Two More Weeks of Summer Camp Fly By

The final week of Trailblazers suddenly became the penultimate week of summer camp for the year, and just as suddenly, I find myself inhabiting the breathing space between the penultimate and the ultimate. The last Trailblazers week was a good one, with our lead teacher's daughter being in my group. She was the only one to find a snake all week too, although it was a tiny one. Plus, to the surprise of her dad, she held the dead Wolf Spider I found in the pool filter. Poor spider.

Once back in the warm clutches of regular summer camp, I reverted back to my usual habits of spending lots of time looking for snakes and other critters. I had 24 kids in my group, which is 7 more than I had in my biggest Trailblazers group.

There was a tiny rattlesnake coiled up at the base of a tree by the pond, but the usual ones in the hole near the field weren't in evidence all week.

We stumbled across a Red-eared Slider laying eggs near the pond as well. Despite the fact that Sliders are an invasive species hereabouts, this was a really cool thing to watch.

The Western Chorus Frogs are still very much in evidence (thanks to the local bullfrogs being eradicated), and my favorite discovery was a log full of them. Here they can be seen peeking out one of their windows.

Other critters were in evidence too, although not as many as some previous years.

Time was spent at the creek, and kids explored the tunnel under the trail.

Thursday night, we were treated to a spectacular sunset, and then, while I was telling a story to the campers before the night hike, a brief deluge. It's kind of distracting to get rained on while telling a story. The nearly constant lightning was also a head turner.

We made a quick, unprecedented decision to have the kids sleep in the picnic shelter and summer shack (our summer name for the old dining hall) rather than out on the field. This meant a lot of last-minute scrambling as around 150 people had to move all of their sleeping gear, but it was done smoothly. The night hike was delayed by only around a half an hour, and it was a night hike to remember, punctuated as it was by flashes of lightning and sporadic bursts of rain. Mine seemed to have extra lightning, but it was just some kid wearing light-up shoes. Friday morning, we were tired.

At the reservoir, we got to witness a Great Blue Heron chasing a Great Egret. Maybe they were arguing about who is actually greater. Maybe not.

At home, the fertile eggs that Jeanine purchased at Safeway hatched. We have five little fluffy chicks, which doubles the number of chickens living in the backyard. One has already proven to be more adventurous than the others, scrambling over the makeshift barrier that Jeanine erected in the doorway at the top of the ramp and following the big chickens into the yard.

Perhaps miffed at all of the new company, Henrietta has taken to hiding her eggs in the foliage.