Supposedly I have fifteen campers this week, but one of them never showed. Today we explored water - I caught a crayfish with one small claw (growing back) and one very large claw. It promptly pinched me with both. Then we all hiked up to the pond near the hostel, where a couple of the girls, during an attempt to catch a Fence lizard on stump, spotted a snake curled up inside the bark. I caught it, of course, and we spent some time passing it around. It was a Garter snake, which I would have expected to see down near the water. It just goes to show that you never know when or where you're going to find something. After placing the snake back in the stump, we walked over and looked at the nearly invisible Bullfrogs that floated lazily in the duckweed. It's hard to imagine that creatures this placid looking are actually predators. Non-indigenous predators at that.
I have two students from previous camps this week. I also have the sister of Salamander Girl, who doesn't seem to share her sibling's abnormal enthusiasm for amphibians. Instead she is obsessed with always being at the front of the line when we are hiking. I forsee problems with this.

cds I listened to while expelling the news: Roy Harper "Death or Glory?", Mia Doi Todd "Zeroone", Traffic "John Barleycorn Must Die", Paul Chain "Cosmic Wind", and Two Ton Boa "s/t"