it. Just put some screws in a big piece of wood and just see what it feels like, you know? And. It’s not, you know, once you start doing it, I’m like, if I can do it, anybody can do it.
You know, like the, like rich, one of the guys that like in the brain trust, he, he calls me straight cut. ’cause I can’t, you know, I can’t cut a straight line with a hand saw, but you know, I get the job done. Like, so it’s straight cut. Yeah. So yeah,
Rusty Keeler: it’s cost there. Yeah. Yeah. It’s got life, extra life to it.
Yeah. Ash chic. Well that’s, that’s what I love about it is that. You know, you, you can tell that everything is well built. Like it looks, it looks strong. It’s gonna, it’s gonna stand up. But it also, yeah, it also looks rough and tumble it, you know, it looks, it looks like it’s, uh. Made with like love and intent and it’s not all picture perfect.
It’s like it looks, it looks,
Cameron Sprauge: yeah, I’m gonna big on painting stuff. Like, you know, I like, ’cause I want like, I want the kids to look at it and be like, oh yeah, we made that outta pallets. You know? ’cause you could like, we could pretty it up and paint it and be like, oh wow, it’s so beautiful. But like, I want like the industrial of like, look, we took pallets and made this really cool thing.
What GS could we make with pallets, you know? But like, if you paint it and try to make it like a catalog, I think you take away from that part of it. So yeah, like I want that kind of like, this isn’t raw.
Rusty Keeler: It’s like,
Cameron Sprauge: yeah, it’s raw. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Rusty Keeler: Well, I love it. It definitely has that, it’s that feel, to me, it’s this full circle of.
Even before you had the stuff, before you had the pallets, before you had the structures, before you had, you know, all the willow tunnels, like the, the philosophy was there, like the belief, the what you, the kind of experiences and the opportunities you want to give to children. Like to connect to nature, connect to weather, to put the rain boots on and the rain gear and, and just be out in it.
And then like anyone else who has their own playground and their own center, their own school, like. It’s evolving and it, and it doesn’t have to be, you know, if anyone sees seeing these pictures, it’s like, oh, I wish mine could be like that. Well, you know, you keep in 10 years it can be right. Like you just keep adding to it.
But I feel like the place to start is that in your heart of like. This is what we want. This is what we’re going for. And the never stopping, right? Like this, you know, we will look at pictures in the future and be like, oh yeah, that was 10 years in, but now we’re 20 years in, or now we’re 15 years in, and what’s it gonna look like then?
Cameron Sprauge: I always say, well, there’s a Maya Angelou quote, right? Do the best you can until you know better. When you know better, do better. We’ve been like just learning better. For 10 years, right? Like we just, we learn new things, we try stuff, and they’re like, all right, we gotta do it better next time. That kind of stuff.
So I’ve been like, I think that mindset has been in from the very beginning, and I think that’s been really important. There’s the John Bowlby quote, like, you know, kind of the father attachment theory that, um, daring Ventures can only come from secure bases. So we have really strong relationships with our children and our family, and that’s what allows the adventures to come.
And then the third bit for me is I’ve been very lucky that. I’ve had a lot of people that have started with us that have come like straight from school and they have just totally bought into it and that what was a very young team when we started, you know, like we have professionals that are like 28 that have been working in early years for like 11 years now.
But Lindsay, like I don’t run the nursery anymore ’cause I’m running the whole thing. Mm-hmm. With my colleague Josh, like, you know, we’re on different perspective now, but Lindsay’s like, you know, she’s such an a professional and, but. She’s emotionally invested in the site. And then we also have like this amazing staff team that are emotionally invested in the site too.
And you know, they’ve grown with it as well. And that’s a really nice thing to have. And yeah, Juliet always says it takes a while for an alto nursery to mature. And that’s where I feel like we’re at now. We’re maturing.
Rusty Keeler: Mm-hmm. I love it. Constant evolution. And conscious evolution and also being open to just follow it and see where it leads and evolve with it.
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Oh man. Well this has been so great. Thank you so much. We’ll, we’ll keep it, we’ll have a part two at some point here ’cause we could just keep going and going. Gosh, it’d be so neat to go visit these. If we could get a group of people together. Yeah,
Cameron Sprauge: well watch this space or hopefully, yeah, yeah, spring, spring 26.
We’re hopefully having an experience, so Yeah. Yeah. If you’re interested Yeah. Watch this space.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. Dear listener, uh, Cameron and I are talking about, uh, he’s cooking up a. Scottish trip to visit, uh, nature nurseries, preschools and Scottish sites and whiskey tastings and looking for the Loch Ness monster, the whole deal.
So wouldn’t that be fun? Yeah, absolutely. Wouldn’t that be fun? Don’t you wanna do that so? Absolutely. Absolutely. And then here I see you. Is this a joke we can end on? Why do people sleep on fruit
Cameron Sprauge: trees? I don’t feel like enough people plant fruit trees in play spaces. Like I think, ’cause you asked like for questions Yeah.
To talk about. But so many people like are, you know, they’ll put in po, like raised beds and stuff like that, which is great. But a fruit tree, you literally plant it. You know, you gotta prune it in the winter, which you know is not hard. No. Yeah. And then, and then it just magically appears with fruit. Like it gets, you get beautiful blossom that makes your space look amazing in the spring.
And then you get fruit at the end of the year and it’s not a lot of work. You know, like and I. People just don’t do it enough. Like I think like I like, and I go to all these new build schools and stuff where we’re doing consultancy work and then they’ve got like all these, I don’t know, like the, like foofy, pretty ornamental trees, right?
And I’m like, these are kids spaces. Like let’s put fruit trees in ’em. And it’s not even that hard to train fruit trees to go up a grow up a wall or a fence or things like that. Like maximize your space and do it. And it’s like. How much stuff can you do with the fruit with the kids afterwards? It’s good for pollinators, like, you know, it’s like this amazing resource that’s not a lot of money.
And it’ll make your space special. And people just don’t do it, you know? And I’m like, just, just do it. Yeah, just get ’em in there,
Rusty Keeler: you know? All right. I love it. Well, see, I thought, I thought that was a joke. I thought there was a setup to a riddle that you, why didn’t people sleep on fruit trees? And it was like, I don’t know.
Why do they, so, but that’s the idea. In fact, it’s no joke. It’s no joke. No, no joke. We want fruit trees out there, and you put ’em right where you see ’em and right where the fruit’s gonna be, and you are growing your own loose parts and you’re growing your own food, and in fact, it’s growing it for you. A hundred percent.
Yay. Yay. All right, Cameron, thanks so
Cameron Sprauge: much. Oh, thank you Rusty. Thanks for having me. It’s been, uh, great. Just even catching up, so thank you. Yeah. Alright.
Rusty Keeler: How awesome was that? Hey, if you want even more fun with Cameron and me, we just made a video. This conversation continues, but we’re looking at pictures of his field of dreams, uh, both the early days and then all the great things. So these built, so this is in the show notes or my YouTube channel. It’s on YouTube.
I put together some slides, some pictures that he had sent me over the years, and we look at ’em. And brainstorm and we get a little, you know, we get a little designer nerdy talking about details, but I think you’ll like it. Alright, check it out.
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.
