Another day of hiking up creeks, composting, and wandering around under the trees. Now I'm guiltily typing away while I should be getting the boys to bed, so I'd better make this short. Here's a few photos from this week.




When millipedes feel threatened, they exude a smelly, yellow fluid that stains skin, leaving a mark that looks like a bruise or burn. Of course, I got the kids to smell my fingers, since it tied in nicely with the animal adaptations lesson I was teaching. Soon after this, I found one of the smaller, yellow spotted millipedes and discovered that they glow when subjected to ultraviolet light. Pretty neat. Below is a picture I took today, a millipede crossing the ranger road. This one was nicer and didn't stain me when I picked it up.




Our night hike last night was less eventful this week. One girl was too scared to make it through the hike and had to be taken back to the school by one of the cabin leaders. Another girl cried the whole time because she was feeling homesick. The rest of the kids did okay, and we got to spend some time at the telescopes looking at Saturn and a nebula (the one in the Orion constellation). Actually, only a couple of kids stayed out late enough to look at the nebula because it was getting late. I like it when people are interested enough in the things we show them that they stay up past bedtime to see more.




I'll leave you with an endearing little quote from The Dickens. "My poop wants to come out of my butt so it can play with you!"