As I was leading my group of kids up to the pond (actually now a meadow, thanks to the pathetic amount of rain we've gotten this year), we looked to the right and saw another hiking group on circled up far below. You can barely see them in the photo here. This is the cool thing about our second site. It's much more open, with chaparral being the dominant community, so the views are much more striking.
Later on the same hike I caught sight of a Western Racer, a smallish olive green snake with a yellow ventral side. It caught sight of me at about the same time and shot off into the Coyote Brush and Poison Oak where I couldn't follow. I haven't seen a Western Racer around here since I was a teenager, so it was a treat to see one. Too bad I didn't have a chance in hell of catching it or even photographing it. Quick little bastards. I still remember catching one more than a couple of decades ago and having it bite me multiple times before I could get it into a bag.
As for the kids this week, I had a great time with a large group. On Wednesday evening, there were 31 people on the night hike I led - 24 students, 2 interpreters for my 5 deaf students, 3 cabin leaders, one teacher, and one head of a San Diego outdoor school (a member of the California Outdoor School Association - COSA for short) who was observing our camp so that we could get re-certified (something that happens every five years). Oh, and me. 32.
We got re-certified, by the way. We're all quite excellent at what we do, of course. Basically, what happens is heads of COSA-member schools take turns observing other COSA-member schools to make sure they're doing their jobs well. It's a great way to self-regulate.
I had a great time interacting with the deaf students and their interpreters . We even played a round of "telephone" in sign language. It was quite amusing. I hope I get more chances to work with people with special needs. It definitely keeps me thinking and second guessing myself. I changed my plans a few times during the week so that everybody could be included in the games and activities.
At home, Jen is still sick, although right now she and Willow are out babysitting baby O (actually he's toddler O now). I did a reptile party earlier today for a 7 year old boy who knew as much about reptiles as I did about dinosaurs when I was his age. In other words, everything. There were lots of younger kids there too. I brought four snakes, a couple of Bullfrogs, the Flat Rock scorpion, two tarantulas, and some Hissing cockroaches. At one point, I looked back at the cages and found one of the Bullfrogs sitting on top of it. He'd pushed up the little plastic window in the middle of the lid and hopped right out. It was amusing trying to catch him. Bullfrogs are quite slippery. The kids loved it, of course. Good money too. It started raining pretty hard while I was there, and then most of the way home as well. It seems to have calmed down now.
I'm continuing to try to fight off this sore throat/cold thing that has so afflicted Jen for the past week and a half or so. Hopefully we'll all be better soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment