How to love the outdoors?

When my daughters were little and we were in England, I used to let them out in our fenced yard, we had a big old English country garden, and I let them get into whatever they wanted.  They collected snails, worms, butterflies, and all kinds of things, they used their legos to make little towns for the creatures on the patio and then plopped the worms and snails in them – we had real little towns of snails, slugs, caterpillers and worms.  I supervised and provided containers etc, but they did the rest.  I love nature and the outdoors, but my point is that there is a lot they can do on their own.  I did not constantly chase after them with sanitizer, my mother did not do it with me, and I survived, so I figured they would as well – I actually think we are all a bit clean crazy these days.  We used to tramp through the fields and woods near our home and look for birds, flowers  and other creatures, collected flowers, stamped in puddles and encouraged birds into our yard.  Even now, my daughters are 17, they still have snails in a habitat, and they informed me this morning that the snails have laid eggs – they have bird boxes full of eggs and or  babies –  recently a duck decided our front yard was the place to lay her eggs and 3 ducklings have just hatched and waddled off to the local pond.  We have caterpillers from swallowtail butterflies in a habitat which will cocoon soon.  So as you can see just from some very simple things in childhood, their love of nature and animals has continued to grow and each year it becomes more important in their lives.  I actually took a hands off approach, and just offered the opportunities and the equipment, they did all the rest.  I had them sketching their finds from quite a young age, and gave them books to find out what creature they had found – I helped with more complicated things, but in general it was something that came very naturally to them, and they preferred to play alone, then come tell me or show me their accomplishments.  So I would encourage them, show them things, you don’t have to pick the gross things up, let them do the fun stuff.  I understand over here, you have to be more careful as there are more harmful creatures over here than in England, but let them loose and see what they can do.  If they are too young right now, then just keep that in mind for the future.  I always remember one day going out on the patio and seeing the snails with tiny little string harness type things on, pulling a matchbox, I asked what they were doing, and was told, they were chariot racing like the Romans we had read about!  They also handwrote (when they were a bit older) a weekly newsletter, called the Slo Snail Gazette, with news stories about snail town, and chariot racing etc.  I was amazed, but they had such fun and it opened up such a lot in their lives.  I encourage you to nurture the love of all things natural and the outdoors – it is a beautiful thing.  Linda