As Jen mentioned in her blog, we are sans van for a couple of days. The old one squats in the driveway, immovable as a statue, and the new (to us) one is still in use by the people who are selling it to us. Until Monday, anyway. Jen and Nate are out watching the the finale of Lexy's music camp week at the moment. Later, Jen gets to go out and have fun with the Blogher convention folks while I watch the kids. I'm so glad that she gets to do this.

I camped overnight with the campers again last night. I lay on my back in my sleeping bag listening to music (David Maranha's "Musica #2) while stargazing. Unlike last week, the moon wasn't up and you could actually see the white smear of the Milky Way stretching across the heavens. I counted six meteors as well. My thoughts turned towards the space shuttle being up there somewhere and about how small we all are. Then I fell asleep. When I awoke in the middle of the night it was foggy and the quarter moon was a hazy white spot above. I love my job.

Earlier, I once again relocated a Rattlesnake which had been hiding in the garden near where we were soon to camp out. It's eyes were milky, signifying the onset of molting, and based on its size I would say that it probably came from the same batch of babies that all of the other ones we've found over the last half a year belonged to. It rattled a bit as I moved it, but other than that wasn't aggressive at all. Most of the kids who saw it thought it was pretty cool. A few were worried that it had been found so close to camp. There was another Rattlesnake in the garden as well, but it had managed to get itself caught in some nylon netting behind the shed, and had died there. I'm thinking of trying to boil it down and preserve the skeleton, but probably won't. We'll see. I'll at least move that damn netting so no more snakes die.

It also looks like I'm now going to be working all of the summer camp weeks up through the end of the season. There's always more work than I expect there to be. This is a good thing. Plenty of overtime opportunities watching the early arrivals and late pickups as well. This usually means getting paid for playing ping pong or chess with campers. Nice.

The top photo here is of a Madrone tree. You can make tea out of the bark. It does taste a bit like wood though.