Summer Begins (In Spirit, If Not Quite In Reality)

We spent the weekend before summer camp being busy with fun stuff, going to Monterey on Friday and up to Vallejo for the Pirate Festival on Sunday. On Saturday, while Jeanine worked, I relaxed with music and the printed word. After the Pirate Festival (which featured a ship to shore battle between an authentic looking pirate ship & crew and a bunch of people dressed in period costumes firing blanks from various cannons, not to mention the usual ren-faire costume nerd crowd and more vendors than you could shake a wallet at), we did a bit of letterboxing nearby, including out on Mare Island, where we wandered up the hill while watching a distant fire get doused by airplanes dumping that reddish-orange flame retardant stuff on it.

Two days into working summer camp, and I already feel like outdoor school is a hazy memory. We've all slipped back into our time-worn grooves, doing what we do best. In my case, that means leading critter hunts during the afternoons. Surprisingly, we've only seen one Rattlesnake this week, hiding under an old cement block in the area we call the chaparral (actually, not really true chaparral, but there's a lot of dry, nutrient-poor dirt and Coyote Brush, so we use it to teach the concept of chaparral during the school year). The park rangers have been having bulldozer practice up there lately, so one Rattlesnake den has been obliterated, with all of the rocks that once sheltered snakes now pushed into an ugly heap. I'm not sure what the reasoning behind this was. The next time I see one of the rangers, I'll ask.

I did find a Mountain Kingsnake and a large Gopher snake, literally feet from each other under different slabs of concrete near the garden. There's usually Rattlesnakes under there, so it was a pleasant surprise to find something I could pick up with my hands.

The best moment of the first day of camp though happened after we'd found all of the snakes. We were following the trail through the chaparral when a small rabbit burst from the Coyote Brush to the right of the trail. Nearly on top of it was a Bobcat, trying to have himself a rabbit dinner. It was one of those "blink and you miss it" moments. Only two of the 12 kids blinked. Everybody else was throwing high-fives around with abandon. It's very unusual for us to see something like that, especially during a warm afternoon. It's the first time I've seen anything like it, at least. I wonder if our critter searching activities inadvertently spooked the rabbit, sending it too close to a drowsing bobcat. Either way, it was a treat to see. Like most things in life, we were left without knowing the beginning or the ending of this particular little drama, but that's okay. Seeing it for a moment was all we needed.