It's the second to last week of the school year, as far as my job is concerned anyway. I initially thought I'd be working as an instructor this week, but we're host to fewer kids than initially expected. Even so, I filled in for a coworker yesterday and this evening. Yesterday we visited the incredibly predictable Rattlesnake that lives under a log near one of the trails. He's been in the same place for nearly a month now. Nearby was a less expected Rattlesnake. It was so well camouflaged that one of the kids nearly stepped on it.

Today I spent a good deal of time evicting Black Widows from the pool furniture. The odd thing about this is that they were all males, which are a bit more colorful than the females. I've never really seen male Black Widows before, so I went to pick one up and stopped when I saw the tell-tale hourglass shape underneath. I don't believe they are dangerous (okay, I just did a quick bit of research and it seems I am correct...) but still decided to play it safe by not picking them up with my hands. Instead, I got them to crawl onto a stick or blade of grass and dropped them on the other side of the fence surrounding the pool. Then, after all of the spiders were safe, I pressure washed everything. Pressure washing is a most excellent way to get rid of bird shit.

Our facilities manager, who directly oversees the maintainence projects I'm doing this week, is a new father. Unfortunately, his wife had preeclampsia and their daughter was born prematurely, weighing less that two pounds. She will most likely be in the hospital until her due date sometime in August. I have an idea of what they are going through because of Willow's birth, but this baby weighs less that half what Willow weighed. There is not much more terrifying than standing helplessly by while your newly born preemie child struggles to gain weight and develop outside the warmth and safety of the womb. Things are looking as well as can be expected at the moment. I hope this trend continues. I still vividly remember how it felt for us when Willow was still in the hospital - how wonderful and scary and awe-inspiring and stressful and overwhelming it all was...

But back to the present.

After a day of cleaning and weed whacking, I took a class out for a night hike, which at this time of year is more of a crepuscular hike. One of the girls disturbed a bird that was nesting at about eye-level in a small Redwood tree. We never would have noticed the nest if the bird hadn't lost her nerve and burst forth in a panic, giving away her location. After she'd left, we peeked into the perfectly camouflaged nest and saw three almond-sized eggs. Not sure what kind of bird it was - it left too quickly.

The darkened trail we followed back to camp had a pinpoint of light upon it, and sure enough it was a glow worm. We all knelt down around it and marvelled at its luminescence for a bit before hurrying back to camp.