The rain mostly managed to fall in between the times when I was out hiking with my field class today. It soaked the ground and enticed a fair amount of newts and Banana slugs to come out and play.

On the night hike, I once again fed wintergreen lifesavers to the kids, telling them that they were eating freeze dried glow worms. Many of them believed me. This is something we do every week. Different field instructors make up different stories, some of them more believable than others. I always start my story by mentioning the time I found a glow worm during a night hike, and then continue it by talking about how I mentioned it to an entomologist friend who just happens to be studying glow worms. The glow worms he's studying are being raised on mint leaves. It's their favorite food. Tonight I added a bit about how he's also a taxonomist who freeze dries the glow worms so he can extract their DNA in order to decide how to classify them. The upshot of the story is that one day he accidentally eats one and discovers that it tastes wonderfully minty. Later he discovers that they give off sparks when he bites down on them in the dark.

I tell the kids that my friend gave me some of the glow worms. I then offer them around. Every week, there are a few kids who won't eat them.

The sparking is a phenomenon called tribo luminescence. Try it.

It's almost May. I must have blinked, but the last time I looked it was the middle of winter. I'm now in the middle of trying to pin down my summer schedule. I may be working at two different summer camps, or just one with some painting/construction work on the side. I'll know by the end of the week.
Right now I'm tired. My work is fun, but I expend a lot of energy doing it. Working with kids (or other adults, for that matter) is always kind of draining. I haven't done anything new this week yet either. I've been making sure to do at least one new thing every week, just to keep things interesting. This week I've been feeling lazy. We've got three different schools up, one from San Francisco. The kids are pretty good, although I've got a couple of name-callers in my group. I know this because they keep having the bad sense to harass the girl who's a tattle-tale.

Not much else going on at the moment. The van's transmission was acting up, so Jen put some transmission fluid in it. We know it was low, but still haven't really figured out if that's the extent of the problem. Hopefully that's all there is to it. Uh oh, I've been reduced to writing about car complaints. I'll stop here.

A storm whipped in out of nowhere early Friday afternoon, and we've had unsettled weather since then. There hasn't been much rain, but the wind has been impressive.

I did another party this weekend at one of those big, snazzy homes in the hills. This one had a deck out back from which I could see the whole valley. It makes me wonder if the people who live there take the view for granted. After living in such a house for a time, how often does a person stop and admire the view? Truly a different world up there in the hills in the playgrounds of the morbidly rich. That said, this particular family treated me well. In addition to a nice tip, I got a whole pizza to take home. Good pizza too. No cheap pizza for the rich.

The rest of the weekend was taken up cleaning and dashing back and forth to grocery stores and libraries. I watched the Mummy Returns last night. I guess I was in the mood for some flashy brain candy. I got what I expected - a movie that resembled an amusement park ride, enjoyable but kind of pointless and forgettable at the same time. Some cool looking mummies though.
I also got a couple of F. Paul Wilson's Repairman Jack novels, which I'm glad the library actually had on hand. I really like that I didn't have to buy the damn things. Hardbacks are so expensive now. We don't have any space for more books on the shelves anyway.

My mom came over today too, bringing books for nearly everybody. And these we don't have to take back in three weeks. It is kind of nice that even when we're totally broke, libraries and moms are there to help out with literature.

We've gotten a new computer, thanks to Uncle Jay who works at a work where the high tech Joneses must be kept up with. The Joneses all got new computers, so the old computer, which is still much newer than our computer, is now sitting on our desk here in our room. Yay.

I worked the Thursday night program this week, which isn't my favorite. It's set up like Jeopardy, except all of the questions are 5th/6th grade science standard based. Afterwards, the kids get to dance, which is fun. I'm just not much of a dancer myself, at least not to the kind of music deemed appropriate for a sixth grade dance.

Wednesday night, during the night hike, I told the kids the myth I made up a couple of weeks ago. They quietly listened, and just as I finished there was a soft hooting from the tree directly behind me. We looked up and saw that a small owl was listening in. It flew off when it realized it had been spotted. It added a bit of magic to the whole experience.

There are bats living near the staff room too. One of my co-workers pointed them out to me earlier. Neat.

A moment ago I discovered that the tickling sensation down by my ankle was indeed... a tick. I've been home from work for hours, so I wonder if my unwelcome little guest has been hanging out on my leg for that long. It's not a Deer tick though, which is good. Deer ticks are the ones that transmit Lyme disease... unless of course they've been gorging themselves on the blood of a Fence lizard, in which case they lose the ability to transmit it. Strange but true.

Anyway, I finally got a picture of a Giant salamander larva.

This one is still quite small, but growing. You can see the gills right in front of the front legs.

I'm still kind of sick, but not sick enough to stay home from work. The week has been going pretty well so far. Today was warm and sunny, and I really just felt like lying down on the grass and doing nothing - just letting the sun wash over me. Instead I taught the usual lessons to a more-or-less attentive group of children, and hiked around with the class following after. We even came across a dead Ringneck snake. Something had eaten its head, and the ants were investigating. Nature is brutal. And beautiful. All at once.

Four staff, including myself, from the outdoor school I work at carpooled in one of the company vans up to the AEOE convention. For once I wasn't driving, which was kind of nice. We got to the convention site at Walker Creek Ranch sometime around five on Friday, and got right to work by becoming the greeting committee, complete with funny hats and chocolate to hand out to people as they drove in. The rest of the weekend went by pretty fast. The food in the dining hall was phenomenal, the workshops were good, the people were nice, and the campground was pretty crowded. I ran into a few people that I'd worked with at previous jobs, but not the ones I expected to see. We went on a really nice hike up through a beautiful forest of Bay Laurel and fern. I saw a Western Racer, which is a snake I haven't seen in the wild since my high school snake catching days. It is an aptly named snake, and shot down a hole before I could catch it. Much slower was the Gopher snake we came across later, which just sat there and allowed us to pick it up without protest. The trail led up to a summit dotted with cows and large, jiggly fungi. It looked like the former had been dining on the latter. Of course, everybody had an opinion on everything we came across, because everybody on the hike was a naturalist. Most of us were outdoor school employees. One of my coworkers noted the tendency of members of the group to "blurt the spiel" as enthusiasm waxed over bits of lichen or scat. We were all obviously used to orating in front of groups of elementary school students.
I finally got to camp out under the stars again, which I've been meaning to find the time to do. There's nothing quite like laying on one's back in a sleeping bag and staring up at the stars. It was also nice to see all of the wild turkey strutting around, with the occasional rooster thrown in for good measure.
On the down side, I spent the whole weekend with a runny nose and the general lack of energy that comes with having a low-grade cold. Since then, it's developed into a sinus infection. I also wish that I'd known in advance about the photo contest being held. Oh well.
The various speakers and other people I met gave me things to think about, which I won't blather on about here. It is interesting to see a large chunk of the outdoor education community come together, and to realize that there are many similarities between the various schools.

I got home late on Sunday afternoon, and got to spend the rest of the evening with just Jen and Willow, since the three older kids were still at their dad's house. It was nice to get a little down time before the heathens once again descended. Of course, Willow is quite the little heathen herself these days. She's also got a bigger vocabulary and more teeth all of a sudden. Now if we could only figure out why her extremities sometimes turn purply blue.

Today everythings back to normal. Everybody is home. A new work week has started. We started off the week by finding several scorpions and one of the opportunistic, puddle dwelling Garter snakes swimming amongst the tadpoles. Most of the tadpoles now have their legs, which is good because the puddle they're living in is nearly gone.

Hopefully I can hang in there this week. Sinus infections are uncomfortable.

This week has been going pretty smoothly for me at work, which is just as well because I have a cold, leaving me with little extra energy to deal with things that don't go smoothly.

This weekend we're all going our separate ways. The three older kids will be at their dad's. Jen and Willow will be staying with a friend near Santa Cruz, and I'm going to the Associaton of Environmental Outdoor Educators (AEOE) conference up north. Should be interesting. I'm going to miss everyone here though.

Oh well, here's more fungus.

We took the kids to the children's museum this weekend to check out the new Wonder Cabinet exhibit. It was really cool, evoking images of the cabinet of curiosities concept that inspired it while at the same time being welcoming to the modern 2-year old. Willow and The Dickens especially loved it. We'll be back.

At work, I'm teaching sixth graders this week and so far it's going pretty well. We found a scorpion and three Garter snakes up in the chaparral today. The two younger snakes were swimming around in the large puddle that serves as the centerpiece of the open space there, and snapping at passing tadpoles. So the kids got to see a food chain in action.




This evening I got to work our new astronomy program. This is only the second week that it has been up and running, so we're still ironing out some kinks, mostly logistical stuff like how to make sure that all 150 kids get to look through the telescopes. My part in the proceedings was to tell a star myth to the assembled groups and then supervise them afterwards as they wrote their own myths. I lit a campfire to set the scene, and told the myth as the sky darkened and the deer grazed on the nearby field. By the time I finished, the stars were out. It worked out pretty well actually, since I was telling a story about how the stars were created.
It was getting the various groups organized and moving them around to different places that caused delays. We need to fine tune that a bit. Some of the kids were really into writing their own myths, but others weren't. Some just doodled. I haven't gotten to read any of the results yet, but will when I get the chance.

I got home about an hour late. Next time we'll be more organized.

I've been falling asleep early all week because the government took an hour away from us last weekend. Sure, they say they're only borrowing it until Autumn, but how do we know that the hour they give us then is the same one they took away?
This is totally messing with the night programs at work too. Have you ever tried to do an astronomy program during the day. "Okay class, there is only one star visible right now, and it's right over there... We call it The Sun. Notice as you look at it that there is some pain. Don't worry though, we will get all of you into programs to help mitigate the fact that you are now, unfortunately, blind."

Next week I get to help with the new astronomy program. Should be a barrel of laughs.

I really liked the kids this week, despite their loquaciousness. On the long hike yesterday, one of the boys, not content with mere talking, vomited several times. I'm sure the next people to take the same route will wonder about the intermittent puddles of puke. Maybe if Hansel and Gretel had used this tactic they would have found their way back.

Today, most of the kids were upset about having to leave. Lots of them were crying, including a few of the boys. I think more kids hugged me this week than in any of the past weeks. I'm glad our program touches people in this way, but it's sad that many of these kids are going back to less than ideal home lives. Some of them have obviously been abused. Many of them probably have other problems. Life can be rough sometimes

The night hike no longer starts during the night, thanks to daylight savings time. In some ways this freaks the nervous kids out even more than it would otherwise because the late light makes them confident at the beginning of the hike so they're unprepared for the deep dark darkness of the Redwood forest at night.

The campers turning into little, whimpering puddles tonight. Some of them, anyway. Such is life.

And now, fungus.

They've gone and changed night hike night to Wednesday in order to make way for the new astronomy program. This will give us some breathing room, since lately the routine has been to go on a night hike and then rush back to the school to look through telescopes. If you've ever tried "rushing" through Redwood forest at night with twenty plus elementary school students then you know why I say that I'm glad the astronomy program now has its own separate night.

Today a kid named Dodo spotted the first Giant Salamander larva of the season. It was only a couple of inches long and quickly squeezed out of sight amongst the rocks at the bottom of the creek.
I also re-caught an Alligator Lizard I'd initially seen last night while setting up for the campfire. I think it's gravid.




Strange being home early on a Tuesday.

Yet another week of outdoor science school begins. Fifth graders from two different schools converged on us this morning. The ground was still muddy from the rain that came through last night, but of course that never stops us. During class today we discovered all of the usual critters - Ensatinas, Scorpions, Tree frogs, Darkling Beetles, and Deer. The kids proved enthusiastic, and did the usual paparazzi routine with their cameras. It's still funny that no matter how many times you tell fifth graders about the focusing distance of disposable cameras, they still insist on taking pictures of things from two inches away. I'm sure their parents just love developing rolls and rolls of film upon which there are nothing but indistinct patches of light and dark.
The campfire tonight went well, with the usual amount of singing and silliness and almost falling in the flames. It makes one feel sort of like a rock star.

At home, I saw the three older kids for the first time since Friday (Nate and Lexy) and Saturday (The Dickens). It's nice that they're spending more time at their dad's, but it's good that they're back home now.

The rest we had while they were gone was definitely well-earned though.

I finished up week two of camp at the other site with no problems. It was a pretty easy week, actually. The kids were helpful and not prone to outbursts of any kind. We even took a side trip to the muddy landslide area that had bogged down one of the other groups. I quickly discovered that there was a less muddy way around it, but almost as quickly discovered that there was a Stinging Nettle bush growing in the middle of it. The kids were more interested in getting as muddy as possible anyway. Of course, I was the one who had to pull all of their shoes out of the mud after they became separated from feet.

This weekend, for once, was quite relaxing. The older kids spent it at their dad's house. Lexy and Nate went Friday evening and The Dickens went Saturday morning. Willow had a fever on Saturday and Jen took her to the clinic to check if she had Strep Throat, but it looks like she has Fifth disease instead, which isn't a big deal. While this was going on I went and did a birthday party at a house that qualified as a mansion. It had a long, tree-lined driveway and one of those cobbled parking circles crammed with expensive automobiles. To tell you the truth, the obscenely rich make me nervous. Their ways are alien to me. The kids were great though, even if their backyard was the size of most city parks, complete with play structure and fountain. The mom, on the other hand, acted like she'd been abusing prescription medications. She wrote out a check for me and then managed to lose it before handing it to me. She asked me several times if I'd gotten it already before writing me another one. To top it all off, no tip was forthcoming. Jen's theory about this is that the party was probably booked by the maid, who failed to communicate to her employer that tipping was expected. Oh well. The overly affluent are not like the rest of us.

On the way there and back I noticed that the air was full of butterflies. They flitted and darted across the sky like autumn leaves in gusty wind. Quite beautiful, really. Today, the butterflies have been replaced by rain.

Earlier, an old friend stopped by with his son. We spend a couple of hours relaxing and talking, which was nice. The last time I saw him was at a Blue Oyster Cult concert in 1999, and that was a relatively brief meeting. His son is now sixteen, which is hard to believe somehow. It's always interesting to see a childhood friend in the role of parent. Of course, this is just another reminder that we're all getting older. We are no longer kids ourselves, even if sometimes we still act like it. I can still see the kid there, but with a layer of responsibility and experience placed on top. That's what growth is about. Of course, I can think of some people who never seem to change at all, but that's another story.
Before leaving, he gave me 20 dollars because sometime in the mid eighties we'd made a bet that whoever cut his hair first owed the other 20 bucks.

That's why I have long hair.

One more night of just the three of us before the barbarian hordes descend again.