Blazing Trails

The midpoint of the summer camp season is now a memory. Three of the four weeks of Trailblazers camp have passed. Each week has its own character, with the first week (the only week without Leaders In Training counselors) probably being the most challenging (relatively speaking)since there were a couple of kids in my group who were pretty helpless when it came to doing anything for themselves (perhaps they have parents who do everything for them). The second week, there were a couple of kids who stood out in a good way, with one boy constantly picking up trash whenever he came across it while we were out and about, and another kid who boiled over with enthusiasm for being outside and exploring nature (he even took home a dead Pine Sawyer beetle that we found in the pool filter - the big one in the picture below).

Last week, I had an unusual group for two reasons: all 14 of my kids were girls, and it was perhaps the quietest group I've ever led. They had a good time, but it was sometimes hard to tell. Most of them were very intelligent too, which is always nice. One girl managed to pick up a rather disgusting piece of trash though. I found her holding a piece of poopy toilet paper that someone had left near a trail. This illustrates perfectly why we have a "leave no trace" rule when it comes to never leaving anything behind in the woods (especially something that has already been used to wipe a behind).

The little Chorus frogs were all over the reeds near the pond, affording kids with opportunities to quietly sit and spot them. The longer one observes, the more one sees.

In the hole near the field, we saw rattlesnakes mating. This is only the second time I've observed this in the wild. The next day, I overheard the kids telling the bus driver about it, so I guess they were impressed.

Other than the usual rattlesnakes, we haven't seen to many others this summer. I haven't seen a single Garter snake up by the reservoir (perhaps because of the presence of Herons and Egrets, which eat snakes). On Friday, we did stumble across a small Garter snake sunning itself in a dry wash in the forest though. It looked like it had shed recently.

Speaking of Friday, I've been having the campers create nature mandalas at the end of the short Friday solo hike (which functions as a way to have them reflect on the week and think about the future, which is Friday's theme). Here is what my groups have created at the end of the last two weeks:

In the middle of the week, instead of sleeping over for the first Trailblazers overnight (the first two weeks didn't have one scheduled), I played hooky and took Willow and Sophie (along with a couple of their friends) to see Five Seconds of Summer at Shoreline Amphitheater. The girls had a great time, and I had one too, if only because they were having one. I can't say that I'm a fan of the band, although they were good at what they did.

Tomorrow, we start the fourth and final week of Trailblazers for the summer. After that, I'll be working the last two weeks of regular summer camp, followed by three weeks off. The summer is blazing by in a flurry of dust and sun.

Finally, by way of reply to a comment received on a post (yes, that one) but not published. I never mention the name of the camp that employs me on this blog because this is a personal journal and I don't necessarily want or need our customers (parents and/or kids) finding it reading it, so if a comment mentions the name of my employer, it doesn't get published. Sure, my blog is on the internet for everybody to read (and anybody who digs deeply enough will probably find it), but I like to keep it as unsearchable as possible because... well, because I like to keep a boundary between my private and my professional life, I guess. Plus, I don't really want to continue talking about the event mentioned in the post that was commented upon. Let it suffice to say that the writer of the news stories about the incident, while mostly keeping things factual, is very clever when it comes to injecting opinion and fanning flames. Over the years of my existence on this planet, every newsworthy event that I have been peripherally involved in has been misreported in some way, whether through the asking of inflammatory questions, or being vague with facts, or countless other journalistic tricks. This is done to sell the stories and keep people reading and yes, it has a negative impact on innocent people as well as the guilty ones.