A Final Week of Work for the Year...

We only had around 70 kids attending the final week of science camp for 2016, which made camp seem kind of empty. My hiking group was composed of 17 campers and one cabin leader. We only had two volunteer cabin leaders this week, with two staff members filling in as cabin leaders for the other two cabins (we usually have 11 cabins full of kids). Thursday brought a deluge, and the road to camp was briefly blocked when a large Madrone tree fell across some power lines. It was still there when I drove out, looming ominously above the asphalt, propped up by nearly nothing. I'm not sure why the utility people were allowing us through at that time, but probably because they'd turned the power off.

On Wednesday, I took the kids on my favorite winter route for the all day hike. The forest is beautiful when the weather is rainy and foggy.

During the rainstorm, on a whim, I had the kids dig around an old Mountain Lion kill site (without telling them what it was) to see what they could find. This is all that remained:

Below is a photo taken the first time I visited the remains a couple of years ago. It was pointed out to me a day or two ago that felines will usually go for the brains and hearts first because they contain high levels of taurine, which feline bodies don't produce. Canines, on the other hand, will eat the stomachs because they can benefit from the plant nutrients but don't have the enzymes to break down the cell walls of plants. Due to this, a girl in my group actually stepped on the stomach the first time we visited the carcass. If coyotes had been about, she wouldn't have.

This weekend, my cousin Peter's twin daughters celebrated their fourth birthdays. I went over and celebrated with them, and then headed up to the city for a Neurosis show, which was excellent, as usual.

Willow was out with her girl scout troupe this weekend, having a sleepover. Jeanine has been busy with work, and Eva has been out with friends (she rarely seems to be around on the weekends at all these days). I have two weeks off now. I usually have all sorts of plans to get things done, but end up not accomplishing much. Will this year be different? Time will tell...